Scars

I ask you what the scars on your knees are from. You say they are a reminder to get back up again and again no matter how much it hurts. And I ask how you got the scars on your ankles. So you tell me they are from the nights that papercuts seemed like a less painful option. I point to the scar just below your hairline. You say the thoughts have always been more destructive than the paper. So I take my finger and nudge the edge of your chalk dust, snowflake button down, whispering so softly the wind almost takes my words. Tell me about these. And you tell me that these are the words that no one heard. The jagged shards of glass you wish someone had helped you clean up. And you take my hands, telling me to close my eyes. You tell me a story about a storybook in the hands of a child. Tell me how tears rip paper to shreds. Explain how long you tried to tape those pages back together. And you ask me why stories without endings are seen as incomplete. But I don’t have an answer. So you tell me how you searched for the tape. And when you finally gave up, you say you went looking for some glue. But you never found it. Instead you found scissors. And those certainly did a better job than the tape. Didn’t they?