you keep buying more paint
to add on to your collection of bruises
black and blue and purple and yellow
hues
you insist on emphasizing
the different phases of your history of having been
beaten and battered and broken and used
you ask me to touch them
just so you can feel
the hurt that you say they bring
you ask me to add to them
just you can admire the spectrum of stories
you feel so compelled to sing
but

i don't have the heart to tell you
that the bruises i hide
are real
and that paint, my darling,
washes off