Seen

She asked what the mark was.

I didn't know she could see it.

I didn't know it was visible enough to ask about.

I've had it since birth. Pale brown.

Shaped like nothing. I don't think about it

the way you don't think about your own

shoulder blade or the inside of your wrist.

It's just there. It exists on me without

my permission.

She called it beautiful.

I went home and looked in the mirror

and tried to see it the way she might have,

tried to see it as distinctive, as interesting,

as anything other than the mark of

a body that was born and carried it forward.

I felt angry for hours.

Not at her. At the mark. At being

defined by something I didn't choose,

at having someone else notice me first,

at being told my scars are beautiful

when all I wanted was to not be seen

at all.

It's darker in winter. Lighter in summer.

Evidence I was born. Evidence I stayed.