Subtle Bruises

I watched as she sat there, Slouched over the arm of the blue, cotton couch – The only thing holding her upright In this world. In this moment. I watched, but the image was unsettling. Hesitantly, I set myself down in the chair across from her. Something was pulling me there. I wish I’d known what it was – Maybe then I could have fought it. I watched as her fidgeting fingers tapped and twitched – Anxiously. Helplessly. Just because she didn’t know how to stop. The rapidity of a blues melody gone wrong. I watched, but the sight was unsettling. A pixilated panorama. So I asked her, “What’s wrong?” In the smallest voice I had. Then she looked at me – Her blue eyes hidden beneath the pale wrinkles of her stale eyelids, And the mess of her blonde brows. She looked at me and it made me feel small. I could tell she was having to reach into the Depths of her lungs just to Find the air for her next breaths, Her next words: “I’m tired” she said, her voice achy and still. In that voice I could hear everything. I could hear the sound of her husband dying, His cancer spreading. The ring of an oxygen tank as Her sister coughs away the energy to stand. I could hear a front door shutting Behind her sleepwalking son at midnight, And the fear in her bones when she realizes He’s not in bed. I could hear the sound of her granddaughters shrieking, “We don’t want you around,” As the edges of her heart chip away. I could hear the rusty springs of a blue cotton couch, As she slouched over its side. In her voice I could hear everything, And she was tired. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. Just watched as she sat there. There, in the midst of REM sleep, Muting all the sounds around her, So they wouldn’t wake her up. Daydreaming of how it used to be when she wasn’t so dead. When her fidgeting fingers didn’t tap and twitch – So anxiously and So helplessly. Suddenly something about the July air around me felt cold. Maybe I’d just been watching her for too long. But still, I sat still, across from her, and I watched as The thoughts in her mind pushed her head to turn, And as she looked away The sun got tangled in her eyelash, and Bounced off the ridges in her cornea – Subtle bruises formed by all The tragedy she must have seen. It left a glare, So I looked away too. Under my breath I told her, “Maybe you should take a nap.” But I knew that wasn’t the answer. I understood that I wasn’t ready to understand. My ridges hadn’t taken shape yet. But then she looked at me again, She looked through me, With her eyes – Blue like subtle bruises. She didn’t say anything And I’d never felt more childish in my entire life. It made me feel sad because I knew I’d get what was coming for me… She was just a mirror. It left a glare, So I looked away.