An old bandage pinkstained and folded halfforgotten

An old bandage, pink-stained and folded, half-forgotten,

rests crumpled in trash, a silent token rotten.

I pick it up, cold sting curling down my wrist,

the scar it guards, a fist I can’t unclench or resist.

The fight that bled into silence, the words we never said,

a trace of pain beneath skin where old blood bled.

Family runs like rivers, dark and slow and wide,

tied tight by wounds we carry, too ashamed to hide.

That stain—quiet proof of battles inside,

a thin line between healing and where we divide.

I hold the bandage, fragile as the ties that bind,

a memory pressed soft against the corners of my mind.