Ghost of a Scratch

They named it a thorn —

the scratch they found on their skin

one summer when loneliness

bit harder than the sun.

At first, they told stories

of how it bled, how it scabbed,

how it made them special

in a town too small for difference.

Their friends nodded, offered bandages,

believed it was deeper than it was.

So they limped, they winced,

they stitched new sorrow around it —

each thread a borrowed ache.

Years passed. They learned

to walk with a limp no one asked for,

to spin every silence into

a sermon on how to suffer beautifully.

They pressed that thorn to paper,

to lovers’ hearts, to every mirror —

saying, See how brave I am?

And none dared say, There’s nothing there.

When alone, they scratched the old scar,

hoped it might bleed again

to prove the thorn still lived —

that they still had something

to show for all the softness

they buried beneath the wound.

But the thorn had rotted to dust.

All that remained was a limp,

and a story they’d forgotten how to end.