The Sinful Sunday prompt this week is “Fill the frame” – and whilst this clumsily taken phone picture doesn’t entirely fill the frame, I love that most of the image is focused and centred on the spectacular marks and bruises Kristan created on me.
Most of the bruising and the visible stripes are, of course, from the cane. But so are those pin-prick bite marks on my right thigh, where he hit me so hard the tip of the cane broke skin instantly, and left me with that weird series of little dots.
Bruising and damage like this is serious – especially when you have a job that requires those bruised parts of your body to come into hard contact with trapeze bars, to be wrapped and constricted in ropes or silks. Bruising like this leaves me tender and vulnerable for weeks afterwards, it affects my day-to-day and is a constant reminder that I am someone who wants this to happen to me, who lets someone harm me beyond the level where it can be brushed off, moved past. It is a visual testimony to some of the deepest and most private parts of me. It tells me who I am. Who I belong to. And what I am for.
