loading . . . A Map of My Scars, Read by Your Fingertips Listen to A Map of My Scars, Read by Your Fingertips.
My body is a secret atlas. Beneath my clothes, my skin is a map of a war I survived, with its topography etched in scars. There are small, circular burns, like angry, faded constellations. There are thin, silvery lines from the edges of things that were sharper than they should have been. They are a hidden geography of pain, a record of another man’s rage written on my flesh. I have spent my life keeping this atlas closed, hidden away, terrified of anyone ever seeing it. Because to see it is to ask questions, and the answers have always been too heavy to speak.
I have a recurring waking nightmare about it. The moment of discovery. A man’s hand, moving across my back or my arm in a moment of intimacy, and then stopping. The sudden stillness. The change in the texture of his touch as his fingertips find a ridge of raised, unnatural skin.
I can imagine the reaction that would follow. The sharp intake of breath. The recoil of disgust. Or worse, the clinical, morbid curiosity, a kind of detached fascination with another person's damage. Or worst of all, the heavy, suffocating blanket of avoidence. All of these reactions are violations. They turn my body back into a specimen, an object of study. They are a reminder that I am damaged goods.
But there is another fantasy. A hopeful fantasy so fragile and so potent it almost hurts to think about. It is the fantasy of a different kind of discovery. The fantasy of a man whose touch could heal, not re-injure.
I imagine a moment of quiet intimacy. His hand would be on my skin, and it would find a scar. And it would not stop. It would not recoil. Instead, it would pause, and then the nature of the touch would change. It would become something else.
I imagine a single, gentle fingertip, tracing the outline of a scar with an infinite, reverent slowness. The touch would not be one of pity or horror. It would be a touch of pure, unadulterated curiosity. It would be a touch that listens. It would be a question, asked without a single word: “What is this story? I'm listening.”
And in the absolute safety of that gentle, questioning touch, for the first time in my life, I would find the breath to answer.
As his finger traces the thin, white line on my ribs, I would whisper, “This was the corner of a table.”
As it circles the faint, round mark on my shoulder, I would say, “This was his cigarette.”
The act of being touched and the act of telling would become one. His gentle contact would be the permission my body has always needed to let my voice release the story. He would be reading the map with his fingertips, and I would be providing the annotations. He would not be healing the scars themselves—they are a part of me now. He would be healing the silence and the shame that surrounds them.
With every scar he would trace and every story I'd tell, the geography would change. They would cease to be just monuments to The perpetrator's cruelty. They would become markers of my own survival. And his touch, his quiet, unwavering, non-judgmental presence, would make them something more. They would become the place where his love and my history finally met. A map of a brutal war, finally being read by a gentle peace.
Listen to A Map of My Scars, Read by Your Fingertips.
If you enjoyed this essay, you might enjoy Long Shot by Kennedy Ryan https://sightlessscribbles.com/a-map-of-my-scars-read-by-your-fingertips/
