I like to call my skin a garden.
There are nine blossoming scars on my
left deltoid.
And I can feel your eyes slumming across me,
the eagerness of your hands,
waiting to pluck the buds from my body.

Not as a gift for your lover or your mother,
most likely a compost heap.

When I planted the wounds, I hoped they
would bloom beautiful.
That they would be something worthy of theft,
a last minute present.

Not an apology.
They are not "I'm Sorry",
not kudzu or wayward weeds that found fertile soil
and grew wild.

My skin is a garden.
And I am waiting to gift these scars to someone who finds them
beautiful too.