✶The First Mark

No one tells you the first bruise arrives as a whisper. A hum beneath the skin before the bloom appears.

You touch your face, waiting for the world to make sense, but the mirror just stares back— quiet, unforgiving, asking questions you don’t want answered.

That’s when you start rehearsing the lies:

Door frame.

Elbow.

Accident.

The scripts handed down like heirlooms.

But the body doesn’t lie. It echoes the truth long after your mouth goes quiet. And slowly you realize— silence was never protection. It was agreement.

And you begin to wonder: How many versions of myself will I bury before one of them decides to live?

🌙 What the body knows

To the ones who learned love through bruises— your skin is not a confession. It’s a witness. And witnesses eventually speak.

If your body needs the fuller story, the doorway is here → The First Mark (Expanded)