Throwback Thursday: Scars

Image Description: A black-and-white ink drawing of an eye with dark sclera emerging out of a wound with three stitches on either side. The word “SCARS” is superimposed on top and faded, with Lukayo’s signature in English and basahan/baybayin under the “R” and “S” of the word “SCARS”.

Content Warning: allusions to death, sexual assault, self-harm, and bloodplay.

Scars (Original 2008, Updated 2018)

We push our boundaries, reaching for a sky full of stars
Until we burst open, skin sprouting scars

Like trophies
And only lovers & doctors
mothers & morticians
Traced by hand and stethoscope and lips
See these bodies go out with more than they came in with
Bodies full of scars till we become subway system maps
Each tendril of hard, healed flesh an underground tourist trap
Staring down long dark tunnels of memory
Hopping on that train of thought & theory
Speeding all the way

All the way to the end of the line
Past the “Slow Down” and “Just Stop” signs

Pushing boundaries, reaching for a sky full of stars
Until we burst open, skin sprouting scars

Like loathing
A monster in human-skin-clothing
Awkward in my kilt and ironed-out-white-blouse
Because every boy was going to be my redemption
Every boy my ticket out, every boy
Had a height and a depth like a mountain
So full they almost supernova’d right there
In the locker-lined hallways
And smoke-laced, booze-stained parties
Their explosions forcing inside me all the way

All the way to the end of the line
Past the “Slow Down” and “Just Stop” signs

Pushing boundaries, reaching for a sky full of stars
Until we burst open, skin sprouting scars

Like armor
Because what doesn’t kill us only breaks us stronger
And she is crying as I hold her close in the candle light
Bedroom door locked as tight as her fingers around that knife
And I’m wrestling with her pain, I’m pleading “baby, please let go”
And one night she’ll toss the blade across the room in a fever
Another night she’ll kiss me hard and ask me to do it with her
Players in an Anne Rice-ian fairy tale fantasy
Not satisfied with hickies of violets and daisies
We had to go all the way

All the way to the end of the line
Past the “Slow Down” and “Just Stop” signs

Pushing boundaries, reaching for a sky full of stars
Until we burst open, skin sprouting scars

Like forest fires
Evidence against the two-faced and the liars
While we rage against family dramas or corporate spires
Fueled and sparked by our half-healed criss-crosses
To keep fighting, keep fighting against our losses
Because every wound made must be given time to close
Every fissure in our fleshly fabric is as much a lesson as a blow
To our pride, to our hubris, to our ego, to our core
And if that’s not the point of dying,
then what the fuck are we living for?
We have to go all the way

All the way to the end of the line
Past the “Slow Down” and “Just Stop” signs

Pushing boundaries, skin sprouting scars
Until we burst open and finally
reach that sky full of stars


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