Unchosen scars

Oh, to be a lotus flower. To feel the water below, and the wind above, and to be neither. To be totally sure of one's purpose and form. To be peaceful no matter what dark skies may gather or what flood might push petals adrift.

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I took your hand because you offered it. I trusted you because you seemed trustworthy. I had never met someone with two faces before, and so I thought the face I saw in the daylight would be the face I would always see when I looked at you. I had never seen "menacing", "cruel", "sadistic".

And I had never felt lost. Grief. Broken. Alone.

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Taking back what's yours means radically accepting reality. You don't look, act, smell, think, or live like the child that was lost decades ago. There is all kinds of bad and ugly mixed up with the good. Like water washing over a rock ledge, soul erosion follows the blows of trauma and changes you forever.

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Why me? Why then? Why that? I set aside my mountain of questions and hold instead my broken soul. My words are drenched in sadness as they flow from me to the God who has always seemed so far away.

Started first with confiding

I didn’t know I was too young

to hear secrets of deeds after dark.

Mixed sensations, mixed emotions

No one teaches how to fight evil when

enemies come dressed as friends

Every good thing soured

Every bad thing my fault

Heart too broken to shed tears

Days and months become years

Lies tangle up the real you

And you become just who she said you’d be.

Sure of wickedness

Wary of professed innocence

Every good thing undeserved

Every bad thing punishment.

Addicted to the feeling

Of flesh ripping, peeling,

Places tender grew strong

Places strong now unprotected

She no longer needed

To wield her weapons, demons

You’d do it for her

Knife drawn across flesh.

Because the worst of it was

that she made you believe:

you are rotten

you are filthy

you are defiled

you are shameful

you are rejected

you are worthless

you are beaten

you deserve it

you are a toilet

you are a toy

you are to be tortured

you are not a girl and not a boy

Every bad thing accepted

Every good thing selfish

Only saving grace is the music

Of a life is never one chord

Bittersweet melodies

Violent mysteries

Felt and grieved for,

And hope springs from the ashes

All those million lashes

Are the scars we carry

- the scars He carried away -

and

Dissonance highlights harmony

In this beautiful symphony.

Every bad thing just a bad thing

Every good thing His gift.