Track & Heel
“…something died inside of me — something that I’d always sort of liked and admired. In its place grew a scar — a tough spot but also a sore spot.”
Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn
“Sometimes people are mean, and sometimes things will be hard. One of your jobs is to try and make sure that that never makes you mean and hard, too.”
Cord Jefferson’s Mother, On Kindness
Trackers tell us prints are deviations
from the baseline, markers of relationship.
This is where a wolf turned to check on her cubs.
This hair is where a cow scratched themselves on a tree.
We mark our territory:
This ding on the water bottle
from that Summer, hiking Yosemite.
This shirt stain from the road trip in Georgia.
Deviations from the factory’s baseline make stuff ours.
They become our memories.
Our own wounds are the same. Like scars:
This fear is where they broke my trust.
This trigger is where I lost a part of myself
that I have not finished mourning.
Mementos, keepsakes
that keep wounding.
Hard spots, often sensitive.
Prodding the scar
Sometimes we remember
as a means to clean the wound
Sometimes we remember
as a means to self-harm
Sometimes we get to do both
