Hi friends,
I just want to say thank you.
I feel like every year there are more people showing up to write gorgeous poetry in this space, and whether you’re sharing it or not, thank you.
I can’t keep up with all the comments, but know that every time I see a notification that someone has left a comment, or responded with kindness to someone else’s words, my heart feels so full.
This community exists not just because of me, but also because of all of you.
Chii migwetch, chii migwetch, jayek.
Today’s word is bruise.
We all have bruises, don’t we?
I know this month’s theme is poetry as medicine, but as we name our medicine, the stuff that heals us, we also name the stuff that hurts us. We name all of it because that brings us deeper into care, into community.
In my poem today, I compare a bruise to a shadow, in that, with both, we need to shine light on it to really see. They both reveal something happening perhaps beneath the surface of things.
Can’t wait to read your poems.
For our ancestors, the shadow was the soul, found there where the sun creates a dark halo around us that we cannot fully understand. What then, is a bruise, if not also a reminder of the soul— of the one we hold, of the one perhaps battered by violence or touched by an accidental bump in the dark. If our souls are bruised, they’re worth paying attention to, and in that steady attention, perhaps when we touch that tender spot, we can find out exactly what happened, and then, to our utter surprise once again, find that our souls are as resilient as the light of the steady, shining moon.
Remember, pop-up gathering TODAY 12:30-1:30pm ET.
I’ll be in an open zoom room, and you’re welcome to come in and read one poem from our time together.
Please just choose one poem, and share the word prompt that went along with it.
If you don’t want to read one, you can come and just listen.
We will be doing at least one more of these, so don’t worry if you can’t make this one.
A bruise is something
That points towards a hurt
But eventually heals,
Leaving no evidence
That its discoloration
Was ever real,
Which makes it easily forgotten.
A break, on the other hand,
Wants to be remembered,
Forms arthritis and aches
In cold, damp weather,
Shows up on X-rays
Years later when we
Find ourselves wishing
It had only been a bruise.
Thank you, Kaitlin. I’m new to Substack and don’t even know how I got here. I love this one word prompting. It’s giving me space in my quiet time to just write without stopping. I go back later and reconstruct what may need editing. I’m grateful to you for offering this space to people like me, who write and don’t know why but somehow it just flows.
Bruise
What about the bruises, the sometimes unnoticed yet ugly ones, that make us wonder, “Where did that come from?”
I stop and pause for a moment
I stop and look back for that one moment
Oh! That’s how it happened. If I didn’t notice it myself how could anyone else know?
I used to tell my kids that even if they stepped on their brother’s (or sister’s) hand by accident and they got bruised, an apology helps it feel better.
What about all those bruises that no one apologizes for? That no one even knows where they came from?
Time does heal a bruise. It’s not so severe as a wound and yet I wonder. Do bruises leave damage that adds up eventually?
“Don’t be so soft-skinned”. I heard that before while I was being gaslighted.
There it is. The bruise. Taking too seriously someone else’s lies. They were right about me but about the wrong thing. I took their ugliness and somehow made it my own. And somehow, that pushed my radiant beauty into the shadows.
Apologies do help the bruising feel better. Apologizing to myself, that’s where I shine. ✨
“Dear Girl! You really are so much more than you’ve ever been given credit for; so much more than you ever let yourself believe.”
Where is that bruise from?
Oh! It really isn’t anything to worry about. You really ARE ok. 🙂