Scars Poems Quotes

And if my heart be scarred and burned, The safer, I, for all I learned.

She conquered her demons and wore her scars like wings. 

Mental illness People assume you aren’t sick unless they see the sickness on your skin like scars forming a map of all the ways you’re hurting. My heart is a prison of Have you tried?s Have you tried exercising? Have you tried eating better? Have you tried not being sad, not being sick? Have you tried being more like me? Have you tried shutting up? Yes, I have tried. Yes, I am still trying, and yes, I am still sick. Sometimes monsters are invisible, and sometimes demons attack you from the inside. Just because you cannot see the claws and the teeth does not mean they aren’t ripping through me. Pain does not need to be seen to be felt. Telling me there is no problem won’t solve the problem. This is not how miracles are born. This is not how sickness works.

Its dark and I’m reading my scars because our moments remind me of where I should be.

I've got this." Apollo stepped forward. His fiery armor was so bright it was hard to look at, and his matching Ray-Bans and perfect smile made him look like a male model for battle gear. "God of medicine, at your service." He passed his hand over Annabeth's face and spoke an incantation. Immediately the bruises faded. Her cuts and scars disappeared. Her arm straightened, and she sighed in her sleep. Apollo grinned. "She'll be fine in a few minutes. Just enough time for me to compose a poem about our victory: 'Apollo and his friends save Olympus.' Good, eh?" Thanks, Apollo," I said. "I'll, um, let you handle the poetry.

They want us to be afraid. They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes. They want us to barricade our doors and hide our children. Their aim is to make us fear life itself! They want us to hate. They want us to hate 'the other'. They want us to practice aggression and perfect antagonism. Their aim is to divide us all! They want us to be inhuman. They want us to throw out our kindness. They want us to bury our love and burn our hope. Their aim is to take all our light! They think their bricked walls will separate us. They think their damned bombs will defeat us. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that my soul and your soul are old friends. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that when they cut you I bleed. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that we will never be afraid, we will never hate and we will never be silent for life is ours!

... so this is for us. This is for us who sing, write, dance, act, study, run and love and this is for doing it even if no one will ever know because the beauty is in the act of doing it. Not what it can lead to. This is for the times I lose myself while writing, singing, playing and no one is around and they will never know but I will forever remember and that shines brighter than any praise or fame or glory I will ever have, and this is for you who write or play or read or sing by yourself with the light off and door closed when the world is asleep and the stars are aligned and maybe no one will ever hear it or read your words or know your thoughts but it doesn’t make it less glorious. It makes it ethereal. Mysterious. Infinite. For it belongs to you and whatever God or spirit you believe in and only you can decide how much it meant and means and will forever mean and other people will experience it too through you. Through your spirit. Through the way you talk. Through the way you walk and love and laugh and care and I never meant to write this long but what I want to say is: Don’t try to present your art by making other people read or hear or see or touch it; make them feel it. Wear your art like your heart on your sleeve and keep it alive by making people feel a little better. Feel a little lighter. Create art in order for yourself to become yourself and let your very existence be your song, your poem, your story. Let your very identity be your book. Let the way people say your name sound like the sweetest melody. So go create. Take photographs in the wood, run alone in the rain and sing your heart out high up on a mountain where no one will ever hear and your very existence will be the most hypnotising scar. Make your life be your art and you will never be forgotten.

We write songs about it and poetry, and sweet stories, but people hurting each other will never become pretty. Every time a heart breaks and repairs, there are scars.

people used to tell me that i had beautiful hands told me so often, in fact, that one day i started to believe them until i asked my photographer father, “hey daddy could i be a hand model” to which he said no way, i dont remember the reason he gave me and i wouldve been upset, but there were far too many stuffed animals to hold too many homework assignment to write, too many boys to wave at too many years to grow, we used to have a game, my dad and i about holding hands cus we held hands everywhere, and every time either he or i would whisper a great big number to the other, pretending that we were keeping track of how many times we had held hands that we were sure, this one had to be 8 million 2 thousand 7 hundred and fifty three. hands learn more than minds do, hands learn how to hold other hands, how to grip pencils and mold poetry, how to tickle pianos and dribble a basketball, and grip the handles of a bicycle how to hold old people, and touch babies , i love hands like i love people, they're the maps and compasses in which we navigate our way through life, some people read palms to tell your future, but i read hands to tell your past, each scar marks the story worth telling, each calloused palm, each cracked knuckle is a missed punch or years in a factory, now ive seen middle eastern hands clenched in middle eastern fists pounding against each other like war drums, each country sees theyre fists as warriors and others as enemies. even if fists alone are only hands. but this is not about politics, no hands arent about politics, this is a poem about love, and fingers. fingers interlock like a beautiful zipper of prayer. one time i grabbed my dads hands so that our fingers interlocked perfectly but he changed positions, saying no that hand hold is for your mom. kids high five, but grown ups, we learn how to shake hands, you need a firm hand shake,but dont hold on too tight, but dont let go too soon, but dont hold down for too long, but hands are not about politics, when did it become so complicated. i always thought its simple. the other day my dad looked at my hands, as if seeing them for the first time, and with laughter behind his eye lids, with all the seriousness a man of his humor could muster, he said you know you got nice hands, you could’ve been a hand model, and before the laughter can escape me, i shake my head at him, and squeeze his hand, 8 million 2 thousand 7hundred and fifty four.

You are afraid to let anyone in, but you still leave the door open, hoping someone good will shut the door behind him and throw away the keys.

If I were a cinnamon peeler I would ride your bed and leave the yellow bark dust on your pillow. Your breasts and shoulders would reek you could never walk through markets without the profession of my fingers floating over you. The blind would stumble certain of whom they approached though you might bathe under rain gutters, monsoon. Here on the upper thigh at this smooth pasture neighbor to your hair or the crease that cuts your back. This ankle. You will be known among strangers as the cinnamon peeler's wife. I could hardly glance at you before marriage never touch you -- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers. I buried my hands in saffron, disguised them over smoking tar, helped the honey gatherers... When we swam once I touched you in water and our bodies remained free, you could hold me and be blind of smell. You climbed the bank and said this is how you touch other women the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter. And you searched your arms for the missing perfume. and knew what good is it to be the lime burner's daughter left with no trace as if not spoken to in an act of love as if wounded without the pleasure of scar. You touched your belly to my hands in the dry air and said I am the cinnamon peeler's wife. Smell me.

MYSTERIES, YES Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs. How rivers and stones are forever in allegiance with gravity while we ourselves dream of rising. How two hands touch and the bonds will never be broken. How people come, from delight or the scars of damage, to the comfort of a poem. Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say "Look!" and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.

Be grateful that Time will heal the wounds but Leave the scars. How else will you Remember all that You've survived?

I love you in my very own way. Like a stone loves the mosses around it Like a sea loves the pebbles in it Like a coincidence... Taking you as the way you are, With all the bruises, scars and broken parts all around you and your heart. I love you in my very own way By throwing the stone, the mosses, the sea and the pebbles to your head Like i want to kill you. Just because of envying the love That my heart spend on you.

All in all, I'd say, the world is strangling. And I, in my bed each night, listen to my twenty shoes converse about it. And the moon, under its dark hood, falls out of the sky each night, with its hungry red mouth to suck at my scars.

Give it air & let the scar on your soul reveal itself, because, like the body, it too was made to heal itself.

There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge For the hearing of my heart—— It really goes.

Skin had hope, that's what skin does. Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.

Dead leaves give the feeling of relief that there's still something in the world, That’s also as devoid as you are Touching every leaf mark on the stem tells you a story Listen to it carefully That once there was a connection But with time And the change in the season Made way for the leave to fall off To change its color too To tell the stem that this is the time to take a leave To finally say "goodbye" And leave behind the faded scars That'll make way for the birth of new leaves To make another affiliation with the new companions.

This is what language is: a habitual grief. A turn of speech for the everyday and ordinary abrasion of losses such as this: which hurts just enough to be a scar And heals just enough to be a nation.

His brow is seamed with line and scar; His cheek is red and dark as wine; The fires as of a Northern star Beneath his cap of sable shine. His right hand, bared of leathern glove, Hangs open like an iron gin, You stoop to see his pulses move, To hear the blood sweep out and in. He looks some king, so solitary In earnest thought he seems to stand, As if across a lonely sea He gazed impatient of the land. Out of the noisy centuries The foolish and the fearful fade; Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes, Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed.

I am not pretty. I have never been pure or soft or sweet. I am beautiful. Dirt still on my shoulder as I rise from the ground. Scars forming and healing like galaxies over my skin. I am beautiful in the way I fought back when I was buried. I turned the dirt and mud into soil, and grew.

Wherever in this city, screens flicker with pornography, with science-fiction vampires, victimized hirelings bending to the lash, we also have to walk . . . if simply as we walk through the rainsoaked garbage, the tabloid cruelties of our own neighborhoods. We need to grasp our lives inseperable from those rancid dreams, that blurt of metal, those disgraces, and the red begonia perilously flashing from a tenement sill six stories high, or the long-legged young girls playing ball in the junior highschool playground. No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees, sycamores blazing through the sulfuric air, dappled with scars, still exuberantly budding, our animal passion rooted in the city.

He was the one that healed her, that made her scars feel beautiful.

We are all of life who stepped from the sea trading weightless journeys of the currents We are all of life who build and tear down and build again to find gold and silver to find scars that weep and bleed to step from the sea to stay with the sea

To learn by heart is to learn By hurt—grief inscribing Its wisdom in the soft tissue. Song you sing, poem you are— Finger moving, precise As a phonograph needle, Along the groove of scar.

Like a pair of old slippers, I feel comfort and warmth as I slip into you. No, that is too crude. Like the match to the wick, I ignite when we touch. My counterpart and life's purpose. Yes, as though I've known you my whole life. Every scar, every failure has become an affirmation of what should be: You. Yes, as though I've loved you my whole life.

I curated our love into poems and all the pains became less all the anger left, eventually but, there is no denying here on the tip of my soul with scars still healing, that once I loved a man.

No heroes I need on my stage Just hands which embrace the nights’ cold. It may be the storm, but it’s told The smiles bring the sunshine and hold The power of kindness upstage, The caring remoulds scars to gold.

The wounds have healed and the scars are fading. My skin is pale and smooth. I've started to confide in my closest friends. They embrace me. Support me. Surround me. For the first time, it is scarier to think about going back than to think about moving forward.

What the mind forgets The scars keep remembering

Eyes and ears are two. Lungs and kidneys, too. I wonder then why we're born with one heart that skips a beat when hay is here, and beats quickly when you are near. One heart that cracks when you are far, lie to me and leave a scar. I wonder then why we're born with one heart that gets broken. Was I supposed to find you then? So your heart would make one plus one is two for me and two for you.

Tender Ember ...Barred and branded to be forever unloved I was a tender ember seeking solace from above...

Let go, live your life, the grave has no sunny corners

I never told you How I longed to kiss away your every bruise until there was no evidence No ghosts of your own suffering To put your pieces back together Seal the cracks Vanish them like they never were And never, ever Leave a scar" "I never told you I would take your pain if I could I would drink it down And take my comfort In making you ache a little less For a little while Did I? I'll never know because I never told you that I loved you

On the first day of November last year, sacred to many religious calendars but especially the Celtic, I went for a walk among bare oaks and birch. Nothing much was going on. Scarlet sumac had passed and the bees were dead. The pond had slicked overnight into that shiny and deceptive glaze of delusion, first ice. It made me remember sakes and conjure a vision of myself skimming backward on one foot, the other extended; the arms become wings. Minnesota girls know that this is not a difficult maneuver if one's limber and practices even a little after school before the boys claim the rink for hockey. I think I can still do it - one thinks many foolish things when November's bright sun skips over the entrancing first freeze. A flock of sparrows reels through the air looking more like a flying net than seventy conscious birds, a black veil thrown on the wind. When one sparrow dodges, the whole net swerves, dips: one mind. Am I part of anything like that? Maybe not. The last few years of my life have been characterized by stripping away, one by one, loves and communities that sustain the soul. A young colleague, new to my English department, recently asked me who I hang around with at school. "Nobody," I had to say, feeling briefly ashamed. This solitude is one of the surprises of middle age, especially if one's youth has been rich in love and friendship and children. If you do your job right, children leave home; few communities can stand an individual's most pitiful, amateur truth telling. So the soul must stand in her own meager feathers and learn to fly - or simply take hopeful jumps into the wind. In the Christian calendar, November 1 is the Feast of All Saints, a day honoring not only those who are known and recognized as enlightened souls, but more especially the unknowns, saints who walk beside us unrecognized down the millennia. In Buddhism, we honor the bodhisattvas - saints - who refuse enlightenment and return willingly to the wheel of karma to help other beings. Similarly, in Judaism, anonymous holy men pray the world from its well-merited destruction. We never know who is walking beside us, who is our spiritual teacher. That one - who annoys you so - pretends for a day that he's the one, your personal Obi Wan Kenobi. The first of November is a splendid, subversive holiday. Imagine a hectic procession of revelers - the half-mad bag lady; a mumbling, scarred janitor whose ravaged face made the children turn away; the austere, unsmiling mother superior who seemed with great focus and clarity to do harm; a haunted music teacher, survivor of Auschwitz. I bring them before my mind's eye, these old firends of my soul, awakening to dance their day. Crazy saints; but who knows what was home in the heart? This is the feast of those who tried to take the path, so clumsily that no one knew or notice, the feast, indeed, of most of us. It's an ugly woods, I was saying to myself, padding along a trail where other walkers had broken ground before me. And then I found an extraordinary bouquet. Someone had bound an offering of dry seed pods, yew, lyme grass, red berries, and brown fern and laid it on the path: "nothing special," as Buddhists say, meaning "everything." Gathered to formality, each dry stalk proclaimed a slant, an attitude, infinite shades of neutral. All contemplative acts, silences, poems, honor the world this way. Brought together by the eye of love, a milkweed pod, a twig, allow us to see how things have been all along. A feast of being.

For all these stars, nothing is new. They’ve seen all kinds of wars and miracles, too. They know the messengers with their holy books will smile and wash their hands in blood. They know the politicians with their good looks will make the poor eat pies of mud. They’ve seen the Earth freeze and then burn with greed. They’ve seen the trees and the seas emptied. Yet, you won’t hear their sneers when a man arrives and, having experienced a number of years, proclaims: 'I have lived!' Because nothing is new under these stars: the lies, the love, the memories and scars, the ruin, the revolution, the fakes and true, the families, the friends, none of it is new. All of it—even the me and you.

My arrival Her womb’s delight Her existence My living light Her wounds My scars Her skies My stars Her days My hours Her strength My powers I breathe my name Being her child Without mother Life’s beguiled From the poem 'Mother

Find out who you are and become who you were always meant to be. Take all those scars and find the lines that trace them beautifully. Find wonder in your being and all that is you. Unravel those broken pieces that made you so unique.

Justice Denied Thousands of women, probably more I cannot reach them behind justice doors Many stay silent, barred just like me. Haunted by demons, faces unseen. Still by the hundreds, they continue to serve Duty and country, active and reserve. Thankless, forgotten through America's wars Scarred like their brethren, treated as foes. Volunteered to go to the shores. Died like the others, shamed to the core. Where is the dignity, long since denied? Lost in the White House of Justice Denied Women in service since beginning of time Often they're treated like victims in crime. Where is their voice, silence throughout the years? It's dead in the Senate and House, with their tears!

you have your own story you know about the fears the tears the scar of disbelief you know that the saddest lies are the ones we tell ourselves you know how dangerous it is to be born with breasts you know how dangerous it is to wear dark skin

If happiness left scars on our bodies, we would never forget about all the glorious moments we’ve been blessed with.

Time does not heal, It makes a half-stitched scar That can be broken and again you feel Grief as total as in its first hour

I hope to arrive to my death, late, in love, and a little drunk.

Death is on a scar filled with shadows and temptations.

my scars breathe no shame for my wings are growing from the wounds you left

will be less dignified, more painful, death will be sooner, (it is no longer possible to be both human and alive) : lying piled with the others, your face and body covered so thickly with scars only the eyes show through.

shapeshifter poems by Lucille Clifton 1 the legend is whispered in the women's tent how the moon when she rises full follows some men into themselves and changes them there the season is short but dreadful shapeshifters they wear strange hands they walk through the houses at night their daughters do not know them 2 who is there to protect her from the hands of the father not the windows which see and say nothing not the moon that awful eye not the woman she will become with her scarred tongue who who who the owl laments into the evening who will protect her this prettylittlegirl 3 if the little girl lies still enough shut enough hard enough shapeshifter may not walk tonight the full moon may not find him here the hair on him bristling rising up 4 the poem at the end of the world is the poem the little girl breathes into her pillow the one she cannot tell the one there is no one to hear this poem is a political poem is a war poem is a universal poem but is not about these things this poem is about one human heart this poem is the poem at the end of the world Credit: Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton.

Some people read palms to tell your future, I read hands to tell your past. Each scar marks a story worth telling. Each callused palm, each cracked knuckle, is a broken bottle, a missed punch, a rusty nail, years in a factory.

Mathematicians still don’t understand the ball our hands made, or how your electrocuted grandparents made it possible for you to light my cigarettes with your eyes. It isn’t as simple as me climbing into the window to leave six ounces of orange juice and a doughnut by the bed, or me becoming the sand you dug your toes in, on the beach, when you wished to hide them from the sun and the fixed eyes of strangers, and your breath broke in waves over my earlobe, splashing through my head, spilling out over the opposite lobe, and my first poems under your door in the unshaven light of dawn: Your eyes remind me of a brick wall about to be hammered by a drunk driver. I’m that driver. All night I’ve swallowed you in the bar. Once I kissed the scar, stretching its sealed eyelid along your inner arm, dried raining strands of hair, full of pheromones, discovered all your idiosyncratic passageways, so I’d know where to run when the cops came. Your body is the country I’ll never return to. The man in charge of what crosses my mind will lose fingernails, for not turning you away at the border. But at this moment when sweat tingles from me, and blame is as meaningless as shooting up a cow with milk, I realise my kisses filled the halls of your body with smoke, and the lies came like a season. Most drunks don’t die in accidents they orchestrate, and I swallowed a hand grenade that never stops exploding.

I hide myself to avoid others; but the lust for life reasserts itself, through the boredom or in the inflection of distress. It's an escape, a tuneless melody, a painless lament. Broken line of a poem missing its author, writing of a deconstructed life, scar of a wound still open, the pain of living without love or being loved tarnishes desire, dulls the look, weakens the heart.

At the Sound of the Gunshot, Leave A Message That's what my friend spoke into his grim machine the winter he first went mad as we both did in our thirties with still no hope of revenue, gravely inking our poems on pages held fast by gyres the color of lead. Godless, our minds did monster us, left us bobbing as in a swamp until we sank. His eyes were burn holes in a swollen face. His breath was a venom he drank deep of. He called his own tongue a scar, this poet who can crowbar open the most sealed heart, make ash flower, and the cocked shotgun's double-zero mouths (whose pellets had exploded star holes into plaster and porcelain and not a few locked doors) never touched my friend's throat. Praise Him, whose earth is green. (for Franz Wright)

Scarring smiles, hidden tears, You stand, heads bowed and revere The soul before us, burnt and torn Her faded essence, we sadly mourn And though she walked a path of lies Her spirit surely still shall rise And among her own, she can be at peace An eternal angel, she’s been released.

Wear your art like your heart on your sleeve and keep it alive by making people feel a little better. Feel a little lighter. Create art in order for yourself to become yourself and let your very existence be your song, your poem, your story. Let your very identity be your book. Let the way people say your name sound like the sweetest melody. So go create. Take photographs in the woods, run alone in the rain and sing your heart out high up on a mountain where no one will ever hear and your very existence will be the most hypnotising scar. Make your life be your art and you will never be forgotten.

They thought death was worth it, but I Have a self to recover, a queen. Is she dead, is she sleeping ? Where has she been, With her lion-red body, her wings of glass ? Now she is flying More terrible than she ever was, red Scar in the sky, red comet Over the engine that killed her——— The mausoleum, the wax house. 6

Come to me in the dark, bring me all of your scars. I want to know every crack in your heart, every ache, every memory that haunts you. I want to see the realness in your face, the way your eyes stay light even when you talk of pain, and the way your lips are uneven when you smile. The grooves carved into your soul have made you beautiful and I want to run my fingers across the etches. I know people cover wounds and disguise their damage, but this is what makes you, you, and I want to know you. I want to sink inside of you and feel your depth. Don’t protect me from your story. We all have a story and I’m tired of drowning alone.

She is so soft with the scars But it's time for her to bloom To grow To stay in the light Though she is homesick for someone Who is so far away

I don't want to heal you. I want to love you until your scars merge with the love bites on your skin.

for when there is hope in my heart and starry reflections in my eyes you cannot tell my skin from my scars

Don't ever let the scars on your heart define the way you love. 

This is why I never judge someone who is trying to reconnect. We are all just trying to grab anything to find ourselves, even greasy feathers at Rotten Ronnies.

May all your scars, slowly turn into stars

Hurt strengthens the heart, Breakdown emboldens backbone. Scars shared are scars cared, I stand ready to sip your poison.

Roses have thorns,’ we whine. When thorns of life entwine. Simple things can bring solace to heart-Things everyone take for granted-Like tending beds of fragile roses-with heart full of scars

3 A.M. SAINTS It is 3 a.m. again and you are showing me all of your sins by holding up your scars to the starless sky. Painting the entire universe with gold and clothing my velvet heart in purple - we become saints within those unholy hours close to dawn. Still, the world is spinning - even though it feels a little slower now - while the silence carries us away into the next day.

poems of experience bear the scars and wounds and scorch marks, even the imperfections that damage leaves on the soul, but a good poem also testifies to the triumph of still being able to speak.

Yeah, I did that. Snuck off to unwrap my own morals: for a card to call a boy in another state who didn't want me, rings that gave my knuckles grass-colored scars, and a diary to carry my aches in.

We danced on broken glasses, painting a bloody masterpiece on the floor. The painful it got, the harder we danced. We didn't care about scars because it was us, dancing on broken glasses - with each other.

I found a room, both quiet and slow, a room where the walls are thick. Where pixie dust is kept in jars, and paper rockets soar to Mars, and battles leave no lasting scars as clocks forget to tick. I guard this room, both small and bare, this room in which stories live. Where Peter Pan and Alice play, and Sinbad sails at dawn of day, and wolves cry 'boy' to get their way when ogres won’t forgive. With you I’ll share my hiding place, this room under cloak and spell. We’ll snuggle up inside a nook, and read a venturous story book, that makes us question in a look what nonsense fairies tell. In fictive plots and fabled ends, Our happy-e’er-afters dwell!

Extinguishing flame in ice cold, I watch stinging scars form. Standing solo under sheer white, my ragged breath is iced. I am as frozen as the death that plagues my waking. I am all who remains of my tribe. [Warrior Spirit]

Tears on the page, my heart's agony in ink, words that flow from a soul that cannot think. I never aspired to be a poet, to be a writer of heart-wrenching prose, but the pain that I carried within was too great to keep enclosed.

And with that recitation, Adelaide Buchwald gave Jack Cavallero her heart. Impulsively, gloriously, openly, she gave it to him, falling in love with someone she did not know, wondering at the curve of his cheek, and the wave of his hair, and the way his shirt draped over his shoulders. He made her laugh. He dared to write poems. He risked looking foolish in order to create something beautiful or strange. She wanted to know the story of the scar on his abdomen. How had he gotten that wound? How well had it healed? She could see by looking at him that he had been vulnerable. That he had lived. Survived. She wanted to see all his scars, see all of him, and she felt suddenly, intensely certain that he was a safe person to show her own scars to. She thought, Maybe we have known each other always. Maybe our hearts encountered each other somehow, like two hundred years ago at a cotillion, with him in a frock coat and me in whatever, some kind of elegant and complicated dress. Or maybe our encounter was in another possible world. That is, in one of the countless other versions of this universe, the worlds running parallel to this one, we are already in love.

The Women Who Walk Us Home The ones who arrive with a bag of clothes, four tired lemons, half a story from her sister's trip to Paraguay. The ones who keep our secrets and whose secrets we keep in potted plants, in every ocean we've ever known. The ones who know our husbands, their little pleasures. Our lovers and our scars. The ones who stay, hope like a moth. Who stare into the gaping tomb and are not afraid of its unveiling. The ones who will be there, even then (even then), to walk us home.

Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down The stale despair of night, must now renew Their desolation in the truce of dawn, Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace. Yet these, who cling to life with stubborn hands, Can grin through storms of death and find a gap In the clawed, cruel tangles of his defence. They march from safety, and the bird-sung joy Of grass-green thickets, to the land where all Is ruin, and nothing blossoms but the sky That hastens over them where they endure Sad, smoking, flat horizons, reeking woods, And foundered trench-lines volleying doom for doom. O my brave brown companions, when your souls Flock silently away, and the eyeless dead, Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge, Death will stand grieving in that field of war Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent. And through some mooned Valhalla there will pass Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell; The unreturning army that was youth; The legions who have suffered and are dust.

In the mid-thirties, a young black poet named Langston Hughes wrote a poem, "Let America Be America Again": . . . I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek- And finding only the same old stupid plan. Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. . . . O, let America be America again- The land that never has been yet- And yet must be-the land where every man is free. The land that's mine-the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's ME- Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again. Sure call me any ugly name you choose- The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America! . . .

How can you say you love me when you’ve never seen me cry? when you’ve never heard the pieces that keep breaking up inside Or when the sky is dark and I’m restless in my bed will you be the one to whisper that the sun will rise ahead? You’ve never seen the battle scars that lay across my skin the price I paid for love, and a joy that grew within Sometimes the weight I carry isn't always feather light will you pick it up and stand up straight, brave against the fight? There's always room for fun and laughs and a beauty to keep warm but I'd never sail away with you if you can’t survive the storm.

AS THE MIST LEAVES NO SCAR As the mist leaves no scar On the dark green hill, So my body leaves no scar On you, nor ever will. When wind and hawk encounter, What remains to keep? So you and I encounter, Then turn, then fall to sleep. As many nights endure Without a moon or star, So will we endure When one is gone and far.

I Promise You A message of hope from a wonderful Mother I am here to walk you Through this journey called life I will look after you Until you can do so on your own I know you need my help for now Yes, I assure you my lovely one I shall hold your hand no matter what And stand by you, even in the darkest night Will ensure your days are bright Indeed, the Earth can be so rough Just like the ocean changes its tide Fear not, for I will be on your side With you, I will fly high Until we go to the skies And touch the shining stars I will not let my scars Stop me from being kind To you my precious child I will be there Until the end I promise you!

TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS. BY A BOSTONIAN. Crayon marks scar the cover. Lambiase doesn’t know what to make of it. His cop brain clicks in, formulating the following questions: (1) Is this A.J.’s stolen Tamerlane? (2) Why would Tamerlane be in Ismay’s possession? (3) How did Tamerlane get covered in crayon and who did the coloring? Maya? (4) Why would Tamerlane be in a backpack with Maya’s name on it?

BLOOMING SCARS Those flowers dance around vour marble bust like they were fearing October's kiss - gently they laugh and fall asleep on vour stone veins and cold lips. For they love their names written upon your chest in gold for your heart may be broken, yet it is searching for something untold. They do not know that silver mends the scars that the years formed and the cracks on your skin the sun caused - so silent, still, and weary are the blossoms with whom my love for you is betrothed.

and i wonder how you saw through stone, the stone of my heart. how you carefully searched for the soft part hidden inside. and i wonder why you looked at me at all and why you wouldn’t stop. not after recognizing my scars and wounds and brokenness. you could have turned away then and i would have understood and i wouldn’t had cared. but you didn’t and now I care. i care and won’t stop because you saw me and still do. i care, i care and won’t stop because you looked and still do. and i still wonder how, you saw through stone.

SHE IN THE OUTER WORLD The world took all her kindness away Left her empty, drained every single ray She was in despair when she disappeared With dry eyes, sore lips, raw hands and scars everywhere. She was too numb to do her care, or to fight with her nightmares Luckily, with her family she stayed They groomed her, armed her with more love and prayers  Finally she stepped out with more power, experience, faith and glare She found her way out of void Faced all those people she wanted to avoid And stood against the scare Because now she was  aware.

A demon seduced an angel in the middle of the night and they gave the stars a glimpse. There was nothing casual about it, it was tender skin and battle scars breathless passion under storm clouds a rapid river stream mirroring the moon light. Until one day, he left her with nothing, just a bruised heart and carved memories iridescent wings chipped on the edges heat under her skin, like an ember burning low. I asked her, "What do you do after a love like that?" She laughed. And madness danced behind her eyes. But she flew so high the world was jealous.

Blind Heart’s. In the circle of life, a sorrowful tale, Where death and life dance an endless wail. Hungry eyes search for morsels to devour, Survival's cruel game with each passing hour. Angst and fear grip hearts, cold and bleak, Aching souls yearning for solace they seek. In a world that lacks fairness, unjust and unkind, Tears fall like rain, leaving scars behind. Hatred and love, a twisted embrace, In this nature of existence, a bitter chase. For when darkness looms, Love hides in despair, Yet hate finds its mark, leaving hearts threadbare. We, people who turn blind eyes to the cries, As if suffering and anguish were mere lies. Ignoring the plight that surrounds us all, Humanity's downfall, a deafening fall. But what of the animals, creatures so dear? Caught in this cycle, their voices unclear. Silently they suffer, their pain left unheard, In nature's cruel script, an unspoken word. Children on ground, black and white Dying, Drying while survival trying. Scars defining not body, but soul Oh light, forgive us Lord. The circle spins on, in sorrow it turns, A tragic symphony, where hope rarely burns. In this poem of life, where sadness takes hold, Let us open our eyes, let compassion unfold.

The Lingerer by Stewart Stafford Another lonely start, O shadow companion, My twin bereft of heart, On grief’s stormy galleon. Each step disbelief, Strangers pass in proximity, In motion an artist’s relief, Abstract as infinity. The quickening pulse of streets, Tears on cheeks reflective, This scarred heart missing beats, Damaged and defective. Home now just where memory sits, Perspective greatly shifted, This shapeless form no longer fits, The body it was gifted. And if, my love, you see me now, I beg you, look away, Love’s blush departed with a bow, Then withered and decayed. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.

I Promise You A message of hope from a wonderful Mother I am here to walk you Through this journey called life I will look after you Until you can do so on your own I know you need my help for now Yes, I assure you my lovely one I shall hold your hand no matter what Stand by you, even in the darkest night And ensure your days are bright Indeed, the Earth can be so rough Just like the ocean changes its tide Fear not, for I will be on your side With you, I will fly high Until we get to the skies And touch the shining stars I will not let my scars Stop me from being kind To you, my precious child I will be there Until the end I promise you!

I Am I am the voice inside your head, I am the whore in your lover’s bed, I am the one who seeks to harm, I am the scars that blight your arm; I am the tears you cannot control, I am what consumes your soul, I am your mind, your thoughts, your mood, I am your passive attitude; I am the emptiness within, I am the game you cannot win, I am the fury that you feel, I am the wound that will not heal; I am the reason that you cry, I am the fear that will not die, I am your self-doubt, guilt and shame, I am resentment, hate and blame; I am the sum of all you give, I am the way you choose to live, I am all you choose to do, I am nothing without you.

Please approach with care these figures in black. Regard with care the weight they bear, the scars that mark their hearts. Do you think you can handle these bodies of graphite & coal dust? This color might rub off. A drop of this red liquid could stain your skin. This black powder could blow you sky high. No ordinary pigments blacken our blues. Would you mop the floor with this bucket of blood? Would you rinse your soiled laundry in this basin of tears? Would you suckle hot milk from this cracked vessel? Would you be baptized in this fountain of funky sweat? Please approach with care these bodies still waiting to be touched. We invite you to come closer. We permit you to touch & be touched. We hope you will engage with care.

To the Unknown Lover Horrifying, the very thought of you whoever you are, future knife to my scar, stay where you are. Be handsome, beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous, keep away. Read my lips. No way. OK? This old heart of mine’s an empty purse. These ears are closed. Don't phone, want dinner, make things worse. Your little quirks? Your wee endearing ways? What makes you you, all that? Stuff it, mount it, hang it on the wall, sell tickets, I won't come. Get back. Get lost. Get real. Get a life. Keep schtum. And just, you must, remember this — there'll be no kiss, no clinch, no smoochy dance, no true romance. You are Anonymous. You're Who? Here's not looking, kid, at you. Carol Ann Duffy, Love Poems (Picador USA, February 1st 2010)

Have you ever been too old, too young, too big, too small, too smart, too dumb? Have you ever been too fat, too thin, too shy, too loud, too slow to win? Have you ever been too scared to try, too small to play, too young to die? Have you ever been too weak to fight, too little yet, or not quite right? Have you ever been too dark, too light, too black, too brown, too red, too white? Have you ever been put off ’til last, the odd man out, the jerk they sassed? Have you ever been the one black sheep, the naughty child, the nerdy geek? Have you ever been the butt of jokes, the timid soul, the oddest folk? Have you ever been left out of fun, forgotten when the day is done? Have you ever been afraid to lose? Afraid to try? Afraid to choose? Have you ever been too rich, too poor, too venturesome, or just a bore? Have you ever had no clue at all? Nowhere to go? No one to call? Have you ever been without a friend? Have you ever wished the day would end? Have you ever had the biggest nose, the longest arms, the funny toes? Have you ever had the flattest chest? Have you ever had the biggest breasts? Have you ever prayed your luck would change? Have you ever felt your life was strange? Have you ever wished for something more, or something less than what you were? If you have ever felt this way, you're one of us I’m here to say. We've all been there a time or two because we're human, me and you. We've all felt different in some way because we are, and that’s okay. We've all been hurt; we've all been scarred. That's life. And frankly, life is hard.

STAINS With red clay between my toes, and the sun setting over my head, the ghost of my mother blows in, riding on a honeysuckle breeze, oh lord, riding on a honeysuckle breeze. Her teeth, the keys of a piano. I play her grinning ivory notes with cadenced fumbling fingers, splattered with paint, textured with scars. A song rises up from the belly of my past and rocks me in the bosom of buried memories. My mama’s dress bears the stains of her life: blueberries, blood, bleach, and breast milk; She cradles in her arms a lifetime of love and sorrow; Its brilliance nearly blinds me. My fingers tire, as though I've played this song for years. The tune swells red, dying around the edges of a setting sun. A magnolia breeze blows in strong, a heavenly taxi sent to carry my mother home. She will not say goodbye. For there is no truth in spoken farewells. I am pregnant with a poem, my life lost in its stanzas. My mama steps out of her dress and drops it, an inheritance falling to my feet. She stands alone: bathed, blooming, burdened with nothing of this world. Her body is naked and beautiful, her wings gray and scorched, her brown eyes piercing the brown of mine. I watch her departure, her flapping wings: She doesn’t look back, not even once, not even to whisper my name: Brenda. I lick the teeth of my piano mouth. With a painter’s hands, with a writer’s hands with rusty wrinkled hands, with hands soaked in the joys, the sorrows, the spills of my mother’s life, I pick up eighty-one years of stains And pull her dress over my head. Her stains look good on me.

Ground Zero by Stewart Stafford At the rim of the abyss, Among the malignant smoking rubble, And the plane and body parts, The traumatised rediscovered their purpose. In a moonscape of fallen pride, identity, and ambition, The anonymous saved something of the unsalvageable, Searchers with sandwiches and coffee in the toxic dust, Manna from Good Samaritans with unconditional gratitude. As the lungs struggled to take in air, The hearts of each participant enlarged, And found shelter in non-partisan synergy, Becoming a family of former strangers. The lesson of the lost was to stay loving and open-hearted, Not turn away and isolate from life and others, Even when the scars became unbearable, Their stolen affection remained a towering beacon from the ruins. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.

Poet's Note: Kindly do not use my poem without giving me due credit. Do not use bits and pieces to suit your agenda of Kashmir whatever it may be. I, Srividya Srinivasan as the creator of this poem own the right to what I have chosen to feel about the issue and have represented all sides to a complex problem that involves people. I do not believe in war or violence of any kind and this is my compassionate side speaking from all angles to human beings thinking they own only their side to the story. THIS POEM IS THE ORIGINAL WORK OF SRIVIDYA SRINIVASAN and any misuse by you shall be considered as a violation of my copyrights and legally actionable. This poem is dedicated to all those who have suffered in Kashmir and through Kashmir and to not be sliced and interpreted to each one's convenience. ---------------------------- Weep softly O mother, the walls have ears you know... The streets are awash o mother! I cannot go searching for him anymore. The streets are awash o mother with blood and tears, pellets and screams. that silently remain locked in the air, while they seal our soulless dreams. The guns are out, O mother, while our boys go armed with stones, I cannot go looking for him O mother, I have no courage to face what I will find. For, I need to tend to this little one beside, with bound eyes that see no more. ----- Weep for the home we lost O mother, Weep for the valley we left behind, the hills that once bore our names, where shoulder to shoulder, we walked the vales, proud of our heritage. Hunted out of our very homes, flying like thieves in the night, abandoning it all, fearful for the lives of our men, fearful of our being raped, our children killed, Kafirs they called us O mother, they marked our homes to kill. We now haunt the streets of other cities, refugees in a country we call our own, belonging nowhere, feeling homeless without the land we once called home. ------------- Weep loudly O mother, for the nation hears our pain. As the fresh flag moulds his cold body, I know his sacrifice was not in vain. We need to put our chins up, O mother and face this moment with pride. For blood is blood, and pain is pain, and death is final, The false story we must tell ourselves is that we are always the right side, and forget the pain we inflict on the other side. Until it all stops, it must go on, the dry tears on either side, Every war and battle is within and without, and must claim its wounds and leave its scars, And, if we need to go on O mother, it matters we feel we are on the right side. We need to tell ourselves we are always the right sight... We need to repeat it a million times, We are always the right side... For god forbid, what if we were not? --- Request you to read the full poem on my website.

somewhere there is a women in China holding a black umbrella so she won’t taste the salt of the rain when the sky begins to weep, there is a 17 year old girl who smells like pomegranates and has summer air tight on her naked skin, wrapping around her scars like veins in a bloody garden, who won’t make it past tomorrow, there is a young man, who buys yellow flowers for the woman in apartment 84B, who learned braille when he realized she couldn’t read his poetry about her white neck and mint eyes there are people watching films, making love for the first time, opening mail with the heading of ‘i miss you’, cooking noodles with organic spices and red sauces, buying lemon detergent, ignoring ‘do not smoke’ signs, painting murals of his lips in abandoned warehouses, chewing the words ‘i love you’ over and over again, swallowing phone numbers and forgotten birthdays, eating strawberry pies, drinking white wine off of each others open mouths, ignoring the telephone, reading this poem somewhere someone is thinking i’m alone somewhere someone finally understands they never really were

I Never Told You You can fill a book with everything I never said Or the lines of a poem Or an Empty pool Or an empty bedroom, the candles all blown out I never told you how the reflection of myself in your eyes Was the only mirror I could bear to look at Or how I fought every day To transfuse the girl I saw there with the girl I am I tried to breathe in the words you made me: beautiful good brave I tried to be them for you even though they were weighted with impossibility I never told you how I always feared the rough edges of myself were too sharp for you and how I fought everyday to blunt them To bring down the walls To let you in without cutting you because I could never bear to hurt you like the others did Every day a fierce pride roared in me I was so lucky to know the truth I was the beneficiary of your radiance I basked in it and felt special And if not for the pain of your solitude I would have been content to be the only one I never told you How your touch made me feel like laughing and crying and singing all at once How your hand passing over my skin where atrocities Had not yet sloughed off, Skin cells remembering the worst touches Was like a tide washing over the ruddy sand And leaving it whole and smooth You made my skin forget Gave me new memories New sensations that didn't drag the shadows from the past In your arms I could start again, Start over. There is no greater gift in all the world Than you to the wreckage that is me... I never told you How I longed to kiss away your every bruise until there was no evidence No ghosts of your own suffering To put your pieces back together Seal the cracks Vanish them like they never were And never, ever Leave a scar I never told you I would take your pain if I could I would drink it down And take my comfort In making you ache a little less For a little while Did I? I'll never know because I never told you that I loved you I love you I love you It's too lat to say it now The time has passed for words How pathetic and small and weak On the phone Or on a piece of paper Starving Without the force of my own vitality My voice My breath My blood singing n my veins for you To give them power They are lost I love you It's too late but I love you And I'm sorry I never told you.

War and peace Humanity has fought many wars, But won none, Because even in peace the victors carry its scars, That they can share with no one, Because when they saw their comrade fall, They saw a friend die, When they were smashed against the pitiless wall, The human within them did die, Resurrecting a beast from within, That they try to leave behind, but it walks with them, And becomes their penance for what was not their sin, And then they spend a lifetime with this beast and with them, Whom they lost in the war, Their fellow comrades part of the same legion, And even in times of peace, in dreams the demons of war chase them far, There, where all emotions die, all sentiments sink, a death forsaken region, Where they are cursed to live forever, In the phantoms of war that chase them every day and every night, Because they have seen their fellow comrades die forever, And this aches their inward and memory invoked sight, They maybe soldiers who are meant to kill, But I wonder what they think when they see a fellow human on the other end, The enemy who they shall kill even at the cost of killing their own will, Thus is born the beast within, and for the human that it now feeds on, it is the end!

War and peace Humanity has fought many wars, But won none, Because even in peace the victors carry its scars, That they can share with no one, Because when they saw their comrade fall, They saw a friend die, When they were smashed against the pitiless wall, The human within them did die, Resurrecting a beast from within, That they try to leave behind, but it walks with them, And becomes their penance for what was not their sin, And then they spend a lifetime with this beast and with them, Whom they lost in the war, Their fellow comrades part of the same legion, And even in times of peace, in dreams the demons of war chase them far, There, where all emotions die, all sentiments sink, a death forsaken region, Where they are cursed to live forever, In the phantoms of war that chase them every day and every night, Because they have seen their fellow comrades die forever, And this aches their inward and memory invoked sight, They maybe soldiers who are meant to kill, But I wonder what they think when they see a fellow human on the other end, The enemy who they shall kill even even at the cost of killing their own will, Thus is born the beast within and for the human that it now feeds on, it is the end!

The Funeral of Sarpedon Zeus is heavy with grief. Sarpedon is dead at Patroclus’ hands and, right now, the son of Menoetius and his Achaeans are setting out to steal the corpse and desecrate it. But Zeus will not allow it. He had left his beloved child alone and now he’s lost – for such the Law demanded. But at least he will honour him in death. Behold: he sends Phoebus down to the field with orders to care for the body. Phoebus lifts the hero’s corpse with reverence and pity, and bears him to the river. He washes away the blood and dust and closes the wounds, careful not to leave a scar; he pours balm of ambrosia over the body and clothes him in resplendent Olympian robes. He blanches the skin and with a comb of pearl straightens the raven-black hair. He lays him out, arranging the lovely limbs. The youth seems a king, a charioteer, twenty-five or twenty-six years old – relishing his moment of victory, with the swiftest stallions, upon a golden chariot in a grand competition. Phoebus, completing his assignment, calls on his two siblings, Sleep and Death, commanding them to carry the body to Lycia, land of riches. So the two brothers, Sleep and Death, set out on foot to transport the body to Lycia, land of riches. And at the door of the king’s palace they hand over the glorious body and return to their affairs. As they receive him into the palace they begin laments and tributes, processions and libations flowing from sacred vessels and everything that befits such a sad funeral; then skilled craftsmen from the city and artists well known for their work in marble arrive to fashion the tomb and the stele.

An Observation True gardeners cannot bear a glove Between the sure touch and the tender root, Must let their hands grow knotted as they move With a rough sensitivity about Under the earth, between the rock and shoot, Never to bruise or wound the hidden fruit. And so I watched my mother's hands grow scarred, She who could heal the wounded plant or friend With the same vulnerable yet rigorous love; I minded once to see her beauty gnarled, But now her truth is given me to live, As I learn for myself we must be hard To move among the tender with an open hand, And to stay sensitive up to the end Pay with some toughness for a gentle world.

LIFE 'Tis not just about existing But needing, more than wanting, Life is real, Life is earnest 'Tis not about the past, but of the returnedst... Birds, bugs and beasts Grass, trees and flowers, Teach me how to feel And mend all the scars... Go round and come around O distant time, Let me find and be found By the love's sorrow one last time... Though I know the seasons fade and return And with a mere mournful number, Life sometimes takes a dreadful turn Before we rouse, we have doned a cloak of a skeptical struggler... But you see, 'Tis not just about grief and pain But an art, a ventriloquist a Whose threads are already strained... So let's be up and doin', O heaven and earth, take me in... O heaven and earth, take me in...