it feels like
you've given your every single bone
to the idea of existing
inside of someone else's head
promising yourself
you would never force yourself again
to love, to hurt and to be hurt
yet it feels
you've given too much already
to stop feeling
like you've ever belonged to yourself

bruised knuckles
forcing their way
through the concrete of your guts
trapped in your own cage of dreaming
to mean something to yourself

You notice the
bruises of many hues
painted across the ****** canvas
reflecting through the shade of mood.

You ask what happened?
But this question
would require me to break open the surface;
permeate my skin
for you to dissect,
explore the source
analyse and
do the autopsy of my past.

But I am not ready to show you
more than the bleed
that is close to the surface
threatening to break.

grab me and wrap me up
in hope and
possibility

paint my walls white
to erase these
bruises

softly hold my face as my eyes
pour out the worlds
pain

but please

whisper in the night
of your love
as i drift

I wake up seeing bruises on my body.
Huh.
Turns out self harm can knock a person out
Just as much as her smile does.

My knees always
get the brunt of it all.
Between bed corners,
light poles,
and the even sometimes
the gum-y underside of tables,
there’s a passport
of popped blood vessels
sitting on my skin.

And while the pre-chewed
peppermint smell and
sticky residue fade,
the bruises linger
like a supermarket peach.

Soft with warm skin,
darkened from
tumbles of truck beds
and clumsy stockers alike.

Still sweet, but
visibly damaged
from hands too unkind
to put me back on the shelf.

Maybe I’ll get chosen anyway.
Or maybe I’ll rot
in this ******* Georgia heat.
But I guess
I have to be patient.
After all,
the season
is just getting started.

I liked to spring forth from the bushes
Trying to catch my 2009 year old friend mid March

The burning heat as firewood’s crackling glowing heart
Erupted from my knees as my own
Feet had fought each other to which was going to be placed
Seeing red white and blue the Final chalk
Me up as scraped with fireworks of every decibel explodes in
My head

Its back backed by the drum beat of a song we cant ever remember
But will never forget

My favorite bruise belongs to you
A galaxy on my neck
The colors change like northern lights
And while I act differently I do not want
them to fade
I would tattoo my colors
Colors show the world I am taken
Colors show I am willing to give a part of
myself to something bigger
Colors make the world brighter
Northern lights turn even the darkest night
bright
My galaxy will fade
The small colonies created from broken
blood vessels will surely die out like a
plague
Black they called the last
How ironic the darkest color is always the
first to go

   --An ode to hickeys