a woman's first blood | The Art of Poetry | Page 1

Tangled limbs, spread apart
Grabbing the dirt, creating art
From between the gap of which I look into
A trickle of crimson I bleed to
Not from where I came from
But from my very own tongue
Tamed to swallow and not to shove
When those push me open and tell me, "enough"
I'm a mad woman, you can see it in my eyes
And I'm so, so, so tired of being nice
In the grassy field where we kissed
You look at me with clenched fists
Bruises I've given you
An iridescent rainbow of only blue
You took a risk to love
To crane your head above
into the sky of my life
Like Armageddon, a swirl of crimson and gray
You laughed when I told you,
"It doesn't work that way."
I oscillate between
camouflage and the need to be seen.
Reframing our picture
With the wood the flesh of our strictures
Hang me up as a psychological experiment
Wrap me in your lace cerement
Getting ready to die from your betrayal.
When I was with you, abstract
Full strings of nonsense to a precise exact.
I had no tongue to speak with
But you settled for the guttural noises
That danced from my throat.

#a woman's first blood