Life happened.
I ran so fast I left bits of skin and blood behind on a four lane freeway in Seattle. I bled into a bus in Jersey, but the bus driver had a Green Lantern bandaid in his metal lunch box, so it didn't scar as much as it could have.
I was slapped by a dog. Thick claws against soft human skin. Drank out of a straw for three months and called it a win. We lived too far from the hospital to get stitches unless it was a dire necessity, but the tobacco held my blood in place.
It had been a dire necessity only a year before. Double-digit stitches, sewn in by a doctor who looked like Mr. Magoo and smelled like mint peppermint patties.
A stapler, wielded poorly by an astronaut. A luggage buckle, dropped by a bellman. A concession stand, on the outskirts of a volleyball game.
A plastic spoon at a funeral. A saran wrap machine in a gas station. A giant tub of cobbler in state prison, made worse by the fire we fought the next day.
Worrying too much. Thinking too hard. Working too long. It's a wrinkle, not a scar, but good luck selling the truth to my skin.
Piercings I changed my mind about. The chicken pox. A rubber-stubbed bow to the eye during my brother's wedding. A pinch from a sliding door on my sister's first steps. Cat scratch. Bee sting. Splinter from a treehouse I loved, a treehouse I hated, a dog house that never housed a dog, and a chicken coop that housed a zillion chickens and me for a day.
A bathroom counter, once. Twice. Okay, three times.
That one? Just a birthmark, a mole, a beauty mark. They say it makes me royalty, magical, hallmarked by God. They say it makes me cursed, fate-kissed, pinpointed by a Universe on a path of destruction.
The time I was outside. The time I was inside. The time I was loved, and then time I was forgotten. It's just a wrinkle, a mark, a fold, a cut, a line, a dot, a spot. It's just the same story, over and over again.
I ran so fast that I left bits of myself behind, everywhere.
What happened there?
Life happened.
Aren't I lucky?
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What's your favorite scar, birthmark, or wrinkle?
