Lightning

NapoWriMo 2022 Day 1

They look like purple clouds, depending on the light. Floating just below the surface of my skin, at my wrists, on my feet, crucifixion-like bruises that my dermatologist reports may never fade. These are only the scars you’d see as many more hide under my cottons and wools.   I turn for her inspection under a fluorescence no one wants or needs, every pucker and fold a landscape of neglect. Her perky assurances I have no need to be embarrassed do nothing but foment more shame as I turn this way and that and hear the camera click click click .   I imagine these photos in a dermatology journal, a black box over my face to preserve anonymity.  This is what is considered an “after” image.  “It’s calming down, burning out”, she reports, as my cheeks flare and I find myself ascending from the ashes of my mortification, looking down at a body in betrayal, rubble from the rumbling storm, wondering about the harsh beauty of ruins, the almost imperceptible flash of lightning as I lift my arm and turn again.