I’ve never had stitches.
Though my efforts to scratch my itching bones

Whether with fingernail, blade, or addiction
Were met with medications and police sirens,
I guess I never went deep enough to need them.

They say you can put rubbing alcohol on a wound to sterilize it,
But I found that whiskey works even better when the wound is too deep,
Too deep to be reached by a doctor’s hands,
Too wide for your mother to wrap gauze around,
Too jagged to be sewed shut.
I can’t say that I heal remarkably fast,

Because when my father left,
That wound stayed open for years.
I’m not sure if it was the bandages,
Temporary relationships,
Or the hospital visits,
But somehow I made it through.

Well, most of me did.

Although never pronounced dead,
I definitely killed myself.
My original self.
The self that grew up hating himself,
The self that would turn to a blade before turning to a friend,
The self that ruined every good thing I had going for me,
Yeah,
I had the pleasure of removing him from my life in grade 9.

In grade 10 I was still lost,
Moving from lover to lover,
Addiction to addiction,
Anything to fill my void.

In grade 11 I realized that happiness needed to be my #1 priority
And while my grades didn’t show improvement,
My self esteem and mental health did.

By grade 12,
I was a new man.
My grades were on a flight to the moon,
And my serotonin levels had hitched a ride.
And while my scars are still there,
Visible to anyone I let get close enough,
I can still pride myself upon the fact
That I’ve never had stitches.