A Pink Bruise

My pink eyeshadow looks like a bruise,

I think.

I try to rub it off.

It’s the end of the day,

I’m tired,

and the hollow sockets of my eyes

are shadowed,

and heavy,

and they don’t need the pink,

not anymore.

It’s been hours since it first went on,

and now it just looks heavy,

and smudged,

and bruised

...

oh so bruised.

I wash my face,

and as it pulls away,

at my lips,

and at my cheeks,

and my forehead,

revealing my pale skin

and dark circled eyes,

the eyeshadow doesn’t come off.

It stays on, burnt,

like a bruise,

like a scar,

so very pink,

and very loud

...

and stamped,

on the lids of my searching eyes.

I wonder who it is that punched me,

as I gaze at my reflection in the mirror.

Who is it who hurt me so much

that this pain manifests onto my skin.

Because I don’t remember dark alleys

and street lights glistening on wet pavement,

but that must be the explanation,

the reality that I have forgotten,

that I wandered down some dark city street

late in the night,

or maybe early in the morning hours,

and I must have thought about the smell of autumn in the air,

and the burnt smoke that ran its way along my arms

and over my tired shoes,

and I must have been alone

...

and cold

...

in the dark city night.

And maybe out of the corner of my eye I saw a neon sign,

one that proclaimed that it was a store open at all hours.

And maybe I’d seen fellow strangers walking these long roads,

seen unforgiving shadows beneath bright yellow glows,

and been unafraid,

drunk on the strength and power of my loneliness in this wide place.

Maybe my brain was drowning in a stupor of confidence,

undaunted by the winds billowing at my back.

Maybe I’d looked death and danger in the eyes

and decided I wanted to take the chance rolling dice against them,

even though I knew

that each game I would play with them

would be weighted in their favour.

Maybe I’d tried to be a hero,

I’d seen a damsel in distress,

and done all I could to rescue her,

and this bruise,

this pink on my eye,

was my badge of honour that I had tried to do

something,

that was right.

And gazing at my reflection

in those incandescent white lights

I think the pink should stay.

I think it should hold on

against the water

and wearies of the day

for all that I am still dreaming of

and all that remains

of things

that should never be washed away.