Day Ten

Title: in an effort to love you more, I remove my skin

This line comes from one of my favorite poems, written for one of my dearest friends. She was going through a gut-wrenching kind of heartbreak with someone she loved, an ending that just wouldn't heal over. It's been awhile since I've been in that kind of space, but being with her as she went through it brought me back to those dark places of my own that I know by heart. Places that bleed you out, run your blood the wrong ways.

**

The painting took me a bit by surprise. I had set out to make really bold, white, plain text to contrast with the mish mash of handwriting in the background. But, I used a water soluble pen for the handwritten stuff, and when I laid the white paint on top of it, the black started bleeding through. I started freaking out and going back over the letters, adding more white paint to cover up the black. It didn't do much good.

Then I stopped and thought about the poem this line is from.

And I got it.

***

Bruises
- for B.C.

1.
And what of the soft tissue?
The memory of your hands
lies lodged there like
a stone or
a star, a black density
invisible now except for the disappearance
of all things familiar and good.


2.
In an effort to love you more,
I remove my skin.
Veins, blue and tender, appear
like grief or like
letters never sent
and I know this will never heal,
the capillaries will never mend,
the blood will always be pooled there
just like that,
a watercolor stain.


3.
And if the hemoglobin
forgets how to turn?
Yes, I suppose you are
already too far
from the bed that
still smells like you,
too far to return,
too far to stop the bruises
from bleeding out.