TSH: THe scar, Healing

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The butterfly
perched in my throat
has fashioned flesh
into an endless battlefield.
                                                      

I mediate
the warring halves of my self,
unsure where one army ends
& the other begins.
                                                                       

Now, my fingers graze
the scar on my neck
where wilted wings
once fluttered.
                                                                       

Into the mirror, I wonder
how can a part of me,
shaped so beautifully,
wage a war only I can see? 

Valerie Tirado is an undergraduate at Dartmouth College.