Kaylen was a warrior.

She had scars on her eyes, her heart, and her lungs. She wondered constantly if she was even human anymore, or just a patched mess.

Kaylen has scars on her eyes. She could never decide if she liked them. On one hand, seeing her neighbour’s chocolate retriever was so sweet, and she wouldn’t trade seeing the snow storms in the winter than seem otherworldly for anything. However, they were the same eyes that had witnessed her boyfriend kiss her best friend. She remembered it too vividly. In the hallway next to the wooden door frames, against the wall, the way he had never kissed her. Right after he had left her to get a drink. The same way she could recall the wide eyes of her best friend when she realized Kaylen was watching, Kaylen could recall the sunsets on the one vacation her family took to the tropics, and her late brother’s adorable smile.

The beat of her heart ran through her, the same one that had once beat in sync with her soulmate. Or so she thought. The same heart that sang a little too loud with the windows down and left parties parties early to go for walks or see the stars. It had been completed, ripped and was healing ever so slowly. Exposing your heart to another was like holding yourself at gunpoint and hoping to end up with a pot a gold instead of dead. A gamble, that could end with you and this indescribable feeling that had to be, everything else just felt so wrong, but couldn’t be. Kaylen knew her heart had been naive, over eager and now, she had fading but ever lasting scars.

Kaylen breathed in the same air that had once drowned her. Suffering from claustrophobia was awful. She couldn’t breathe. It felt like her lungs were betraying her. Even breathing in open air, it could feel so restrictive. Being in closed classrooms or small spaces was terrifying. Being in a room with invisible barriers, like expectations or judgemental people was another type of terrifying.

She had so many scars. They weren’t always visible, but they were crisply defined in her head. The memories she held and the feelings she had experiences stayed with her for too long, according to Kaylen. Remembering his hand in hers during the holiday break, and then her hands clenched in fists at her side with anger was all too fresh in her mind. Seeing the dizzying ceilings and feeling air deprived lungs everytime she closed her eyes was just too much sometimes. It was all too much sometimes. Her memories, her heat, her lungs. And her scars.

she stumbles

picks herself up

and moves on

brushing the dirt off of skinned knees.

she falls

tumbling down stairways

but simply walks off

the pain the fall

brought her.

her hopes

and dreams

and aspirations

were torn down

torn out of her heart

and it was up to her to stitch the peices

back together again

and when the wounds

were reopened by others

the self surgical session

begins again.

tidyness abandoned

in the pain

and hurt

the messy stitches caused her.

when others needed her

she was there.

speaking comfort

and stitching the hurt

broken

fixing broken

pain

fixing pain

but her mind

distracted by others

didn’t see

her own life source

spilling out

onto the floor.

as she sinks down

and crumples

the vision fades

and her tear-stained face

forms the words

“where were the others

when i needed them most?”