Bruises Are Beautiful Violence
I need to be hurt to create, and I need to be hurt like a bruise. It is slow, taking on different shapes and forms. You can be bruised and bruised again, but time heals all. It is inwards and conceals the ugliness. It is absorbent, internalizing the pain until it becomes part of you. Bruises can be hidden, and only when you touch them are they tender, that’s when you’re reminded.
Being cut and being bruised are both physical trauma, the action is short-lived, but their effect is different. Being hurt like a cut gives me no inspiration or muse. It is fast and tasteless, revealing the raw flesh. It scars and disfigures you, and the pain is constant, beyond your choice. Being bruised is from the inside out, while being cut is from the outside in. A bruise changes you slowly, revealing itself from within. A cut, on the other hand, forces its way in, pain imposed rather than grown.
I think our affair was a bruise. It was a beautiful kind of pain, and I almost never want the bruises to fade. I want it to stay, to stand witness to what we had, all the sorrow and the quiet conflict beneath the surface. But I know all bruises fade. I don’t want us to forget. I don’t want it to heal. Please, hurt me again.