Secondhand Scars

You said you were joking

I laughed so you’d stop

Plate on the table

My heart on the chopping block

You never learned listening

You only learned loud

I memorized footsteps

Just to disappear in the crowd

You gave me secondhand scars

Hand-me-down hurt in the shape of your arms

I wear your words like they’re stitched in my skin

Trying to love you from a safer distance

Secondhand scars

I’m not passing them on

You called it “toughening up”

When my eyes filled with rain

Told me to stand like a soldier

While you were loading the pain

I grew up early

You stayed the same

I changed my last name in my head

Long before I could change

I keep your picture in a drawer

Face down

Frame cracked on the side

Some days I hear your voice

And I almost dial

I’m learning how to be

What you never tried to be

A gentle kind of strong

That sets a child free