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?
destinylaharris 