Birthmark

Forty years of careful use
of a razor down the drain:
one bad swipe took the tiny birthmark
off my jaw, flush with the skin.
It bled for hours, it hurt like hell,
but the worst was yet to come:

the scar that replaced it came back
white and angry and tall, like a whitehead
gone rogue, screaming to all:
“Unclean! Adolescent! This one
killed his birthright with a blade!
This one has no skill! Ask him
about it! Make him explain it!”

I’d grow my full beard back
and hide it in there
if I thought it would help, but
I know I’d just hear it calling out
that it had been silenced. I’d walk around
mumbling, “shut up! SHUT UP! It was
an accident!” and poking at it buried deep
in the beard. Besides —
the beard these days
would come in full gray
and likely screaming about its own issues,
and one problem like that is quite enough.

So I let the scar stand out there on my jaw
for all to see. I have no idea what others think
it is. To me, it’s a badge, or a dodge
to convince myself I’m not so vain
as to care what others think. But I do.
Oh, I do. And I hate that in me,
how afraid I am of the voice in my jaw
that tells the world I screwed up. It was just a birthmark
but when I think about how that slip
has changed the way I see myself in the mirror,

it might as well have been an eye.