A week ago it appeared

A week ago it appeared.

I don't remember the moment.

No impact, no collision,

just one day my shin was plain

and the next day it wasn't,

like my body had made a decision

about something I wasn't there for.

At first it was purple-black,

the kind of dark that looks angry,

but yesterday the edges turned yellow,

and today the center is greenish,

and I know this is what decay looks like,

this is what my body does

when something hurts it—

it marks it, then slowly

tries to digest it.

My friends ask how I got it.

I say I don't know.

They don't believe me.

Neither do I, but that's the truth—

there's a gap between my body

and my mind,

a place where things happen

that I don't get to witness.

I press on it to see if it still hurts.

It does, a little,

just enough to know it's still there,

still happening beneath the skin,

still being processed into something

my body can eventually

let go of.

I wonder what else I'm not

paying attention to.