• By Frances Isler (they/them)
  • Art “Patchwork” by Nikki Mackenzie (she/her)

Along
each scar
you’d be able
to read
a secret of mine.

I’ve never been known for hiding —
my heart speaks for me,
and if you split me open with words
you’d see the patchwork of those before you
whose hands have known my pulse.

Those who left me stitched and neat
or messy and flickering.

                                 Along
                     each scar you’d
  be able to see
who has cradled my dreams,
           and who has
decimated me.

Though I know what it seems,
along each scar I am able to see
who has been with me around the world
and which hands have never been cold to me.