Tattoos Of My Past (Something To Live For) Poem by Bethany Maxwell

Sometimes,

Every now and then,

I feel the pain again,

Of everything crashing down.

In that one moment,

My whole conscious awareness of being alive is focused on my wrists,

Almost like I can feel the scars pulsing with my heart beat,

A constant reminder of what the pain has done to me,

What it sometimes still does.

Sometimes,

I take it as a reminder of how far I've come,

How everything is okay,

How I am strong because of it all,

Other times,

It breaks me down.

Shoves the realization of the pain in my face,

Screaming at me to remember it,

To address it,

To give it the attention it begs for.

Still, other times, it leaves me breathless,

Unsure of what to think or how to react,

Just sitting there alone,

With nothing but my beating heart and awareness,

Nothing to think about but memories and feelings,

It's those times when I make the most progress,

Feel the strongest,

When I think of everything I have to live for,

All the love that's worth the struggles,

The beauty of life's rose instead of it's thorns,

It's in those moments that the scars aren't a symbol of pain,

Or a scream for help,

But simply a memory,

A memory of mountains that I have climbed,

Obstacles that I have passed,

They are, in that moment, a tattoo of my past,

A token of my success.

It's then that I smile, still feeling my heart beat,

And go on with what ever I was doing,

Happy to know who I am and know my life is worth it all.

This might sound sappy and you might question it's truth,

But it is true.

Sometimes,

Every now and then,

I feel the pain again,

Of everything crashing down,

And it's in that moment when I realize that everything will be okay,

Without these scars,

Without the pain to remind me every once in a while,

I might forget everything there is to remember,

I might forget that no matter what I feel,

I'm still here,

And I believe with all my heart,

That that is something to live for.

By: Bethany J. Maxwell
June 29,2012