I believe it's that time again.
It happens more now than then
I pick at it –
Some sort of seeping blister, my hair
Shedding like an overweight fry cook,
My bloody scalp
A furnace,
My hospital trolley bed, waiting
In a corridor.
But if I look closer, the bed,
It is empty except for strands of hair,
Strands of regret.
Frozen in horror, I watch
His finger blister and burn in the gas.
No one else sees the charred remains.
They prattle about this, about that,
Digging corn chips into dip,
Until the barbeque lunch is done.
And I pick at it –
The threads I dare not show
To another living soul.
The living interned,
The grasping hands pull and tear,
Wringing hankies made of steel.
A queue forms to lay a flower,
A poppy to forget.
My fragile skin
Bleeds a little more.
The dead do not bleed,
But vanish in the crowd.
I shove my way through, my eyes
Dry as a childhood dream,
I search for thoughts that fall
And scatter in the floating threads
Of my hair, and I'm scared,
So very scared.
What hell have I seen –
A fish gasping for air on the floor,
The struggle punctuated
By pain.
I dissolve, my heart dissolves
Into something too terrible
To contemplate.
So I pick at it,
And pray:
Please give me back what I lost,
The dying, the dead,
The one who crossed.
But sorrow is silent,
Leaving matters undone.
I wait until it's time again. |
Submission Name: Bride Persephone
