bruises

I search the purple out of my skin.

The twisting cob web veins
easing boysenberry bruises
to sickly green.

The hard-surfaced paintbrushes
never need washing. They color me
and move on, and in tiny eddies of gratification
I forget them.

I wore shorts for the first time,
stretching my legs and exposing
my abused knees.

I never touched a painting knife
but there are little lines running
like bike tire tracks
across my thighs.
Two are recent and fat
with the effort
of stitching shores back together, ugly,
angry, blotted red.

These tides are molten,
flowing quietly beneath the surface of skin where they belong,
inside of me.
Sometimes they steal my soul
and press at my organs
to get out.

But I am not volcanic
or ruinous, and spitefully
I am proud
of my bruises.