Scars...

It's been seven and a half weeks.  For everyone else, it's over.  For me, it's not.  No one really asks about it.  No one really speaks about it.  Over.  Past.  Move on.

I don't know how to do that.

My neighbor saw my knee tonight. I had pulled my pants up to figure out why it was itching.  [Somehow I got bitten over a dozen times while wearing pants.] She gasped and then asked me if it still hurt.  It does.  I need to see another doctor, but I am too weary to do so. Too afraid, really, since talking about what happened is still hard.

I still have scars on my body.  One, at least, will not be going away, as it is already hypertrophic.  I do not see the others leaving either.  Maybe still fading.  But that they remain now is hard for me. I look in the mirror and see them and I am back on that street, screaming over and over and over again.

I am screaming and falling and feeling my grip on Amos slipping. The concrete is grinding into my knees and wrists and elbows and head. My muscles are trembling. Terror has made the whole world recede to just this small patch of earth, where I am fighting for Amos' life.  And I am losing. I will lose.  Just once more trip to the ground and no matter how desperately I want to get up I will remain on the ground. The violence of it all.  Crashing to the ground. Stumbling to my feet. Screaming. Terrified.  Bleeding.  My blood.  Amos'  My screams.  His.  Amos...he is already my world.  How can I lose him now?

I catch sight of my scars, and try as I might not to be...I am there.  Terrified. Trembling.  Lost.  Alone.

Amos has scars, too. The one that bothers me most is from the deep puncture wound in his side.  It is shiny and so completely different from the rest of his skin.  It is hairless.  And it bothers him when I try to touch it.  It bothers him even when I do not.

So much, filling my mind and my heart.  Would it were that the scars were not also across my skin. In so many places.  Too many to avoid.


Lord, I am Yours.  Save me!