To Carry Your Bruises

TW // domestic violence

The nightmare digs into me and I wake up with claw marks on my skin.

Fever dreams slither and lacerate like the bite of a December evening:

Snow globes that shatter and his brittle heart that I disintegrate, akin;

My shoulder blades toughen in the bitter warmth of his jacket.

But, the love is still breathing.

The anger that is calm, calculating glides across the snow-laden pavement;

Anticipation- agonizing and excruciating like the lyrics of your new favourite song.

Your lies, an ardent merlot on my cheeks percolating in your charred palms with a hate proudly latent.

Mortifying and pleasing secrets are presents you keep from me in your pocket.

So, with you I will always belong.

Soft solitude in shades of grey I desire still with bruises that he painted on my dainty eyelids;

Glass shards that pierce my feet feel still akin to daffodil petals he promised in so many days early;

Weightless a faith so brutally devised- I fall still into it- with every prudent night into him that I confided;

Soaring glory that he kisses on podiums where I lay stranded;

Eternally, I watch him shine with eyes blurry.

I wake up… verily and breathe away from the fallacy; haunting and daunting from a past I dread still.

Faded bruises that serve as reminders of a grit I held onto in moments of hurt on end,

And I live on in the tender wisps of cold that brush against my cheeks- a carnation pink crying a content so shrill.

A girl you painted a dreary grey, lies now curled in a blanket;

Eventually, no great love she needs anymore to mend.

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: I have invariably tried merging sensitive topics- in this case, domestic violence- with a poetic rhythm of sorts to convey the pain and depths of the topic in a rather ambiguous or though-provoking approach. in this poem, i also added elements of the winter aura and used it as a major symbol throughout.