Brush in hand with paint dripping over fingers
Paint over my bruises like they are white roses
Make them pretty and blush
As if they stemmed from a garden
From a roaming wonderland
Pretending they never happened
I smile at the blurred mirror
I wonder when this will end
If it ever will
Time ticks too slowly
I wonder if it ever passes
Paint the bruise over again
The mirror looks the same
Fogged patches follow my reflection
Cycle of lies repeat until
The rain washed the paint away
I stand exposed in my true colors
Shades of red absorb into velvet petals
Sipping the pigment in their healing bloom
This is me yet
Not who I am
Stuck in waiting
To return to myself
A wish to forget cannot be granted
Without the shattering of technicolor memory
How I thought a bruise could never bloom
When I never gave it the chance to heal
The stem comes covered in thorns yet
I tread with my heart cusped in both hands
I refuse to suffer in such waiting
I know she is safe
When I am still here
I know she is me
When I am here for her
When my colorful memory turns monochromatic
My brush in hand wanders across the broken edges
I go to the mirror once my fine work is done
Seeing how beautiful I will soon recover
I wish I could have seen it sooner
Carried on with myself
If I knew any better
To never doubt who I am
Bruises blooming back to color
The blurred mirror clears
I can finally see myself again
It is only after they heal that I realize
How beautiful I was all along
No matter my state
I know who I am
How silly I was to ever let doubt
Trick me into thinking otherwise
Sonia Charales is a South Indian American poet, writer, and artist. She brings forward conversations around culture, nature, nostalgia, and healing process. Her work appears in antonym, Suspension Literary Magazine, Cordelia Magazine, Breadfruit, and elsewhere.
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