black and blue

it's funny, my bruises are never really black and blue.

they start out a vibrant green tinged with yellow as they radiate out from the spot where... well, where if you touched me too hard, if i bumped myself or carried something too heavy, anywhere you apply pressure to my body, they can form.

it's not immediate reaction, like "ouch, owww, that hurts." like a fine wine, they develop over time, leaving you to wonder days later what slight movement or touch gave birth to this one. i know some people in my situation who like to keep journals of each potential touch gone wrong but i refuse to drive myself to that level of distraction. my illness takes a large enough toll on my fragile resources, it will not claim my sanity as well.

bubblewrap girl.

i joke that i need it to protect myself from my surroundings, but in all honesty, the bruises are the only outward sign of the raging battle within. the bruises are like the smoldering battlefields left behind after the battle is over -- singed and scarred rememberances of power. the ebb and flow of the positive and the negative forces surging through my blood without rhyme or reason, or concern for the cells surrounding or the greater life force in which it is contained. it's greedy and myopic.

the bruises tell a silent story of something amiss that in looking at me you just would not hear otherwise. sure i look paler, move slower and more cautiously, but to the unassuming eye, those could all be explained or reasoned away as eccentricity or genetics.

my husband dreads moments when the bruises are especially large or well-placed. he gets the sly glances of disapproval, the disgust. he carries the burden of shame, undeserved and unspoken, that strangers cast on him. "how could he beat the girl? look at those bruises on her arms, her legs. someone should give him a taste of his own medicine. mmm - hmm," they tsk and shake a finger to themselves and occasionally at me.

"girl, don't you know better than to let that man take advantage of you like that? you don't need someone who hits you." my protests otherwise sound too familiar, like the fish that got away.

"no, he's a good man. he doesn't hit me." all told countless times by real victims protecting their abuser. only my story is true. but to the hardened souls, my words have no effect on their judgement. it's the bruises that do.

i'm not battered, just black and blue.