your heart and the sea

iii. stitches

i tore my elbow open
when i was seven years old
falling off a bike while riding to the public pool
ripped the skin off with sticky hot cement.

i should have gotten stitches, then,
but you gave me a popsicle
and wrapped it in medical gauze
and you told me not to worry
time heals all wounds.

but little by little,
this world rubbed salt in it
eroding it deeper and deeper
rubbing my skin away
until there's nothing left of me
but gaping flesh and blood.
like a river destroying a rock.
(nothing but sediment now)

i tore my elbow open
when i was seven years old,
and i still have a scar from it,
small and bumpy and red.
i should have gotten stitches.