Garden Skin

He was five,

with fingers that scratched until they bled

and a laugh that still broke like glass.

They said it was eczema.

A word too big for his mouth,

too itchy for his skin.

His arms were maps of red trails,

his legs covered in angry stories

his body didn’t know how to forget.

And me?

I was the one who tried every cream,

every cotton sleeve,

every “don’t scratch, baby” whispered in the dark

like a broken lullaby.

But one morning,

I didn’t reach for the lotion.

I didn’t hold his hands back.

I took his small fingers,

wrapped them in mine,

and led him to the garden.

The soil was warm.

The wind was curious.

He looked at the lavender like it had answers.

He touched the rosemary like it might listen.

I left him there.

Not far just beyond the sound of his thoughts.

For twenty minutes,

I let the garden hold him

in ways I no longer could.

And when I returned,

he was talking to a leaf.

Not in words,

but in something older.

He was telling it, I think,

about the itch that wouldn’t go away.

About the nights when sleep ran from him.

About how no one at school wanted to hold hands

during the song part.

The leaf didn’t judge.

The dirt didn’t interrupt.

The wind didn’t say, “Stop scratching.”

Later, he asked me,

“Can I go back there tomorrow?”

And I said yes.

Not because the garden would cure him.

But because it had done something else

something the medicine never could:

It saw him.

Not as a skin condition.

Not as a problem to fix.

But as a boy.

A whole one.

And maybe that’s the beginning of healing.

Not the ending of pain

but being seen

while still in it.