YOU, LOVE, AND GOD'S LIBERATING SCAR
Ever remember,
You’re the child of God’s grace:
The devil’s desire:-
Satan craves God’s goods:
Can’t steal, he seeks to adopt
All confused navels:-
Navels can’t erase
The scars of their beginnings:
Heaven can’t be hell:-
Hate can’t adopt love:
So, slap Satan in his face,
And walk away free.
You are God’s glory;
A liberated navel:
A keloid of love:-
The scalpel left a jagged split,
And heavy silver staples but
To bind the edges of the skin,
And lock the sudden ache
within.
Yet through that raw and ruined
seam,
The scar became a pane of
glass,
A rusted lantern in the dark,
The wound took fire from the
spark,
Transforming what was torn and
blind,
Into lens to look behind.
—A Cosmography of Wound—
How deep the scar, where starry measures cease,
And sable gulfs unhouse their hoarded fire;
Where suns attenuate, bereft of peace,
And bleed through night the embers of desire;
Each constellation sheds its given name,
And argent heavens fracture into me;
The Milky Way unthreads its vestal flame,
Till blood becomes its dark infinity.
Then bends the Sun, drawn inward through my scar,
Its aureate empire yielding to the night;
Whilst Time lets fall its centuries afar,
And deathless darkness drinks the last of light.
Yet one red pulse persists beneath the scar:
I am the wound by which they learn how far.
You have made me cry,
I can understand why,
At least I think I could,
Said, the Little Engine that could...
Yet, YOU still make me happy,
I know I can be sappy,
Life will NOT always be crappy,
I AM NOT grumpy pants,
I am good...
I definitely could,
Learn how to change,
I do NOT have to act deranged,
You picked my brain,
All the same,
If anyone is worth it,
I know that person is you,
I guess it was me,
You began to choose,
But I do NOT know if you want to do,
Those things you used to do,
We have come a long way,
There would be a lot to say,
Full circles have been made,
There is a new way I must live now,
Each and every day,
There will be a new place,
I will lay down for you,
NOT to drown you or even to attempt to take you to town,
Just so Heaven will abound for you,
I know Sean wants to play,
I would like to see him if I may,
Until then,
Here,
I will stay,
Say,
Hey...
They cut me to bone
Never leaving me alone
Everyone wants a slice
They pretend to be nice
Wanting to know everything
They stick it all the way in
Every cutting remark
A stab in the dark
It cuts me deep
I’m losing sleep
They went too far
Another scar
An untruth is told
A seed is planted
My body is the soil
The roots infest my veins
The seedling sprouts
I’m overgrown with
Weeds
Tell a not lie
Planted is a seed
Soil is my body
My veins become the roots
A sprouting seedling
I’m a flowering
Garden
Split me in half
Save the flowers
Take the weeds
That strangles me
Uproot them all
My veins scream
The garden is gone
And the weeds left a scar
I’m just unplanted soil.
We come seeking the sunlight that seeps within our skin.
We come time and time again, picking the wound, slow to bleed.
We come with nothing feeling real past the point of infection
We come open, gaping,
waiting to scar
First we bruise
to see the proof of our love in intricate colors
A way to feel
Some wounds need open air
to heal
In a half-broken cup,
coffee settles—calm, silent.
Dead leaves lie scattered on the table,
beside leafless, lifeless trees—
witnesses to dreams long lost,
witnesses to sleepless nights.
On bamboo-paper pages
resides the address of truth.
A chair holds a quiet presence,
and the soul that sits knows
the weight of silent tears.
Unspoken words drift in the morning sky.
Even the night’s moon
understands the ache of solitude.
white lies like white scars
tattle tail on what's hidden
in hesitancy
that is the tell-tale signal
that keeps everyone guessing
a forever mark
altered universe
rewrites history
permanent scarring
natural tattoo
powerful proof
marking event
cold nostalgia
permanency
here to stay
past mistake
memory
healed
sharp cut
scar
Fingers pull at the gashes and scars that litter the body.
They are red,
harsh against the doughy skin they have claimed.
They run so deep into the soul,
Like wells of memory,
easy to fall into.
Then barbed wire,
Displayed as tears,
scratching inside of his throat.
Thumbs lick the roughness of past pain,
eating the contrast of texture between them,
And who he remembers being.
There is no softness left,
his mind whispers,
still trying not to fall into the darkness of the past.
The cave of history is full of rocks,
Sharp with his old blood,
Wet with the waves of depression his therapist begged him to ride instead of drown in.
He wonders about the cave when the tide draws back,
Angry at the darkness,
forcing his fingers to dig into the crevasse of a scab.
He flinches at the freshness of pain,
And watches the light glimmer off the thick liquid dancing down his leg.
He closes his eyes and whispers,
Maybe,
The wound is the place where the light enters you.
It hurts to say goodbye
It’s never easy to leave someone behind
~ Another notch to my heart
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
The Gilded Scar
?The world will not see the dark hollow,
left where the steel once had lain,
only the gold, bright and shallow,
that traces the edge of the pain.
?You thought the hurt was a fence line,
a shadow where secrets could keep,
to cover the heart's soft design,
a sorrow you carried to sleep.
?But the light is a powerful force,
it seeks out the place that is weak,
pours itself in at the source,
the truth that the fracture will speak.
?And now the scar is your compass,
a beacon that shows you the road,
the fault you concealed in the mass,
is the gift that light has bestowed.
?The wound is a mouth, wide and open,
gasping for more than just air;
it shines with the promise unbroken,
and proves that the glory is there.
Rumi Quotes
Sponsored by: Sotto Poet
Contest Judged: 10/29/2025 1:40:00 PM
( 3rd Place )
Written: October 1, 2025
Rumi's Quote Inspired:
--"the wound is the place where the light enters you"--
I lugged silence like a stone
tucked away from all sight.
Pain etched itself into my days
and left footprints...
I could no longer claim.
Then a sliver of morning
crept into the narrow crack
inside me.
Soft as a whisper
warm as returning rain.
The mark I buried deep.
The emptiness I sidestepped…
became a threshold.
From the opening, light flowed,
calm, healing;
not to strike
but to illuminate and repair.
Its presence sank into my bones
flowing where sorrow had settled.
Turning every scar into a map
of where I had been
and where I could go.
Now I keep my chest open,
not to protect, not to perform.
But for the quiet truth
that what breaks us…
also makes room
for what saves us.
Fourtle Poetry Contest //Sponsored by: Charles Messina
Contest Judged: 9/21/2025 8:25:00 PM
( 2nd Place )
Written: September 15, 2025
Bright star, shine far
Deep scar, leaves mar
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