scabbed elbows

and form reasons to thank the stones that gave you the cuts on your knuckles and knees; bleeding and you didn’t notice until months later. scabbed elbows are what make you porcelain. this is where you begin. when the bruised hues painted on your soul as if you were a blank canvas become your skin’s hues, when the blood no longer bleeds red and the canvas in the mirror is art they tend to call abstract. when the blue and the purple and the green somehow blend, creating you. a smile with no laugh lines but creases on your forehead like they were sculpted when you were discovered in your mother’s womb. there is a beauty to the callouses on your palms and heels, hardened edges to a soft canvas. you no longer flutter in the breeze; your edges keep you firm. your canvas, despite the bruised colored hues we tend to only see in hospital rooms, are a combination of hues that have somehow created you. and you don’t flow with the breeze, you create the winds and the storms when need be. and they’re no longer scars, they’re birth marks. your marks. beauty marks they paint, beauty marks you earned.