And they stuck me together with glue
A Poem
The blood comes again.
But she thinks it is a story,
Just a story.
It comes,
And she thinks,
Women bleed.
She finds it on her t-shirt:
It’s migrating.
She wakes to find herself torn and scratched
Scratched and torn
And one morning, swollen
Thumb staved
Back broken.
Her t-shirt is a cascade:
Droplets trickling ever downwards.
When she tells the doctor,
He pulls more blood from her,
Or rather, the nurse,
Fingers whispering gently,
Voice biting.
The lab results come and come and come,
And pills,
And more pills,
And still the blood spills,
Dripping out of her,
Her skin an ever fragile husk:
Because blood is the price.
Because blood is the price:
And as the nurse pulls it from her,
She knows.
She sees it in the mirror:
Flesh gone cold,
Rivulets spilling,
Veins drained.
She carries death in her heart,
A revenant,
Curled black and dry:
Ever-hungry,
Ever-seeking,
Sucking, feasting.
She carries death in her heart:
And blood is the price.
