Stretch Marks

Published 10 April 2022 

Author: Unassisted Homebirth Australia

Your skin keeps a record of your life 

Etched there in plain sight

Events good and bad

And days simply lived

There's wind dried and sun kissed places

Happiness lines across your face

And wrinkles on your forehead 

Maybe a scar or two

Some attached to a memory

That makes you laugh

Like the time you fell off your bike

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And scraped up your knee

While attempting something new.

Others a reminder

Of a loss or a surgery

Like when you crashed your car

And nearly died

Or were cut open to save your baby's life

Or take out a cancer.

Someone observant might see

Your skin and assign meaning

Trying to read 

The stories written there

But they'll never know the full story

The love and light and hurt and lies

That mark your heart 

So, my darling

When you look at your skin

At the stretch marks that represent 

The life that you carried within

The growing, the expansion

What story do you tell yourself?

Those stretch marks are

Your baby's first drawings

Mama.

Your tiger stripes 

Strength.

Your warrior scars

Earned.

Tell yourself, 

I loved and I lived.

And it shows on my skin.