Bruises

Now, before you call me emo, I actually do have at least three unexplainable bruises on me at this very moment. Muses concerning their discovery followed and a poem was born.

 

I’ve got bruises.

                Lots of ‘em.

And I don’t know where

                they came from,

what causes them.

 

No one’s been beating me.

                slapping me around

or hitting me.

                Perhaps…

Perhaps these discolored

                and tender spots of skin

aren’t caused by “real” blows.

 

Maybe the purple-yellow

                coffee stains on my arms and legs

are merely the physical

                manifestations of

the plethora of mental and

                emotional beatings

that my poor soul has withstood

                in the last coupla months.

 

Each bruise feels like a

                social stigmata,

emphasizing the direness

                and unfairness, the impossibility

of my relationship with the world.

Reviews

[Glen Yumang Manese]

the way you portray the bruises here as the victim of society is quite different for the norm...as you continue to tell us the story behind them and convey that as the defining moment of why you have them...and the last stanza states:

Each bruise feels like a
social stigmata,
emphasizing the direness
and unfairness, the impossibility
of my relationship with the world.