The Scar I Never Speak Of

I was born already fighting.

Organs too tired, limbs unsure,

a body assembled like a fragile promise

someone wasn’t sure would hold.

The scar came later— a long, silent reminder

carved down the back of my head and neck,

where the surgeons went in to keep me here.

To keep me.

Sometimes I trace it with my fingers

like reading braille from another life.

It doesn’t tell a story— it is the story.

One stitched in pain, in sterile lights,

in whispered prayers no child should need.

And still, I’m here.

But I’ve thought about going.

Not loudly,

not dramatically.

Just… disappearing,

like mist before the sun.

A quiet undoing.

A release from this tired frame

that never really fit.

But then my mother calls

just to ask what I ate.

My father leaves the porch light on.

My sibling laughs too hard at my joke

because they know I needed it.

So, I stay.

Not for me.

Not always.

But because it wouldn’t be fair

to leave them with the pieces.

They stitched me back together once.

They’d do it again— even if it shattered them.

So, I carry this scar,

this ache,

this breathless kind of living.

I don’t speak it. But it speaks me.

And I stay.