hesperus-knox-jv

[hesperus-knox-jv]

The rains tonight felt something like being born again.

The cold wet soaks your clothes clear through to your bones,

Death is a whisper, life is a triumphant shouting of angels,

Their cheering may just be tinnitus but living would be more beautiful if the screaming was trumpets instead, so in my mind they are.

The sky is dyed orange,

Something about the shade is so kind to the eyes, begging you to look, to stare for as long as the setting sun allows you.

I glimpsed the beauty for a moment and shuffled back to work, an action that leaves me feeling sacrilegious but just as peaceful as leaving the chapel when the choir is humming hymns that thrum in your blood.

I'm not Christian, not pagan though I try to be.

I think I'm religious though.

Something about this world brings out a bone deep reverence,

When the rain pours so loud my mind is drowned out for once.

When the puddles on the ground feel cool instead of cold.

The waking tears of spring, the last weeping of winter as it slinks back north where it belongs.

The mountains were beautiful,

They won't be for long I don't think,

Maybe their majesty will survive their rot.

[hesperus-knox-jv]

Oh God Not You H.K.V

They could take the world from me, rip it from my grasp, they could use the jagged shards of this life to carve your name out of all that is and will ever be me and I still wouldn't surrender you to them.

Do not swoon, do not crow of our companionship; of my unyielding patience or the unwavering of my will; my darling it was never a matter of love or lust, it's always been a matter of animal depravity, a matter of you and me until Life dies and Death has naught but stale carbon to consume.

They could take my eyes, nose, flesh and bones but god damn they couldn't unstitch the parts of you from me, I do not simply love you, love is just a word, I need you, I seek you in the dark, I am weak only unto you, they couldn't strip the ink imprint of your touch from my veins even with the aid of the cosmos, they could rend me to ash but they couldn't remove you from me; not from your place behind my ribcage; not from your place between my lungs, not in the way you force life into my veins.

I hate you more than I hate who i’ve become without you but by god they'd have to undo my DNA strand by strand just to see a glimpse of you from the confines of me, you are mine the way the stars belong to the vast expanse, you are mine the way the planets belong to the sun, you are not permanent in my hold but by god I am just a lifeless rock without you to warm my skin and melt the ice of my sins into something of substance.

I see your face in nightmares and daydreams alike, dying or lying still in my arms, your eyes bore into my soul but I can't remember their color, you've got a vice grip on my soul and I've never seen or felt you beyond a midnight panic.

I don't know if you're a bundle of traumatic waste or a soulmate a million lives away but you're deep seated in me and you won't let go, you won't let the guilt stop eating me alive when another's lips meet mine, you won't let me rest when my rage is caused by jealousy and not in your defense, my love, you linger, my darling, it's you I miss, it's you I search for in every pair of eyes that match the intensity of mine.

Every racing heart, every shaking hand as it holds mine, I miss you and will mourn you until I am but ash and stardust once more, my darling girl you have me as I have an echo of you, an echo of the past or a peek into the future that bled so deeply into my being that the past is aching for it to happen already, 

my darling I pray it's so, that I have yet to love you so intensely the stars shatter at our fingertips like Achilles and Patroclus' like the myths Icarus and Apollo, like lovers long lost to the ages, my darling i'll walk the pits like Orpheus if only it meant to feel the warmth of your love. 

Whether you be Eurydices or Persephone I’ll praise you above each as I walk the length of Hades and descend into the River Styx.

I have nightmares of losing you and I don't remember having you, my psyche is threatening on a normal day but if you're truly a falsity then I'd rather be insane and in love than sane and entirely loveless, my darling there have been days I've awoken to find myself alone with bedsheets cold, throat sore, eyes dry, and mind screaming that somethings not right bug my darling when I think of you an oasis washes my demons to the pits and I wish for you to linger a bit more, 

I wish for you to walk through my door and chastise me for my arrogance in your absence, my darling I'd rather you kill me in a jealous rage than live another day with you nowhere near, 

I have this melancholic feeling of fear that one day I'll say these words and say them with my chest that the one I loved the best had loved me then left I fear having you and losing you again as much as I fear waking in the morning to an empty bed and a head full of terror and godless mischief.

I'll beg the devil to wake next to you, I'll become a die-hard Christian if god spoke and said you'd be lying next to me, my darling love I may be a hateful heretic but I'll become a priestly Saint if it meant I could kneel at your altar and worship what you are once again or for the first time, my darling this is a letter to a love I've never met but am desperate to, this is the cry of a hopeless romantic looking for love and lust and bloody good luck, I'm a sinner praying for church, I'm a Saint begging the devil for warmth, my darling if I had you I'd die before I lost you, my darling I wonder if I already have.

[hesperus-knox-jv]

I had a dream some time ago

It was confusing and wild and fun but it terrified me.

Three boys playing on trains,

He looks at me with youth in his eyes, "You having fun!?" I feel the words leave my mouth, but I'm staring at his lips synch with the sentence.

Third boy disappears, the other and I walk up to where two boys had fallen from the overhead rails into a wheelbarrow of hay.

"What were you thinking? They could've died!"

I'm confused, I don't know these people, but the little ones look too much like my younger cousins to say that definitively.

I turn and stalk off towards the building there. It's run down, it looks like a utility shed more than a home, but it's got a small porch.

As I'm walking the light stretches and the walk seems longer and longer. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a deer.

I tilt my head.

It tilts its own.

I feel the muscles in my neck twitch as it does even though my own neck isn't moving anymore.

I feel my heartbeat in my ears.

"Go on." I say, I charge at it, trying to scare it off.

It doesn't move startle, it lowers its head and walks towards me.

It's antlers are small, dull, but they make a sweat break across my skin as it rears its head at me.

I step forward and we tussle a bit, I grab hold of its antlers and jerk it to the ground.

It has an air of inevitability. It seems like it knows what'll happen next.

The woman from before stands and shouts.

My brother tackles me from the beasts back "What the fuck are you doing?!" He screams in my face.

I stare at the deer.

"There's something wrong with it.." I feel the words leave my lips but I'm staring at my own face as I do.

It starts to speak. I'm looking at the deer from my own eyes now, it's mouth is moving but it's voice is warbled and distorted.

It feels like time slows, my brother has me pinned, I'm trying to tell him to stop, that there's something wrong with the deer, but he just tightens his grip and raises his fist.

"Wake up." The deer whispers as a fist connects to my cheek.

My chest tightens and my eyes snap open to the gentle light of my bedside lamp.

The world feels wrong. My skin feels tight.

Anyway that's the dream I had awhile back, it's pretty weird but shits haunting me. I think I've discovered an irrational fear of prophetic deer.

[hesperus-knox-jv]

Reasons I Should Get Up Today

1. The world's as beautiful as it's ever going to be, every day it gets a little sicker, enjoy it while it lasts. Get out there while there's still birds and bugs and cats and dogs and chickens and grass and wheat and nonlethal sun. 

2. You're as young as you're ever going to get again. Death is for the old and weary and you're not quite there yet no matter how tired you feel.

3. Color isn't gone, you just can't see it behind those gray walls of yours, go take a look, then paint it across every page you have so you won't ever forget it. Won't ever resent it again. 

4. If none of the above work and you still feel caked in muck and tar, think about that vape you're chewing on, you want one that won't turn your lungs black twice as fast, right? Go get the funds to buy a new one, if not for your lungs for the nasty taste it leaves in your throat. 

5. I know you won't believe me if I tell you you're loved, so instead get up and show that you're capable of loving without blood under your nails, if only to spite those who think you are incapable. 

6. You know if you don't get up it'll get worse. You're scared that if you do get up it'll be worse anyway, but life isn't worth living if you spend it afraid, take the risk and maybe see some of that color outside bleed into you. 

7. There's been enough people spilling their own blood, you don't have to. Hell, if you're that torn up about it, go out and fight for them, for yourself, and see if you can't save more lives than the one you could've taken had you stayed curled up and aching. 

8. There's mistakes to be made, ones that won't be erased, scars to be earned, and tears to be shed, it's going to hurt, but you've never once been afraid of agony, only hateful of it, so take the joy when it comes and when the tide of good goes out don't falter when you try to chase it and the riptide drags you under. Rage with the dying of the sun and swim back to shore for the next tide of good. Even if you can't keep your head above the waves. 

9. It may feel like you're drowning but your heads are still above the water, everyday you're not the one being strung up even by your own hand is a day worth living. 

10. No one's ever gonna walk through that door and save you. No matter how much you want to believe it. You've got to be your own hero this time, maybe forever, maybe just until you save someone else who wants to return the favor. 

[hesperus-knox-jv]

I've never seen my dreams as worthy of pursuit, I've never seen my life as one to be lived, rather I've seen it as something to give away, if you trade love for affection, I'll trade myself for it

If you must give something for love,

I've never had anything worth giving so I've always given myself,

I'm not worth it, but maybe if I devote myself to you, you'll tell me I am, that doesn't mean I'm not a selfish being,

I ache with memories from lives i've lived, I've always said I've lived a thousand times, that I'm so young but I've learned so much, so many hard life lessons that I chewed and swallowed like they were broken glass, just to choke them up when my body rejects them, when I know better but I don't behave as such, when I know I am human and so is everyone I come into contact with, that the weight of a heart, a soul, a person's whole being is crushing in its suffocated embrace,

Every time I give myself away I lose a little bit more of what makes me, irrevocably me.

My heart has been surgically altered without ever leaving its home behind my rib cage,

I'm not owned by my own will and whims, I'm owned by all that have come forward for the slice of steak I placed on the table, a steak bloody and beating still.

First at the table were my blood, when they frowned and grimaced at the taste; I sought to give myself over to those I chose to love in place of them, brothers, sisters, lovers alike, I brought them chunks, pounds of flesh, and pressed it to their starved lips, they ate it greedily and raw.

Despite the sting I smiled, I was wanted, even if it was by hounds starved for love, or for lust, the simple heat of a wanting embrace.

Every time I give myself away I lose a little bit more of what makes me, irrevocably me.

But no matter how often I sat strangers down to dine on my heart, to cannibalize and feast on my need to give love, I didn't ask for love in return, I begged for understanding, I begged to be known and not hated for the times when I myself didn't understand,

So, when we sat, my hands smeared with my own blood, I placed a glass down, or an ashtray, and we indulged,

Because if we could eat me piece by piece I could light them up and smoke them, I could inhale them into my lungs and hold it for the length of an old wives tale and get to know the person with my blood on their lips, coating their tongues, they told, they ranted, they cried, they vented their emotions,

I placed a cut of steak on the plate, they filled the glass with things they wanted to escape and we both took greedy sips, swigs, and overlong drags of an at home remedy for waning sanity,

A man with battered hands and a devil in his eyes sat across from me, a bottle between us, a reddening of the eyes softened our palates to the harsh drink, softened our palates to that which we'd speak,

I said to him, "I see people different than most."

He quirked a brow and spoke; "How's that?"

"I'm going to tell you, what I think of you. Then you'll tell me."

His brow furrowed, his lips tugged up at the corners, and he humored me.

I told him, "From what I know about you, from your rough hands, your rough heart, your godless eyes, I see a man who wants so badly to do good, wants so badly to make things the way they should be when he himself is what he hates so much."

He started to cut me off, a smirk, a laugh, a shared humor brought on by whiskey glasses. "Now wait, I'm not done." I chided, buzzed and high. "I see a man, who plays his guitar and gets lost in it. I see a man who wants love."

He stared at me, an awkward beat past and I croaked out a violent laugh. "I don't mean me, dumbass."

One thing I knew from the start, he and I weren't cut from the right cloth for each other, maybe it was that we were cut from the same cloth that made it so.

When I met the woman that chased his nightmares away and turned those terrors into daydreams I found myself in a similar boat to him.

A girl who's first words to me were whispered, "I still like him!" Childish and girly as it was, I had to try not to choke on my whiskey, tried to keep it from coming up my nose,

"I hope you know. I've been fucking him." I told her honestly. Though in many more words and with a firm calm that I nearly expected to be the peace before her storm. I saw as she read my response her brow furrowed and her eyes got dark. The second line was read before my blood was spilled, thank whatever deities are left. "It's okay, I don't want him, and he still wants you."

Some pushing, some well placed liquid encouragement and rolled papers and they were sharing a bed and I got the whole couch- and by extension living room all to myself.

It was nice for a time. Four kids pretending to be adults. Four kids sharing drinks and smiles and smoke night after night.

Then I met the man he hid behind loose collars and plaid short-sleeved shirts,

I was sober for once, he was drunk and I went into the ditch.

Ironically my sleep deprivation was more dangerous than his intoxication and he drove us the half mile home.

We were resting, I was taunting, jeering for a drink or a hit when it happened.

The girl, she was maybe a mile down the road, at the place we came from. She was alone, probably stoned, I don't remember.

What I do remember was it wasn't safe where she was at, and I didn't know it quite yet but I wasn't safe either,

I remember drunken smiles, violent laughs, an air that felt dangerous. "C'mon you gotta go get her." Goading voice, desperate, strained with the haze of liquor.

"Jasper crashed. She's not going anywhere." Big man, man with a heart too big and a mind too cruel, spoke harsh tones.

I remember hands that were rough with calluses, I remember burning breath from a man in an off-white plaid shirt as he grabbed me by the collar and nearly lifted me above his head, nearly swept me off my feet in his stumbling exuberance. "You have to go get her!" He'd all but wailed slamming a thick finger into my chest.

I found it painfully familiar. I smiled, I laughed, I brushed him off as tears burned in my eyes, my throat hurt all of the sudden, my chest felt tight right behind where he jabbed it.

Big man, welder man, stood from his chair, sad man, sober man, nearly knocked farm boys shit in.

"You can't just do that!" He'd roared, and I ached to feel the same outrage. In truth what bothered me more was how little it bothered me, how much it reminded me of brown eyes and dark hair, red shorts and thick arms, arms thicker than mine, the fear felt like home and that scared me more than he could.

"I'll go get her, fuckwit." I bit out. I walked half a mile in the dark and met the girl halfway between the farmhouse and the trailer.

She carried a lantern, played music on her phone. I used my phone's flashlight and cursed a dying battery.

"Look at the stars." I smiled. I don't think I ever told her about that night. I think I just made an angry face, or maybe laughed it off, saying "He's drunker an' hell, good luck with him."

She half carried him to his room.

I waited patiently for big man, strong man, man who's got a hole in his heart that he wants to put in his head to lumber his way to bed.

When he did I stayed up nearly all night. I think, maybe. I don't remember.

What I do remember was thinking about the story farm boy, man with godless eyes, had once told me.

It was late night, early morning, in the timeless hours between the daylight, we were on my first roommates bed.

The bed of a crazy boy, wild child, feral man, who gave me a place in his home, place in his heart, gave me his bed when he took the couch I slept on.

It was on that bed farm boy told me, sprawled out with a lingering buzz, how there was blood on his hands. How there were unspeakable acts waiting for a bad day to give him the excuse to go act on them.

How his father had demons like mine and went chasing after them. How he'd lost the fight.

How the father that came after did the same.

How his mother had looked at him and saw a monster the same way mine had.

He spoke like a sinner at confession, I mourned the loss with him.

How innately familiar I was with primal rage taking control of shaking hands curled into fists.

How similar it was that we both loved, revered, and nearly grew to hate our sires.

How familiar I was with the soul deep shame that eats away at you like the most damning guilt when your own mother doesn't see you as a child anymore, instead seeing the demon that took your place as you grew.

That drunken night filled with so much chaos, I laid awake, and I tried to remember he was human. That he'd told me why he was like he was. That he'd warned me I'd one day see it. See that his calluses hid bloodstains.

I forgive him now, but I didn't then.

Logically, from her stories, from the truths spilled with beer on that always-sticky coffee table, I knew fragile girl, farm boys lover, was a bit broken.

I knew she was sharp around the edges like I was, like her smiles could drip into tears if she let them.

My boyfriend at the time, leaned his head on my shoulder. Soft boy, warm boy, innocent to the wrath of the world, snuggled up to my side in warmth and sobriety murmured "We should do acid tonight."

It was 'Yes' all around. Aside from big man, clever man, he wanted us out so his not-girlfriend could come by with her kid. He wanted nothing to do with our demons.

Responsible man with blood hidden under the calluses on his hands said, "That's not a good idea."

I think I pushed for it just to spite him. That I was still too upset at farm boy and the strength and anger that was all too familiar to me to shrug it off. Girl had made up her mind and once she did that, there was never any changing it.

Money in pockets, bodies in the car, farm boy behind the wheel we set off.

I made calls, set arrangements, because I was the one with the most experience, the most connections, the most determination to damn my demons.

"Come join us!" Strong arms, dark hair, deep vocals, said through the speaker.

I could tell he'd been snorting something sharp from the nasal sound of his voice, and the warmth wrapped around my side seemed like the better option. "No. I think we're good." I let the words slip like drool from my lips.

Outside of a quiktrip some time past sunset, I remember it was still before midnight, my boy had needed to get home.

Three tabs secured. Boyfriend dropped off. Three heads in the car. Two higher than the stars in the sky.

That wasn't the first time I saw that girl break, but it was the worst time.

Dark hair, bright eyes, soft, fragile smiles.

Started with laughs, started with food stolen from a familiar pantry.

Ended with me staring down boiling Ramen not sure if the foam was starch or if I hadn't gotten all of the dish soap out.

Girl had gone to bed.

My mind raced a thousand times. I paced, and paced, farm boy and fragile girl came out.

I think maybe the farm boy took over the cooking, maybe I just threw it out and gave up on a meal. I don't remember.

I do remember once the hell that was that night drew to a weary end that something snapped in me.

I remember storming out of the trailer past farm boy with blood on his hands and love in his heart for the fragile girl in his arms.

I sat behind the wheel, wanting nothing more than to peel out, but sober me was clever enough to give big man, strong man, welder man my keys.

I was panicking, scared, helpless like I so often am, so I phoned someone that felt like home.

Dark hair, dark eyes, cruel grins, wicked deeds. "Bad trip, huh?" The casual understanding made me ache. There wasn't any love left between us then, there's even less now.

"I think something in me broke, brother." I cried. "I don't think it can be fixed." I sobbed. "I can't trust the ones I'm living with, they aren't good people, they aren't my people."

I think the key difference was I didn't trust farm boy, bloody boy, boy with godless eyes, not anymore, not if I ever did.

I didn't trust big man, big heart, with a hole in his chest he wanted to put in his head, no.

I trusted fragile girl, girl with quivering smiles with my safety, not with my broken mind, least of all with my heart.

So as soon as the sun crested the horizon I jittered and shook and begged big man, loud man, for my keys, and ignored the faint buzzing, humming in my veins.

It was proof enough that he didn't ask anything, didn't slow me down for a second. Just passed the keys.

It's not his fault. He was with his not-girlfriend, I hope they're happy now. I hope he doesn't want to put that hole in his chest through his head anymore, but I'm not sure if anything's changed.

I don't know how I made it the ninety or so miles home that morning, sun burning pits in my too-wide pupils.

I don't know how I made it the ninety or so miles home that morning, wanting nothing more than to jerk the wheel into the far too many semi-trucks that thundered past on rural roads.

It was then I remembered I don't trust myself, any more than I trusted farm boys' godless eyes, or welder man's too big heart.

After all, if you cut out your beating heart and serve it to anyone hungry enough to take a bite you're not one to be trusted with your own wellbeing.

I shook, I trembled, I cried. I should've pulled over but when the land went from foreign to familiar my chest swelled and I knew I was almost home.

A place I could rest my weary bones. A place I could sink into a mattress instead of a couch cushion. A place free of plates, sticky tables, and overfilled glasses.

"Hey mom." I don't remember if I said those words but I felt like breaking when I saw her face.

I felt like falling down and wailing "Mom I don't know how I got here."

"Mom I'm scared, everyone's all grown but we're still the same bastards we were in the cradle."

"Mom, I can't find love anywhere but here."

Most of all I couldn't say; "I'm sorry, I was scared I was going to hurt myself so I ran away, but it followed me everywhere from the city to the hick town, from feral boy's bed, to big mans couch, all the way back home to you."

I couldn't say the words lodged in the back of my throat. "I wanted to be far from you. Far from dad and my little brother and all the rest when I finally gave in. When I finally let my hands fall limp to my sides, when I let my heart stop beating, my lungs stop breathing, when I end the pain that I seem to carry everywhere with me. That I seem to give to everybody who'll take it thinking it's love."

I didn't say, "I wasn't strong enough to stay away. To go quietly into the night like all the other bastards like me who just choke down glass and wear chips on our shoulders."

I still ache to say those words. To do the childish thing and cry to my mom about scars that I gouged into my own flesh that run soul deep.

At the time though, as I parked my fathers car, stumbled in through the back door, shaking, and feeling shell-shocked by the past night, with the world still dancing strangely in my vision, the world still echoing in a syrup laden haze, I know I'd have slurred every word.

So I pray I didn't say anything.

I don't remember if I did, though.

I remember at some point I went to bed.

I don't think I've left since then. Wrapped up in comfort, in stories, in media, in lines of code displaying artwork in words and moving pictures, I may not be dead yet, I may not be far from my family, but I'm still running, still hiding from hands that yearn to twitch, to itch and scratch at pale skin until it breaks, to grab everything that can fit in my two palms and shatter it to pieces.

I'm running from my own head and I'm tired, I'm exhausted as I've ever been.

No job had worn through me this time, no drug, no potent liquid has burned through my fragile sanity, not this time, this time it's only stillness that's cut me bone deep, and I know without a doubt, as I always have, it's a part of me, one that won't die until it takes me.

No mix of pills, spilled thoughts, or prayers can save me.

I've known that with a bitter certainty but I hoped I'd at least fall a final time some place no one would find me. That I'd let my life be an open ended mystery. That maybe I could leave the idea I'd still be out there somewhere surviving, as cruel as it is to think.

To think that I would at least be a runaway bastard, one who's memory could be loved more than a coward who died fighting their own head, never once living in a way that mattered.

I'm trying, I want so badly to change but no matter how many times I try I always end up back at the start. Sitting at a table, cutting out pieces of the organ in my chest, begging for someone to eat it. Begging for someone who will ask more than they answer.

Begging for some way to find a home that I don't have to flee in the night, terrified of what my shaking hands will do when they catch up to me.

[hesperus-knox-jv]

The thing about siblings is

No matter where you are, or what you're doing, no matter what you've done to earn their ire,

There's soft moments,

Moments between the harsh glares and muttered curses,

Moments between tear stains and the heartache that your blood knows too well,

Moments that feel like love.

Love isn't something I would know if it beat me into the dirt, but it feels like giving my little brother a meal when I'm already so close to being done cooking my own, when the heat of the stove is growing annoying and the ache in my feet makes me want to crawl back into bed, but I do it anyway, I do it just because he leaned close and said, you should make me some of those with chocolate chips

I do it because I haven't seen him smile at me like that in what feels like years,

It's plating my own food and offering it to him with a smile, because even if I've been a bastard to him and the rest of our family for my whole life- no not even if it's because,

Because I've been nothing but a bastard to you and our parents,

It's because I owe you this debt of kindness every time you look at me and I don't see hate reflected in your grey-blue green eyes,

it's silently begging for forgiveness without saying the words because saying I'm sorry please forgive me for how I've hurt you doesn't mean as much when you've done it a thousand times, it doesn't mean much when you know you can't trust yourself to stop hurting them,

The love of a sibling is knowing no matter how evil you know yourself to be, no matter how wicked they've grown to see you as, they'll always be there, with an empty plate, an empty stomach, and a cheeky comment when you're feeling everything but yourself, when you're feeling the weight of every mistake you've ever made cut into your skin and take hold of your soul,

The love of a siblings is the olive branch you offer at arm's length, at 1 in the morning when you're cooking a meal you're too depressed to eat just to have something to do with your hands that you won't regret in the morning,

It's not the start of a sudden change, it's the aching of a change you've wanted to make since the first time you pulled away with their blood on your hands to see betrayal glimmering in their eyes,

It's the ache of knowing you can't change, knowing it's not your parents fault, not the fault of genetics, or a generations long curse that you are the way you are, that you do the things you do,

But a sickness all your own,

It's knowing that even if I can't be better I can at least be kind when my mind clears enough to see the little boy who smiled and laughed and held me so close when we were both kids, when we were both youthful, innocent, and overjoyed with living,

It's the tears that drip down my face burning hot trails that feel bone deep when I wish I could ask him why? Why are you being nice to me? Why are you offering kindness when I stole from you? When I broke a silent promise an oath we both made through years of being asshole kids, it's knowing that no matter what, no matter who we stole from, no matter who we hurt, we did it together and we never did it to each other,

Until I did it to you

Love between siblings when it isn't loud concern, a raised eyebrow and a lopsided grin, when it's in the aftermath of hurting them, when you still feel their blood on your hands hidden beneath your fingernails,

It's a high smile, a full stomach, and a deep ache at memories long past,

It's mourning the kids you were, before you yourself gained scars on your skin that you feel in the pit of your being,