I do not find beauty in these aging bruises littering the expanse of my skin—I find an old horror, a fright I cannot name and cannot see that has been torturing me for ages, shutting me into dark corners and draining me of the hope that I can somehow save myself, somehow save the world.
And I run my fingers over the lace-like pattern these imprints of my idiocy have left on me, and I can feel, under the pressing burst of ache that blooms under these ruptured blood vessels, the continuous thumping of a heart that cannot be mine, because I lost mine ages ago.