06/12/2026
Bruise on the Soul
Yesterday settled into me
like a bruise on the soul—
deep, aching,
the kind that doesn’t show
but never stops hurting.
I witnessed what remains
when kindness is stripped away—
not stolen in a single moment of rage,
but abandoned carefully, strategically,
selfishly,
again and again,
until cruelty feels ordinary,
and mercy becomes unfamiliar.
They call me a criminal.
Go ahead.
Brand me with the word.
Let it sit where they place it.
Still—
I breathe.
I feel.
I carry a heart that has been struck,
not shattered.
Bruised, yes.
Weary, undeniably.
But intact in the ways that matter.
But I am still here.
Still breathing.
Still refusing to become what they tried to sculpt me to become — vile mirrors of themselves.
But I am
unwilling to surrender the humanity inside me,
unwilling to let it become another abomination,
crammed‑full of every petty, vicious, unnatural thing humanity can create
until that darkness takes root like a parasite in their soul,
slowly killing the very thing that makes them human.
May Simmons
