HOME BLOOD

H O M E    B L O O D
 

In the late hours of darkness
I crave home.
The true, unconditional one.
Her vast, injured expanse,
Her wounds and blisters,
some so fresh the blood still runs a bright, grieving red.
I long for her stifling embrace and searing breath.
I long for love from people who
held my infant body
before Me, before This.
Before I decided to leave, searching for scars
in a bleak and distant land.

Here,
no one knows my mother’s face
or my father’s laugh.
No one hears themself on my tongue
or sees my brother in my skin.
Here,
I hold the infant body
of a life I grew alone.
Today, I want to be held.

Today,
I want to wade into the Pacific,
and swim, fully clothed, towards the unshakeable
fate of Southern stars,
until vicious waves strike me
against familiar rocks
and wash me, writhing, ashore.
I will drag my aching limbs
through ashes still hot,
while the bull ants mutilate
every spare inch of flesh,
leaving behind pools of
strange water and fresh blood.
I will let the huntsman strip me bare.
I will surrender the scraps to the magpie.
I will return what I stole.
Then, penitent, I will
burry myself in red earth
and lay motionless,
choked silent
in the dry, seething agony
of my doing.

HB | 2020