a poem: burn scars

If you have a burn scar
No one asks why you’re afraid of fire
No one asks why you shy away
Why you’re careful
Why even a candle can be
Terrifying
I have been burned by love
So even a small consideration
A small touch
A small notice
Is terrifying
Objectively
(How we overuse that word)
Burn victims know all fire is not bad
Fire gives warmth
Energy
Cleansing
Love victims know love gives too
Comfort
Support
Otherness nearby
Twin toothbrushes
But just as that burn victim needs time
So we need time
Not more fish in the ocean talk
Not you haven’t met the right one talk
Not get over it talk
Just time
Just practice
Just more small candles
That do not burn
A candle that reaches out
To caress
To chase gently
Oh so gently
To fish me out of the crevice where I
Hide licking my
Wounds
I have been burned
But you don’t see my scars
So to you
They are invisible
Like children playing tag
Hiding their eyes
So they don’t see you
You don’t see them
Same you turn from me
Refusing to see my scars
Well love is like that
Love can be the best thing
In the whole world
Or it can leave us in the ICU
Skin flayed wrinkled parched dying sloughing off
Until we are unrecognizable
My heart is so
Treat me gently
But find me a lover anyway
I am freezing for fear of fire

-a.e