Scabs

When I was little, I was prone to mosquito bites.

The bugs came at night, when I was asleep,

biting my arms and legs, drawing blood, leaving welts behind.

When I was little, I had almost no self-restraint.

I would scratch at the bumps, drawing skin like a rug under my thumbnail,

and letting myself bleed because that cold, red river brought relief

that bubbled on my arms before drying into cracked garnet.

I remember picking at the scabs, peeling the crusted black

layer away from skin

again and again, leaving only a white crater in its place.

I treat my bad memories the same way.

I keep telling myself to leave them in the past—

middle school name-calling, the gray fog of summer camp depression,

fake friends who are long gone,

embarrassing everyday encounters that wring my

stomach like a washcloth.

Some of these memories are many years old,

but my mind won’t let them go.

I like to pick them apart,

to feel the heartache consume me again

and again.

Pounding blood flows to my head,

and I peel scab from skin.

With blood stained fingers,

I touch pink flesh to feel myself burn.

I hear their hurtful words,

seared into my brain.

You will never change.

You’re a bad person.

You will never be enough.

These are mantras I am trying to forget.

But it’s like a scratched record.

I am trying to outrace the noise of memories,

and sometimes, I succeed.

On days where my thoughts are quiet,

the days where I read or play piano,

the days the art becomes all

I can see or hear or feel.

But sometimes I fall back into an endless scratching

at wounds that become scars.

My arms and legs covered with skin

that shines like pearls,

Dipped into flesh like craters.

Maya Bourak ‘27

This piece was inspired by the pesky mosquitoes that have always loved biting my arms and legs. One day, I was dwelling on a memory of the past, and I realized that I dwell on my bad memories in the same way one might scratch at mosquito bites. The itch to revisit the moment someone said something mean or did something wrong is so overpowering, like the urge to scratch at an itch. But what this piece is also about is moving on from that feeling because, at the end of the day, dwelling on bad memories is not healthy, so this poem is about not allowing bad memories to consume you, no matter how tempting that may be.