Blood Scab Scar
by Angel Nafis
"the blood won't wash out of your clothes.
remember that before you go digging through my scars,
searching for your name.
my wrists are guiding ships home;
blinding the captain and blessing the waves"
-Laura Murphy
Deep in the skin of an apple, in the holler of a newborn, in the siren of an ambulance. There is a shade of red some women know. There are three parts of healing that fall into place, clockwork. Align like astronomy. They do what the moon do.
1. Deep in the skin of an apple...
- The blood
Once I read a Haitian myth about a woman who perpetually bled. For this to cease she had to give up her right to be a woman. She had to become a butterfly.
My sister ain't never been a monarch, but her name has always been sweet to the tongue when it hits the air. Dalya. She just may be that woman. I remember the story of how she almost bled to death perfectly. I remember like when her mouth told the story my eyes watched, swallowed, made it my own memory. I remember the scoops of hair in her hands. How she woke up in the middle of the night soaked in herself. This liquid heirloom. I remember the lupus, and how she's too much damn woman for this world. I remember how the arthritis took hold of her knees first. The way she rusted at nine-teen. And I remember how our dad didn't even visit her in the hospital. I remember how she blamed herself. This is our memory, she is my sister. She bled until she was ashamed. I remember how she blamed her self. A bleeding wound is a makeshift apology. So maybe, bleeding is a woman's way of saying she's sorry. She has never been, but she is now, that monarch escaping by way of mouth. Headed wherever it is you go when your arteries echo.
2. In the holler of a new born...
-The Scab
But shit, sometimes you don't even realize you ain't the only one who needs to apologize. There are men who need directions to the words "I'm sorry". And sometimes that's not nearly enough. Like last week my girl Whitney found that out. Got a surprise when she got shoved up against a wall quick. When she tried to get this heavy fisted, moon bashing motherfucker out of her house. Just before telling her how much she was worth, he punched a whole in her wall.
Scabbing is perhaps the body's way of forgiving itself for being able to die. Forgiveness. Whitney use to slice the insides of her ankles. Tear her legs open just to watch the flock of cardinals fly out. I wonder if she remembers those birds. I wonder what her body felt like from the inside. Her skin must have felt almost ornamental at that point. A human doily.
When I met Whit, she didn't even come to school most Monday through fridays. But made her way to church come Sunday. I was raised Muslim, but she still spoke to me of crosses and swallowed Lithium; and we became good at having similar reflections and not offending each other. But this was all before I new what the lithium was for, before I knew about her scabs. I will say now, I am not condemning or defending the number of cuts that lined her legs. I'm simply saying there was never anything agonizing about the way she moved. No burden in her trudge. Forgiveness looks beautiful on everyone. I've never made my own blood surface, certainly not on purpose, bursting fleshy gashes like so many ruby geysers. There was a craft to her scabs. Her healing process was a show and tell. She'd show me where the previously dripping skin would brown deeper than the rest of her. Than she told me that cleaning the blood up in the morning was only ignoring the struggle.
Her daddy is Haitian, like the myth. He may have sipped her mama dry were it not for the craze in his head, telling him to leave. Men sometimes do that. But I don't want to talk about my father right now.
3. In the Siren of an Ambulance...
-The Scar
My blood is a son of a bitch. Thinning and pouring. For seven days straight my veins weep between my legs. I am anemic, and shit; I don't buy medication because I'd rather pay the light bill. This Heirloom, pumping through people I've never met. The source is just as sickly, but let's not talk about my father. If you're lucky a scab will build solid, shape into a country, tell you where you're coming from. This is what I believe a scar is.
Whit, I don't know if she believes in Jesus anymore. I don't even know whether my sister believes in god at all. But I picture three little woman, tracing each others scars until we're flayed. Muscles exposed.
Exposed like when I take my bra off, my left breast falls heavier than the other because there is scar tissue that stretches four inches, where a clump of cells was removed. It was yellow, and circular. I believe in god. And I believed in the moon too until they removed it from my right breast.
But who knows, these days my beliefs look a lot like tarantulas and I'm real quick to kill a bug. I'm quick to call my sisters, we sinners, to my side. We don't claim to know anything of deaths journey, only what I've read is the delicate business of being a survivor. Blood or not, blood or none, woman or butterfly. We have always been the ones apologizing and we never need maps to do it.