Inspired by Bruises by Mortimer.

They taught us how to lower our eyes,
How to make our voices small,
How to carry everybody else
And still stand after the fall.

We learned to hide the bruises
Where nobody would see,
Call survival “being strong”
When we were begging to be free.

Chorus
These are not just bruises,
These are stories on our skin,
Every wound we ever carried,
Every war we held within.
You can tell us we are fragile,
You can tell us we are weak,
But there is power in a woman
Who decides she’s going to speak.

We have swallowed generations
Of “be quiet,” “don’t complain,”
Been reduced to what we gave away,
Been blamed for others’ pain.
They measured us by beauty,
By the bodies that they saw,
While ignoring all the battles
That had made us who we are.

Chorus
These are not just bruises,
These are stories on our skin,
Every wound we ever carried,
Every war we held within.
You can tell us we are fragile,
You can tell us we are weak,
But there is power in a woman
Who decides she’s going to speak.

For the mothers and the daughters,
For the women left unheard,
For the ones who kept on walking
When they couldn’t say a word.
For the women who were labelled,
Controlled, dismissed, denied,
For the ones who chose themselves
And stopped apologising why.

Bridge
We are more than what was done to us.
More than every name.
More than every hand that tried
To turn our strength to shame.
And every generation
That refuses to bow down
Leaves another woman standing
A little taller on this ground.

Final Chorus
These are not just bruises,
They are proof that we survived.
Not a symbol of our weakness—
They are evidence we’re alive.
And the woman who was silenced
Has a thousand voices now.
We are done with disappearing.
We are done with asking how.

These are not just bruises.
These are scars that learned to sing.
And when women stand together,
There is nothing we can’t bring.