Tonight, A Fondness For Broken Blood Vessels

I remember when I was little there was always a bruise somewhere on my body. Big and small, red, blue, and yellow, they popped up and faded away like fireworks on the 4th of July. There was nothing unusual about this to me. I even had favorites. I remember doing a drawing in the 2nd grade of a man with a happy face based on what I thought one of my bruises looked like. There's no way that isn't messed up on some level. My teacher entered the drawing in the county fair and I won a blue ribbon that looked purple to me because I'm colorblind. Purple like a bruise in it's prime.

The bruises eventually stopped just in time to be replaced with zits, and the zits gave way around the time I learned how to take verbal abuse. Sometimes I wonder if between the way my old man taught me how to take a punch and my customers taught me how to take the sharpened word, if maybe I wouldn't be able to stand up to a CIA interrogation. The way things are going in George's America, I may someday be able to find out.

Tonight there's a bruise on my shoulder, and it looks like a happy face. I just ran my finger along it and smiled. There's no way that isn't messed up on some level.