SCAB-PICKER

I run fingertips across the smooth paleness of scabs that have new skin but are still there. There's nothing to pick no hardened blood to lift but I can still see beneath them- bodies in the raised dirt of scars the ones I used to be:The one that wore her hair straight ironed out identityThe one that begged why can't you divorce him?The one that chewed her lip spat words into decades of diariesThese are the knees of a child who loved the earth so much she brought it home beneath her fingernails.These are the knees of a 21-year-old who's still learning how to raise her how to scrape the dirt away without digging so deep that she starts to bleed.I used to hate this cemetery of wounds used to curse my younger self for picking picking picking for leaving us with an unsightly mess and the instinct to wear pants in the middle of July. But picking is how I remember. This is evidence that I lived.I was a scab-picker. I still am.This small collection of deeply personal prose outlines the painful-and sometimes humorous-reflection of a 21-year-old's past and unique upbringing as a mixed Latina growing up in a small New Hampshire town. The author narrates and examines the struggles of her home life: raising her younger brothers with a single mom confrontations with a heroin-addicted stepdad and learning at the age of 19 that she not only has a different biological father but has been Facebook friends with him for years. *includes sensitive topics such as explicit language mental health issues race issues substance abuse and self harm