Bruise Quotes

He came up and kissed me on my forehead, and before he stepped away, I closed my eyes and tried hard to memorize this moment. I wanted to remember him exactly as he was right then, how his arms looked brown against his white shirt, the way his hair was cut a little too short in the front. Even the bruise, there because of me.

Then he was gone.

Just for that moment, the thought that I might never see him again… it felt worse than death. I wanted to
run after him. Tell him anything, everything. Just don't go. Please just never go. Please just always be near me, so I can at least see you.

Because it felt final. I always believed that we would find our way back to each other every time. That no matter what, we would be connected - by our history, by this house. But this time, this last time, it felt final. Like I would never see him again, or that when I did, it would be different, there would be a mountain between us.

I knew it in my bones. That this time was it. I had finally made my choice, and so had he. He let me go. I was relieved, which I expected. What I didn't expect was to feel so much grief.

Bye bye, Birdie. ~ Jenny Han

The silence lengthened, becoming strained and awkward until it was broken by the goose's imperious honk.
Swift glanced at the massive bird. "You have a companion, I see."
When Daisy explained what the two boys had been doing with the goose, Swift grinned. "Clever lads."
The remark did not strike Daisy as being especially compassionate.
"I want to help him," she said. "But when I tried to get near, he pecked me. I expected a domestic breed would have been a bit more receptive to my approach."
"Greylags are not known for their mild temperaments," Swift informed her. "Particularly males. He was probably trying to show you who was boss."
"He proved his point," Daisy said, rubbing her arm.
Swift frowned as he saw the growing bruise on her arm. "Is that where he pecked you? Let me see."
"No, it's all right - " she began, but he had already come forward.
His long fingers encircled her wrist, the thumb of his other hand passing gently near the dark purple mark. "You bruise easily," he murmured, his dark head bent over her arm.
Daisy's heart dispensed a series of hard thumps before settling into a fast rhythm. He smelled like the outdoors - sun, water, grassy-sweet. And deeper in the fragrance lingered the tantalizing incense of warm, sweaty male. She fought the instinct to move into his arms, against his body…to pull his hand to her breast. The mute craving shocked her.
Glancing up at his downturned face, Daisy found h ~ Lisa Kleypas

Hands folded under my chin, I drifted. A bruise-colored cloud hung over Koko Head. A transistor radio twanged on a seawall where a Hawaiian family picnicked on the sand. The sun-warmed shallow water had a strange boiled-vegetable taste. The moment was immense, still, glittering, mundane. I tried to fix each of its parts in memory. I did not consider, even passingly, that I had a choice when it came to surfing. My enchantment would take me where it would. ~ William Finnegan

Words cannot explain the bruise that festers into a river that runs deep filled with pain n sorrows which only the visible can cure ~ A.N. Knight

The sky is a bruise, only a storm will heal it. ~ Julianna Baggott

Moscow, just past midwinter, and the haze of ten thousand fires rose to meet a smothering sky. To the west a little light lingered, but in the east the clouds mounded up, bruise-colored in the livid dusk, buckling with unfallen snow. ~ Katherine Arden

Waiter! raw beef-steak for the gentleman's eye,-nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient-damned odd standing in the open street half-an-hour, with your eye against a lamp. ~ Charles Dickens

It's very true; there are many more iron pots certainly than porcelain. But you may depend on it that every one bears some mark; even the hardest iron pots have a little bruise, a little hole somewhere. I flatter myself that I'm rather stout, but if I must tell you the truth I've been
shockingly chipped and cracked. I do very well for service yet, because I've been cleverly mended; and I try to remain in the cupboard - the quiet, dusky cupboard where there's an odour of stale spices - as much as I can. But
when I've to come out and into a strong light - then, my dear, I'm a horror! ~ Henry James

Okay, yeah, he staggered back and fell into the condiments. Big deal. There wasn't any blood. I didn't even get him in the face. He saw my fist coming, and at the last minute he ducked, so instead of punching him in the nose, like I intended, I ended up punching him in the neck.
I highly doubt it even left a bruise. ~ Meg Cabot

Ethics based on this faultily quoted verse have changed nothing in post-Gandhi India, save the color of its administration. From a hungry man's point of view, though, it's all the same who makes him hungry. I submit that he may even prefer a white man to be responsible for his sorry state if only because this way social evil may appear to come from elsewhere and may perhaps be less efficient than the suffering at the hand of his own kind. With an alien in charge, there is still room for hope, for fantasy.
Similarly in post-Tolstoy Russia, ethics based on this misquoted verse undermined a great deal of the nation's resolve in confronting the police state. What has followed is known all too well: six decades of turning the other cheek transformed the face of the nation into one big bruise, so that the state today, weary of its violence, simply spits at that face. As well as at the face of the world. ~ Joseph Brodsky

A bruise is a lesson ... and each lesson makes us better. ~ George R R Martin

This was our house. Mine and hers. I know she'd sneak over to the rectory every once in a while and let you wail on her for a night. But I got her the rest of the time. I cooked her breakfast. I answered her fan mail. I put her to bed when she fell asleep at her desk writing. I rubbed her back when she was sore from overworking herself. And when she got all wrought up over you, it was me she cried on. No, she and I never had sex. That's true. But we had love, real love that didn't take anything out of us, that didn't bruise us or break us. I loved her without hurting her. You asked me if I, a virgin, could teach her what sex should be? No, course not. Hell no. But at least I can teach her what love should be like. And she knows it too. ~ Tiffany Reisz

He uncovered the boat, his hands working the knots like he'd been doing it his whole life. Under the tarp was an old steel rowboat with no oars. The boat had been painted dark blue at one point, but the hull was so crusted with tar and salt it looked like one massive nautical bruise.
On the bow, the name Pax was still readable, lettered in gold. Painted eyes drooped sadly at the water level, as if the boat were about to fall asleep. On board were two benches, some steel wool, an old cooler, and a mound of frayed rope with one end tied to the mooring. At the bottom of the boat, a plastic bag and two empty Coke cans floated in several inches of scummy water.
"Behold," Frank said. "The mighty Roman navy. ~ Rick Riordan

He was their family. They were his. They were worth every cut and bruise and scream. ~ Nora Sakavic

Late into the night I write and the pages of my notebook swell from all the words I've pressed onto them.
It almost feels like the more I bruise the page the quicker something inside me heals. ~ Elizabeth Acevedo

will triumph over evil, and that, in the end, truth will be revealed and the story will come full circle. It all happens within a few pages, and it all happens on this earth. But we do not live in Hans Christian Andersen's world. We live in this world. As Christians, we know there will come a day when all tears will be wiped away, when peace and joy will be the only songs we know, but we have a long road to walk until that Day of the Lord. For the moment, we have to live with one another, with all the good and bad that come with it. The sad truth is that we will let one another down. We will bruise each other. We will fail. So how should we live in the midst of this reality? ~ Sheila Walsh

Before we leave, we pick up the casings, bright red in the dull dead leaves. My cheek is also red. The next day a bruise will show. But for now it is hot, and I am happy, exhilarated, still quivering with the anticipation of something already passed. ~ Randon Billings Noble

Joe Biden was spotted with a bruise on his face that was apparently caused by his dog. I guess they collided when they both went after the same tennis ball. ~ Jimmy Fallon

Frankie,I noticed as I flipped the mic up to its normal position, was staring at me through narrowed eyes, clapping so slowly that I could actually measure the silence in between beats.
I felt about three inches tall as I stepped off the stage.

~~~

"...and went down like a rock.Bam."
"Oh,man. What did you do?"
"What could I do?" I shrugged. "I hopped up, took a bow, and ran. I was late to meet you."
Alex was gently rubbing my bare knee. I'd rolled up my jeans to show him the bruise already blossoming there. "I would have caught you," he said, fingers sliding to the inside of my leg and making my insides feel like jelly.
"Not likely, O Gallant One.The stage is only a foot high."
"I gotta see this place sometime. ~ Melissa Jensen

The emptiness above was now mine within. It was a part of me, like a freckle, like a bruise. Like a middle name no one acknowledged. ~ Sarah Wineman

She brews a bruise on my heart, and drinks it like a beer. She calls it love, but she would, because she's drunk on my torment. ~ Jarod Kintz

But because two can play at this game, I stand on tiptoe and kiss his cheek. Right on his bruise. ~ Suzanne Collins

He punched me - right in the midst of the Valmores' ball." "He never!" "He did. Of course, I got my licks in too. Man has to stand up for himself, you know." "Oh, Lewie. Is that where that bruise came from? I was afraid you'd been breaking hearts again." "Only two or three a week." "Lewie . . ." Helen scolded fondly, "one of these days someone's father, or brother, or sweetheart will do worse than bruise you." "Then perhaps I ought to swear off women. After all, you are my favorite, Helen, and always shall be. ~ Julie Klassen

That is how I experience life, as apocalypse and cataclysm. Each day brings an increasing inability in myself to make the smallest gesture, even to imagine myself confronting clear, real situations.
The presence of others - always such an unexpected event for the soul - grows daily more painful and distressing. Talking to others makes me shudder. If they show any interest in me, I flee. If they look at me, I tremble.
I am constantly on the defensive. Life and other people bruise me. I can't look reality in the eye. The sun itself leaves me feeling discouraged and desolate. ~ Fernando Pessoa

Purple with rage, the king lashed out, a vicious backhand blow to the side of the head. She stumbled against the table and fell hard, yet Cersei Lannister did not cry out. Her slender fingers brushed her cheek, where the pale smooth skin was already reddening. On the morrow the bruise would cover half her face. "I shall wear this as a badge of honor," she announced. "Wear it in silence, or I'll honor you again," Robert vowed. ~ George R R Martin

Have you somewhere else to be, George?" "Hmm?" His friend snapped to attention and grinned. "Anywhere but here. No offense intended, old man, but I tire of watching you glower at them. If you don't intend to relinquish Lady Oh to Fairchild, why did you invite him?" "Because he looked so woebegone when I had coffee with him the other day. Mrs. Hampton has not let her granddaughter see anyone but my family these weeks, and apparently the colonel felt her withdrawal acutely." Ben, on the other hand, had been allowed to watch her bruise change color under the rouge. Each shade proved a twist to the knife in his gut. Yes, it would be better for all if Fairchild were given the chance to declare himself. George clapped a hand to his shoulder. "Well, cheer up, my friend. If his expression is any indication, he may propose tonight, and then you will no longer be plagued by indecisiveness, what with him removing all decision from your hands." "Indeed." Blast it. ~ Roseanna M. White

No matter how much I feel, I'm not going to let it out. If I have to cry, I'm gonna cry on the inside. If I have to bleed, I'll bruise. If my heart starts going crazy, I'm not gonna tell everyone in the world about it. It doesn't help anything. It just makes everyone's life worse. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

In kindegarten, he had learned how to make a bruise stop hurting: you pressed it over and over with your thumb. the first times it hurt so much your eyes watered. The second time it hurt a little less. The tenth time, it was barely an ache. ~ Celeste Ng

Bad news should always come after lunch.. first thing in the morning everything left a bruise. ~ Stephen King

The guy said, "If you'd taken that punch on the upper arm, you'd expect one hell of a bruise. Which is exactly what you got. Not on the outside. Not enough flesh. The bruise is on the inside. On your brain. With a twin across the hall, because your brain bounced from side to side in your skull like a goldfish in a test tube. What we call coup and contre-coup. ~ Lee Child

Hatred always leaves a stain on the veil. But sometimes the hatred isn't your own. Sometimes you're chained, and the hatred beaten into you is another man's, grown in a different heart, and it takes longer than a fading bruise to forget. ~ Gregory David Roberts

I ignored the dark circles under her eyes, just like I ignored the clenching in my stomach that she was starting to bruise more around her hands. ~ Rachel Van Dyken

I've never understood people who return books after they've obviously read them. "Oh no, that dog-eared page was there when I bought it." Like hell it was. How about I punch you in the bloody face and tell you that bruise was there before and then we'll call it even. ~ Karina Halle

Suffering is the nature of this world. It is the golden standard by which all things are measured. It is not happiness that sets the bar, but agony. Even happiness cannot be fully recognized without the right measure of misery to contrast its borders. Suffering magnifies hunger-exhaustion-prods you to move when prosperity is just a dream out of reach. It is the mortal twin of eternal hope. How you respond to its touch molds you, shapes your future as it rains down oppression like fire over your shoulders.
Deception. It laid over my world like a bruise. Covered it so completely I bought the lie that the shadow offered and found comfort nestled in its thorny arms. I walked the trail it dusted with breadcrumb, walked in the slip noose it had skillfully wove and dove off the cliff without realizing- willingly, with vigor.
Heartbreak. There is no bigger void, no darker shade of soot- no ache more unstoppable than that of a broken heart.
A heart in pieces can very much kill you-without love's healing touch, you will surely die.
They say time heals all wounds.
They lied. ~ Addison Moore

It almost feel like
the more I bruise the page
the quicker something inside me heals.
(p. 283) ~ Elizabeth Acevedo

Love is a lost gift.
Why wish for its return.
Why beg for its flame when you've already been burned?
Is it not enough to live from day to day remembering its tune like a beautiful melody you heard years ago-
is it not enough to see a bruise and remember how it blossomed?
Love is a song we hear only a few moments in our lifetime
but it's that memory that is the gift, the way we remember it lasts forever.
Stop ruining love by wanting what no longer exists.
Your soul is beaming with flowers,
it's time to stop watering your scars. ~ Pavana पवन

Do not beat yourself up for what you did or did not do. That will only bruise you and break you and make you less able to live the life you want. You can't change the past, and you can't control the future, but you can sure as hell contribute to the quality of your today. ~ Toni Sorenson

His light blue shuma and silver torque did nothing to hide the mass of cuts, scrapes, and purple bruises that covered his body and made his iridescent tattoos practically glow by contrast. He had a dark bruise under one eye that ran all the way down to the ulumi-lia tattoo on his cheekbone, and another on his jaw.

"This?" He gestured to his battered frame. "Ono, moa halea.I was invited to partake in a wrestling match yesterday afternoon."

"A wrestling match with whom? Kukuna the Stone God?"

His grin flashed, then faltered as the gesture tugged at his split lip. "It was a very intense match. And you have been reading the legends of my people. You are curious about Calberna. This is good."

She grimaced. "Don't jump to conclusions. I read most of those legends before I met you so I could teach the children at the school about Calberna." Then, because curiosity got the best of her, she asked, "So which one of Wynter's men beat you to a pulp?"

His brows rose. "I am unpulped."

"Not from where I'm standing. Or are you saying the other fellow looks worse?"

He cocked his head to one side, as if considering, then gave that charming half grin again and said, "About the same. We declared it equal contest."

"Who did you leave unpulped then?"

"It is of no concern. We had our match. We tested each other's skill and resolve, and came away with a new understanding of each other." ~ C.L. Wilson

I think I got a bruise from landing on you. I hear bacon is real good for healing a bruise. ~ Janet Evanovich

I'm about to berate his tactics, to deny any feelings for him, when he cups the nape of my neck and presses his lips to mine, velvety soft. It's nothing but a peck, yet the flavor of the tart he sampled lingers like a warm, savory bruise - an irresistible torment to the netherling within.
He draws back and my skin glistens, radiant prisms reflected off his face and the cushions. I'm gripping his jacket lapels, yet I don't even remember reaching for him.
"No more denials," he says as he presses his left hand over one of mine. "I've seen the love in your eyes and in your actions. I felt it yesterday when I held you in my arms, and today, when you came to save me." ~ A.G. Howard

The past was so sticky, full of land mines: I made it a point, usually, not to be so detailed in the map of myself I handed over to a guy. And the song, that song, was one of the biggest keys to me. Like a soft spot, a bruise that never quite healed right. The first place I was sure they would strike back, when the time came for them to do so. ~ Sarah Dessen

In a proud fatherly sadomasicisticly way, I am thrilled when I get hit. As every deep purple bruise on my body represented a perfect swing.
If I were to lift my shirt at any time there would be 4-5 bruises on my body ...
As soon as I was able to, I would throw batting practice again from the short distance, and take another shot if necessary to keep the boys in the zone. ~ JohnA Passaro

I want to know every part of you,
every scar,
every bruise,
I want to trace the map of you,
my fingers a compass,
your freckles the constellations
which in my heart I will chart
so when I close my eyes
I'll have you in my stars forever. ~ Atticus Poetry

The ascent from grass to grace is a glorious cruise but the descent is a traumatic bruise. ~ Vincent Okay Nwachukwu

It's like the cuffs cut all the way down to the bone. 'It's like a snake that sheds its skin. The outside look different when the scales change, but the inside always the same.' Like my marrow could carry a bruise. ~ Jesmyn Ward

Sarah put the man and the other dead children out of her head. Later, perhaps, she would watch Lockie out in the garden and cry for all the mothers who would not see their children again. Later she would weep for the sadness of their loss and the joy of her own luck, but now she only had eyes for her boy, her little man, her Lockie. She ran her hands over his body, lifted his shirt a little and caught sight of a yellowing bruise. The air caught in her throat.
'Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,' she whispered.
Someone had hit him. She wanted to undress him right then to see the damage but Lockie was so fast asleep. She knew he wasn't just sleeping because he was tired. He had gone to the same place she had been in for months. She and Lockie looked alike now. The angles on his face matched hers and in a way she was glad.
She had suffered along with him.
And now here he was. ~ Nicole Trope

Some people feel stronger in their 30s. I'm 34. I've noticed I do feel stronger now than when I was 24. But I'm also more sore in the mornings. If I have a bump or a bruise from practice, it takes me a little bit more than just an ice bath to get rid of it. At the end of the week, my body's ready for a day off. ~ Holly Holm

Don't lick your wounds unless you care to taste the sting a second time. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

How can I describe Peter's face, the pieces of him that stick to my heart? Peter sometimes looked aloof and distant; sometimes his face was open and soft as a bruise. Sometimes he looked completely at Tiger Lily, as if she were the point on which all the universe revolved, as if she were the biggest mystery of life, or as if she were a flame and he couldn't not look even though he was scared. And sometimes it would all disappear into carelessness, confidence, amusement, as if he didn't need anyone or anything on this earth to feel happy and alive. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

That's a bad bruise."
"I scarcely feel it." Indeed, she probably could have been smacked over the head with a log just then and would scarcely have noticed. ~ Josie Litton

M possessed, gripping her head and looking at the deep crimson bruise on her neck, fading to black at the edges. Her wrists are banded with yellow-green bruises, and when I turn her I spot the finger marks left on her thigh.
Did he do this to you? ~ Poppet

His hands came to her wrists, squeezed reflexively, before he got quickly to his feet. "You're mixing things up." Panic arrowed straight into his heart. "I told you sex complicates things."
"Yes,you did.And of course since you're the only man I've been with, how could I knew the difference between sex and love? Then again, that doesn't take into account that I'm a smart and self-aware woman, and I know the reason you're the only man I've been with is that you're the only man I've loved.Brian..."
She stepped toward him, humor flashing into her eyes when he stepped back. "I've made up my mind.You know how stubborn I am."
"I train your father's horses."
"So what? My mother groomed them."
"That's a different matter."
"Why? Oh, because she's a woman.How foolish of me not to realize we can't possibly love each other, build a life with each other.Now if you owned Royal Meadows and I worked here, then it would be all right."
"Stop making me sound ridiculous."
"I can't." She spread her hands. "You are ridiculous.I love you anyway. Really, I tried to approach it sensibly.I like doing things in a structured order that makes a beeline for the goal.But..." She shrugged, smiled. "It just doesn't want to work that way with you.I look at you and my heart,well, it just insists on taking over.I love you so much,Brian. Can't you tell me? Can't you look at me and tell me?"
He skimmed his fingertips over the bruise high on her temple. He wanted to tend ~ Nora Roberts

Kind of hard to forget a bruise exists when you're prodding at it. ~ Kirsty Eagar

For no reason that she could discern, she put down the novel and picked up her cell phone. She was lonely, yes, but had been so for as long as she cared to remember, and nothing seemed to be pressing that particular bruise, one of many, at the moment. Her loneliness was at a comfortable echelon: not growing like a tree, nor multiplying as a moss, but just simply there. A permanent, weathered embedded rock. A boulder in the wheat field. A bullet inside of a body, too dangerous to remove, around which tissue grows. ~ Ron Parsons

How I should have raised all her terrible destruction to the surface like a shipwrecked boat dredged up from the sea floor. But that would have given the fracture a shape, a dimension--a definite perimeter to the ruin. This way has a subtle cruelty. This way will torment. She will spend years trying to map the rift she caused and sound the damage. She will push on the bruise and grow frantic trying to repair the creeping remoteness. It is the unkindest thing I have ever done. And I will not relent. I will not do otherwise. ~ Priya Parmar

when we're done, I'll be where the night never stops
cradling a bruise that's shaped like you
wondering why sleep never came to me
wondering how I still dreamed ~ Alicen Grey

I was who I was: the same woman who pulsed beneath the bruise of her old life, only now I was somewhere else. ~ Anonymous

That night, before you sent me away, was the best night of my life. The marks you laced me with lasted a full week. Every time I looked in a mirror, or touched a bruise in the shower, I grew slick for you. You visited my dreams. I woke to aching wetness and an empty heart. ~ Pepper Winters

Those are big collisions, Hally. They make for a lot of bruises. People get hurt in all that bumping, and we're sick and tired of it now. It's been going on for too long. Are we never going to get it right? ... Learn to dance life like champions instead of always being just a bunch of beginners at it? ~ Athol Fugard

Think how Jesus works what the Father wills. In the wounds of the dying Saviour see the love of the great I AM. Let every thought of Jesus be also connected with the Eternal, ever-blessed God, for It pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

What power could bruise the sky? Melliel ~ Laini Taylor

To be outspoken when truth is under attack, when charity is being bruise, or when important issues of life are at stake is a good and courageous thing. To be outspoken when nothing is at stake except the feelings of someone else is a small and contemptible thing. ~ Lawrence G. Lovasik

Let her arm go and pray she has no bruise," a familiar voice said in a low angry tone. I shuddered from relief at the sound of his voice. Trey released my arm and shrugged, grinning. "I just wanted an oyster, and she wouldn't serve me." I opened my mouth to protest when the warm fingers holding my arm softly squeezed me for reassurance. So, I stayed quiet. "Jason, please escort your friend to the door. I have no other reason to speak with him unless Sadie has a bruise or any lasting marks from his hands, and then he will see me again. ~ Abbi Glines

Deeper? Are you trying to bruise her liver?

~Eric ~ Olivia Cunning

Sadness is a bruise on the skin of memory. ~ John Mark Green

Some lurid things have been said about me - that I am a racist, a hopeless alcoholic, a closet homosexual and so forth - that I leave to others to decide the truth of. I'd only point out, though, that if true these accusations must also have been true when I was still on the correct side, and that such shocking deformities didn't seem to count for so much then. Arguing with the Stalinist mentality for more than three decades now, and doing a bit of soapboxing and street-corner speaking on and off, has meant that it takes quite a lot to hurt my tender feelings, or bruise my milk-white skin. ~ Christopher Hitchens

I brush my teeth and then my hair, pulling it into a ponytail that makes the bruise on my cheek more pronounced because they'll tear me apart if they think I'm trying to hide anything. ~ Courtney Summers

I feel you see every crack and bruise with black and white [pictiures] and color distracts usually from the honesty. ~ Nikki Sixx

It's the cuts we hide inside that really do the damage. They rub and they niggle and they bruise and they bleed. And as the pain and anxiety grow in your head, they become far more dangerous than an visible open wound. Until eventually, you have to do something. ~ Jane Corry

Who remove stones, bruise their fingers. ~ George Herbert

The spot where God's triumph is achieved, God's victory over sin, over lawlessness, is the cross of Calvary- the cross on which the Son of God died. In that cross and through the cross the works of the devil were destroyed, and the One who conquered him is yet to bruise the serpent's head in the final triumph when He comes again, as recorded in prophecy. ~ Arno C. Gaebelein

Dear Son,
I would call you by name, but I'm waiting for your mother to decide. I only hope she is joking when she calls you Albert Dalbert.
For weeks now I have watched your mother zealously gather her tokens for this box. She's so afraid of you not knowing anything about her, and it bothers me greatly that you'll never know her strength firsthand. I'm sure by the time you read this, you'll know everything I do about her.
But you'll never know her for yourself and that pains me most of all. I wish you could see the look on her face whenever she talks to you. The sadness she tries so hard to hide. Every time I see it, it cuts through me.
She love you so much. You're all she talks about. I have so many orders from her for you. I'm not allowed to make you crazy the way I do your Uncle Chris. I'm not allowed to call the doctors every time you sneeze and you are to be allowed to tussle with your friends without me having a conniption that someone might bruise you.
Nor am I to bully you about getting married or having kids. Ever.
Most of all, you are allowed to pick your own car at sixteen. I'm not supposed to put you in a tank. We'll see about that one. I refuse to promise her this last item until I know more about you. Not to mention, I've seen how other people drive on the roads. So if you have a tank, sorry. There's only so much changing man my age can do.
I don't know what our futures will hold. I only hope that when all is said and d ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Between addiction and depression? Depression a lot worse. Depression ain't something you just get OFF of. You can't get CLEAN from depression. Depression be like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your MIND. You just got to be careful not to touch where it hurts. It always be there, though. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

My heart
is dark and ripe
as a bruise.
An ache
hollowing me out.
Missing you
has no purpose, no point.
But still I do. ~ Alan Titchmarsh

A torn jacket is soon mended, but hard words bruise the heart of a child. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I'm mesmerized by lipstick prints on coffee cups.

By the lines of lips against white pottery. By the color chosen by the woman who sat and sipped and lived life. By the mark she leaves behind. Some people read tea leaves and others can tell your future through the lines on your palm. I think I'd like to read lipstick marks on coffee mugs.

To learn how to differentiate yearning from satiation. To know the curve of a deep-rooted joy or the line of bottomless grief. To be able to say, this deep blue red you chose and how firmly you planted your lips, this speaks of love on the horizon. But, darling, you must be sure to stand in your own truth. That barely-there nude that circles the entire rim? You are exploding into lightness and possibilities beyond what you currently know. The way the gloss only shows when the light hits it and the coffee has sloshed all over the saucer? people need to take the time to see you whole but my god, you're glorious and messy and wonderful and free. The deep purple bruise almost etched in a single spot and most of the cup left unconsumed? Oh love. Let me hold the depth of your ache. It is true. He's not coming back. I know you already know this, but do you also know this is not the end? Love. This is not the end.

I imagine that I can know entire stories by these marks on discarded mugs. Imagine that I know something intimate and true of the woman who left them. That I could take those mugs home one day and an entire ~ Jeanette LeBlanc

Claire. To feel the small bones of your neck beneath my hands, and that fine, thin skin on your breasts and your arms ... Lord, you are my wife, whom I cherish and I love wi' all my life, and still I want to kiss ye hard enough to bruise your tender lips, and see the marks of my fingers on your skin. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me. ~ Stephenie Meyer

So you don't trust me: the guy who taught you everything you know. I'm guessing if you have her" - he jerked his thumb at Rae - "that's no accident. Luke's buddies sent her to trap you, and she thought she was doing the right thing, because, duh, she's already proven she's kinda gullible that way."

"Hey!" Rae said.

"You are. Own it. Fix it. Now, you guys have her, which means you escaped whoever sent her after you. You didn't escape without a fight, given that bruise I see rising on Daniel's jaw and the scrapes on Derek's knuckles. But you escaped, and you came back here, and you captured me. Who taught you all that?"

"Daniel and I had already started learning," Maya said, "during those weeks you were chasing us."

"Trial by fire," he said. "Followed by hardcore, hands-on tactical training. You got away scot-free from these guys because of my lessons. And yet now you don't trust I'm on your side?"

"Nope," Derek said.

"Sorry," Daniel said.

Maya crossed her arms and shook her head. I shrugged.

Moreno broke into a grin. "You guys do me proud. I'd give you all a hug, if that wasn't a little creepy. And if I was the hugging sort. But if you survive the rest of this, I'll take you all out for beer and ice cream."

"You don't need to be sarcastic," Rae muttered.

"Oh, but I'm not, and they know it. This is exactly what I trained them for. Trust no one except one another. Exclud ~ Kelley Armstrong

Once again you ask about my wellbeing when I'm the one who just fucked you like a beast." He looked up with desolate eyes. "Can you forgive me for taking you like that? Today of all fucking days. I should've kissed you and made sweet gentle love rather than bruise you like the bastard I am. ~ Pepper Winters

When Phoebe glanced back at the marquess he swiftly lifted that rogue lock of hair, pointed at his forehead and mouthed: Good aim. She clapped a hand over her mouth. Dear God, he was sporting a bruise! So that's where she'd clocked him with his hat! And this explained the forelock. ~ Julie Anne Long

The apple is perfect because of the bruise that runs through it. ~ Anna Torv

Often, those who bruise easily spend too much time thinking about themselves. I'd go so far as to say that oversensitivity is a privilege of the underoccupied. The majority of people don't have the time to lavish care on emotional wounds - they're too busy getting on with living. ~ Mariella Frostrup

You couldn't not notice the bruise on the side of her face. Or the hickey under her chin. ~ Rainbow Rowell

I'd seen how the top-performing girls at Laurinda were cultivated like hothouse strawberries - bright and lush. Out in the real world, they would bruise. I wanted to see how the Cabinet would cope in two years' time, when they would be in the same classes as my most driven and hard-working Christ Our Saviour friends, and the most tenacious and gifted public school students, the hardy banksias and olive trees and root vegetables that would last all through winter. ~ Alice Pung

The closer we are to someone, the easier it is to bruise or be bruised. ~ John Gray

Closing his eyes, he thought about the bruise on Adam's face, with its spreading, soft edges, and the hard red mark over his nose. He imagined coming here one day and finding that Adam wasn't here, but in the hospital, or worse, that Adam was here, but that something important had been beaten out of him. Even imagining it made him feel sick. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Private Parts

The first love of my life never saw me naked - there was always a parent coming home in half an hour - always a little brother in the next room.
Always too much body and not enough time for me to show it.

Instead, I gave him my shoulder, my elbow, the bend of my knee - I lent him my corners, my edges, the parts of me I could afford to offer - the parts I had long since given up trying to hide.
He never asked for more.

He gave me back his eyelashes, the back of his neck, his palms - we held each piece we were given like it was a nectarine that could bruise if we weren't careful.

We collected them like we were trying to build an orchid.

And the spaces that he never saw, the ones my parents half labeled "private parts" when I was still small enough to fit all of myself and my worries inside a bathtub - I made up for that by handing over all the private parts of me.

There was no secret I didn't tell him, there was no moment I didn't share - and we didn't grow up, we grew in, like ivy wrapping, moulding each other into perfect yings and yangs.

We kissed with mouths open, breathing his exhale into my inhale - we could have survived underwater or outer space.

Breathing only of the breathe we traded, we spelled love, g-i-v-e, I never wanted to hide my body from him - if I could have I would have given it all away with the rest of me - I did not know it was possible.
Sarah Kay

Spoken Word Poetry