Splinters

The splinters of the branch slid into my fingers

as it snapped at the force of my hand as I tumbled into the tree.

Blood beaded down the bark and caught on the tip of a serrated leaf.

The red mirror showed

how little I’d changed

despite being shoved out of line, convinced my place was over here, not there.

My hair was ruffled, but still mine.

My clothes were covered in cobwebs and lichen, but still mine.

My eyes were wet and open, but still mine.

The blood dripped from the leaf and was instantly swallowed by the soil.

I stood up.

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Ink blot

My heart is an inkwell, each beat

sending rivers through my veins

that stain my nails black, every

second nearing me to the moment

I’ll run dry; full colour pages

getting fainter and fainter with each sheet.

Every time I am naive enough

to believe that I’ll never exhaust myself,

that I can keep up the image

projected in front of my face,

my fingertips blacken and all that I am

drips off them to the ground,

trodden down and kicked easily

aside by those who are so trained to follow along

that they never even notice I’ve crumpled.

I want to speak up, but my mouth

and my brain are so disconnected

I can only do it when someone takes the time

to give me a pen and paper,

and I can let my blood pour out and form itself into words,

hoping, simply hoping,

that they’ll finally understand.

Ink

It spills out through my veins

my corneas, fingernails,

bleeding from my nose

to splash the page I’m fixed to.

I don’t find it suffocating,

only cold. But

it warms every now and then

when the words demand it

for their dinner.

I like those times.

I like to feed them.

In the museum.

Haze. Frost across the future

in an eggcup full of water

in a statue’s cupped hands

in a child’s shoe.

Tinted.

Refracting red.

Wheat fields rise:

golden, new.

A heady scent bottled and archived –

a summer in the West.

Before the fall.

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Red sweeps across the heavily veined

fingers clutching tightly

at the bulbous purple node;

a ruby mass fails to plug the seam

that widens with each breath.

The stain soaks deep

into the carpet fibers,

already building its resistance to being cleaned.

A perpetual reminder,

unless covered by a rug

so full of patterns that the looker

feels nauseated if their gaze lingers.

But, of course,

even so garish a distraction

is preferable to the plans

lurking beneath it.

So they say.