An Integral Beauty

time adorns our body with scars

we were born thin skinned, pristine

plump— youthful

and tearful about every new feeling

like when we fell off that bike

and had to get back up in order to keep on going

I still have my childhood on my knee

how it reformed our body

and makes us re-see

ourselves, and my marred mauve leg

how it shows where we were

and what we went through

while we were there

we will never forget how it stung

how could we?

when all of life mimics that moment

always having to get back up.
always having to keep on going.
always the familiar sting— life’s unceasing heat

these third degree burns thicken our skin

thinning our veiled reality

shaping the superficially smooth

bodies, we’d bleed for

into rough, elegant truths