POEM: The Flow

Today I want to write
some days that is all I really want to do
admittedly, almost shamefully
not to mother
nor to be a wife
not even a friend
but just to sit with pen and paper
or keyboard and screen
and write
pour words out like drops of blood
empty my veins
release the flow
cleansed by getting out the thoughts
before they disappear and become lost
unfamiliar, mutated
like a tangled clot

Yet the very distractions
that keep me from the page
are what give my voice
something to say

Strange beast, this writing thing
without the pull away from it
I would never be able to come back
the longing would be filled
with other things, perhaps
the pull would be away
from other places
that flow would be redirected
and I would bleed no more
but I think
the wound would somehow still be missed
like a phantom limb
haunting my memory
but without remembering

POEM: blood & milk

blood and milk,
each vital, nourishing
my breasts flow with both now
one feeds my last baby,
drawn out in tenderness
the other, wounded, healing
forcibly drained
pumped as a sign of faith
both elixirs
evidence of hope

POEM: Thrombophilia

My father’s blood
slow, thick and sticky
runs awkwardly through my veins
the arterial flow connects us
despite his familiar absence

Genetic markers cannot be drained

no leech could suck me dry
remove the wretched poison
no hemorrhage will empty me
of him

Our blood is stubborn, clots too easily
a shared mutation
clogging the rightful flow
blocking the way, immovable

This anomaly has left me
with a permanent red stain
on the rest of my life