Being Traced

You asked where it came from

and your thumb was already there,

already knowing it was a question

the way your body asks, not your mouth,

and I told you about sixteen,

about the glass that didn't shatter

the way glass is supposed to,

about how it stayed whole until it met

the meat of my hand, how I didn't feel it

at first, just saw the line appear

like something being written in real time.

Your thumb moved along it.

Light caught the white part, the way

scar tissue reflects differently,

holds the sun in a different language,

and I thought about all the times

I've hidden this, put it in my pocket,

kept my hand closed in photographs,

and now you were reading it like braille,

like it meant something I had chosen

to keep, something I was proud of.

It was just the only proof I had

that I survived something small.