The Scar Means It’s Over

I pick my skin.
A lot.
I don’t even realize I’m doing it,
My mind is elsewhere–
daydreaming about the places I could visit next–
And my right hand reaches over to my left hand
My nails scratch the scab
(From where my cat scratched me this morning)
Plucking at the raised skin like a musician on a guitar string
It peels completely off,
The scab falls to the floor
A droplet of blood pools on the reopened wound.
It hardens into an exoskeleton
The way a lake freezes over,
Tendrils of ice stretching out from the edges of the well,
Locking fingers at the center
The scab heals
Only for my hands to pluck the same tune on the new callous

Eventually, though,
The skin heals into a scab that, when plucked,
Does not bleed
Instead, a grey scar is left behind.
It remains as a reminder of the cut, and the picking, and the pain
But it cannot be picked at anymore.

I do the same thing with you, too
I don’t even realize I’m doing it,
While I daydream about what I want for dinner
My right hand drifts over to the part of my soul where that first gash was
And plays a somber melody until the wound cracks and the ether pools like a tumor
It hardens against the memories, and I pick at it with stronger ones
I’ve picked at it a thousand times, a wound that never seems to heal
But now, the shell peels back
To reveal the grey scar
The shadows of the memories that will never go away
And though my hand may drift there, at the thought of the phantom itch,
I do not pick at it,
And it cannot bleed