Mother
Your blood
It's spilling all over the temple floor.
Mother.
Your blood.
It's sinking into my toes as I am sinking into it.
Mother.
Flesh like ribbons.
Strung all over the antlers atop his forehead.
His laughter always.
In the cave of my mind.
This gemstone'd insect that burst out of your chest without asking.
And now your womb is an inside-out balloon full of crimson things.
Rivers and streamers of crimson things.
Mother.
Your blood.
It's everywhere and everywhere that it stains the ivory gown.
That you gave me.
And as much as I strip of these linens and skin and skin and skin…
I can't peel away the scent of you.
Pinched with sulfuric ash and obsidian.
The prayer candles and the meditation tables.
They all sing scarlet in the bubbling shadow of you, mother….
Mother….
Your blood.
It keeps chasing me.
Like a thorn-strung placenta tethering me home, home, home…
Along the steel-toothed gape of his jaws…
Aflame.
Mother.
I can't get it out of my hair.
I can't dig it out of my flesh.
I can't scrape it off my teeth.
I can't….
…..bleed for it is all bled out and….
…alone with the dust-laden vessels echoing…
… ….the four-eyed banshee shriek in my ear drums.
Mother.
Tell me where I'm supposed to die.
Tell me where I'm supposed to die.
Tell me where I'm supposed to die.
Tell me where I'm supposed to die too.