Outcast

It speaks from personal experience, this poem.

No one else may see them.

The classroom is full of bustle, the chairs filled with excitable bodies,

and the desks become platforms for everything but their intended purpose.

Everybody is here.  The teacher is here.  She talks.  The others talk.  But I don’t hear.

That is part of a world to which I don’t belong:

shared laughter and friendly arguments.

Papers are passed back; I reach for them, pass them back as well.

I flash my wrists both times, my short sleeves poor cover

for the marks of what I do to myself.

No one ever sees.  Even when they are fresh and stand out stark, no one notices.

But I do.             

I know every one of them.  Every slash, every line, every name I have cut into me.

Many are no longer truly there.  But I see them all the same,

truths of what I do,

truths of what I am,

reminders of many midnights spent with the familiar feel of groping

for a wad of toilet paper, the feel of blood at my fingertips.

I have branded myself many times. 

Though they fade, they are still present, forever shutting me out from all the rest.

I know not what I miss,

 only that I miss it.