Another Bruise

"But the heart sometimes blindly seeks suffering" - Albert Camus

I tell my mother I have another unexplained bruise again, a purplish-blue detriment on my body.

What I do not tell her is that I envision it may be the blue in my veins that has found its way out and turned into a bruise. I imagine the blood that flows in my veins to be blue, or serene grey, slightly touched by melancholy. Never quite red, never denoting life.

It makes its way across my body and through my heart. My heart.

I imagine the human heart, my human heart slightly expanding to make room for all the grief. It expands and it gets heavy, then it thrusts the blood outwards, in an act of protest.

or perhaps simply to make room for more? For I do not take my heart to be the one to protest. It has always been a silent bearer.

Perhaps, it silently yearns for a day when it will have to stop expanding and extending. The day when it will have to perform its purpose, to pump blood, and not carry undue burden.

Anyways, the point being, it pushes the blood...no, sorry, the grief to the rest of my body. I imagine it to fill up my lungs. That would explain the trouble I have breathing at times on a random Tuesday as I stare out the car window. My lungs are drowning.

Then it makes its way to my stomach. Needless to say, it twists my stomach into knots. Knots that do not come undone, not for a few days anyway. I stare at my food, my favorite food, a slice of cheesecake, and I feel like throwing up.

Why does it feel easier to cry myself to sleep than simply take a bite of the food I dearly love? Why?

Because the blood in my body is blue.

No, no it is not blood, it is grief.

Maybe your blood vessels are thin, the tests are all normal, my mother says.

And I nod my head in agreement.

My heart expands just a little bit more.