Between the Lines #1

I wrote this before this blog ever existed.

It was tucked away in one of my notebooks, waiting for the right place to live.

I think it found that place here.

Scars

The gods always asked

for sacrifices.

Some were given lambs.

Some were given daughters.

I was given myself.

No temple stood above me,

no choir sang my name,

yet something holy

was taken all the same.

Every pale line

is another language

my body learned

instead of peace.

The ones across my legs

look like rivers

on an old map—

proof that even broken things

search for somewhere

to belong.

People ask

if I regret them.

As if regret

could erase history.

As if skin

ever forgets

the knife,

the fingernails,

the hands that held too tightly,

the nights that stole

more than sleep.

My skin is carved with scars

that someone else earned.

Not mine.

Mine was only the body

left behind

after their hands,

their words,

their silence

had already decided

what would become of it.

My skin was never sacred.

It was only the altar.

They called it survival.

The gods

would have called it

an offering.

Maybe that’s why

I no longer pray

for smooth skin.

I pray instead

for gentler hands,

for quieter nights,

for a body

that no longer mistakes

silence

for safety.

If the gods ever come looking

for the pieces

they abandoned,

they’ll find them here—

written beneath my skin,

where every scar

became a sentence,

every sentence

became a story,

and somewhere along the way,

I stopped being

the sacrifice.

I became

the monument.

Until next time,

— Destiny

P.S. Which line stayed with you the longest?