The surgical removal of excess scar tissue. Excess scar tissue can be caused by repeated trauma to an injury or an overactive defense mechanism of the body.
I.
grandmother traced her fingers across rippling skin
a wide lancing keloid scar striking its out path across my arm
“this
is how your body
remembers.”
her hands are wrinkled, her fingers not as limber as i remember
a faint tremble, but steady path as she makes her way up my arm
she spends the longest time on my ugliest ones
hypertrophic scars that are raised and aggressive
screaming with anguish and the pulling of skin
“stop calling
your will to live
ugly. your body has brought you home to me.”
II.
this is
how your body catalogues survival and near-misses
relishes in the aftertaste of alive
what does it say that she has
scar tissue pinched into all the crevices of her body
all this will crammed in a body too young to understand
does her soul also remember in lesions of thick, roping skin?
has her mobility been limited by all the times her body could not forget?
has her growth been stunted by it?
III.
if this is how her body remembers, she does not want it.
what does it say then, that her scars grow
climb like vines up her arm, flourish like weeds
she wonders if the only way to stop this is to cut it out
to take her memories by the root and rip them from her
would it be worth it then? would it be enough?
IV.
grandmother traces her finger across rippling skin
and she crowds close to whisper a secret:
“they never grow beautiful, marks like these.
but they grow old, fade from the forefronts of our minds,
and they grow proud, lived in and a part of you,
beyond a product of all your hurt.” (do not rip out what makes you human).
