Hurt

There's a bruise on my arm, a raised lump just under the skin, sore to the touch. Most likely, it's been there for days but I've only just noticed it now. There are other bruises, on my arms, my legs, in various shades of black, blue, green. Some are old injuries and some are new. What have you been doing to yourself? I think, but I have no answer. These past few weeks, I've been moving unconsciously, weaving in and out of blind spots, oblivious to these small hurts.

I've had injuries before. When I was eight or nine, I nearly cut out my own tongue. I was running around the house with the cardboard tube from a roll of wrapping paper in my mouth and walked into a wall. It didn't really hurt but there was so much blood. I had only seen blood like that once before, when my mother severed one of her fingers. They sewed my mouth back together with black thread and I couldn't eat for a week. But eventually, I healed.

In high school, I fell while getting out of the shower. I slipped and hit my leg hard against the side of the shower door. My ankle swelled to the size of a grapefruit and I thought I'd broken something. I had a bruise for weeks after and a hard knot of scar tissue formed that's never completely gone away. I walked with a limp for almost a month. But slowly, I healed.

In college, I fell down a flight of stairs. On the way down, I threw out my arm to break my fall. When I hit the ground, I felt the bones collide and twist. There was a strange lump in my wrist where the bone had shifted. I thought I would pass out from the pain; I'd never felt anything like that before in my life. The doctor strapped a cast on my arm and told me to be more careful. And once again, I healed.

The most recent injury is nothing you can see. There is no scar, no visible damage. Like those other accidents, this one has blindsided me; I never saw the fall coming. It's left me cautious, unable to trust myself. You should learn to be more careful, I think, but I've never been careful. I am the girl who leaps blindly, the one who only thinks to look once she's landed, and finds that nothing is familiar. These bruises are just a temporary hurt, another reminder to be more cautious in the future. The real pain is deeper, slower to heal. But I know that eventually, it will.