Your flesh is a canvas
Each mark tells your story.
That scar on your knee you got when you were 8.
You fell out of a great big tree
With arms as wide as the Universe.
You went there for solace, for a reprieve from your parents.
To break free from society’s constructs
To stop being told who you should be.
And then you fell; just like the way society knocks you back into place.
But, you got back up and patched it with Band-Aids.
Climbed back into that tree to tell the world you were here to stay.

Your pierced ears,
Tell the story of a suburban childhood
With you mother’s ideas and protestant ethic.
You were 12.
You did it because you pick your battles.
You let your mother win; so that behind closed doors
You could be a little bit more yourself.
So that one day you could present as yourself.
Your mother bought you shiny, pink, sparkly earrings
And it felt like it almost hurt when you wore them.

A mole on your shoulder,
From many summers spent at the beach.
When the sun beat down upon you
It almost felt like a punishment from
The Universe
For being wrong.

Your first tattoo,
An equals sign on your left wrist.
You got it when you left home and went to college.
You found that life
Isn’t such a dark place.
That tattoo was a reminder for when you went home.

That mark that I left on your neck last Wednesday.
We both threw away our feminist sensibilities,
It represented that you are mine and that I love you.
And I meant it. When you go home,
I want that to be a reminder too.

And now a few days later,
A black, blue, purple, green, and yellow smattering, a rainbow, on your cheek:
A bruise.
The one that I covered with kissed when you came back.
From when you told your mother,
You are gay and possibly a little bit gender queer and I love you.
She slapped you hard, clear across the face.

Love will heal.