Cut

So I have been using Mederma scar gel and it won’t make the scars go away.  Nothing will make them go away.  Nothing.  Will.  Make.  Them.  Go.  Away.  But they have gradually changed from trenches to smooth maplines.  Still they will never go away.  The blast and the chemicals of it, the blast and the heat of it, the blast and the burning from it, the blast and the scarring because of it will never go away.  Will never go away.  They will stay.  And now stay smooth, not rugged.  Finely textured, not ragged.  But they will never go away.  Sometimes I wish they never will.  Makes me look manly.  Inherited most of my looks from mama.  Sigh . . . still it is better, I think, that they are smoother, less textured.  Less gruff.  Less roughness.  Calmed and embedded.  Not defiant and protesting.  I’ve never been ashamed.  Even though they will never go away.  Calmness be damned.  The blast and the burning the scarring and the churning of flesh beneath flesh and the body twisting and the back of the head smacking and the smacking and the twisting and the churning beneath and the scarring and the burning and the blasting and the brain clamoring to figure out what the hell just happened?  And the returning and the alivening.  None of it will make them go away.  Smooth and embedded.  Yes.  No more craters.  Follicles are still fucked.  Will never grown a beard, nevermind a any-time-of-the-day shadow because they will never go away.  Say goodbye, mama, to your baby boy’s babyface.  Going up to see her tomorrow.  If I don’t she will never shut up.  Not eager to take a road trip, but gotta shut her up somehow.  Okay.  I’m here.  Now stop blowing up my phone!  She will feed me and send me home with food.  She will pretend that there’s nothing between us.  There’s no fracture.  No resentment.  And I will be polite and eat what she serves and take what she gives and all the while think You caused this fracture.  You shut me out.  Cut me off.  And now it’s just Merry Christmas, honey?  The scars are smoother but not the anger.  You cut me off, You, mama, and sissy.  Just like females.  But I will be polite for a few hours on a Saturday.  But if she starts in with See, those two National Guard members who were shot and one of them died, one of them could have been you.  Don’t start, mama.  See, those National Guard members who were killed in Syria, one of them could have been you.  Shut up, mama.  Here I am, so scar-smoothed and polite.  Don’t start.  She will start with how I look like I haven’t been eating well.  Fine.  I eat fine.  At 5’11” and 180 lbs I am fine.  A mother never thinks her kids are eating good enough.  Fine.  She can start on that.  But don’t start, mama, on the National Guard.  Don’t start, mama, on me needlessly putting my life in danger after surviving three tours in Iraq.  Why are you doing this?  Why?  Don’t start on that and I won’t start on you cutting me off.  I won’t start on you and sissy cutting me off.  I wont start period.  I will eat and be polite.  Smoothed scars and politeness, that’s how I want my Saturday.  She will say I look slim and trim and healthy and smooth but I STILL haven’t been eating well.  Mama, I will say, I exercise and work a physical job and keep myself trim and slim, muscle over fat and without obscene bulk.  Trim strength, mama.  And my trimness might go away.  And my strength might go away.  But my scars will never go away.  They are here to stay.  Even in all their smoothness and smooth cooperation.  So cooperate, mama.  Don’t instigate.  Just welcome me and feed me and farewell me and I will leave as smoothly as my scars remembering that you and sissy cut me off.