I.
Her fourth grade multi-purpose teacher
(music, French, First Aid and little religious inserts for our public schooled selves)
explained blood in the human body.
Over 4 litres - picture a milk jug.
Ever since, she's equated the two,
the glub-glub-splashback overflow--
blood the consistency of 1%.
II.
Never having witnessed blood in quantities greater than animal stains on the highway home from work,
blood for her is berated, nail-pinched pricks under the corners of her mouth and smudged away on the insides of countless t-shirts or the cuffs of hoodies.
III.
She still misses it sometimes,
the assertive stick-letters nicked no-scar shallow under a Timex strap
and proudly rolled over papers like a rubber stamp.
Despite numblessness, despite depressionlessness,
like all little addictions,
it's hard to remember why she shouldn't.
Please tell me what you think
Comments
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beautiful
This is some seriously good writing, Ms. Anne. Really really. This is the type of thing that people who say they hate cutting poems should read. Because it proves that even subjects considered clichéd and overused and emo can be written about beautifully. When they’re done properly.
I love-love-loved how you combined the schoolgirl biology lesson, the splattered animal-stains on road surfaces, and the self-mutilation – the poem is multi-faceted and mature…and also reminds us that people who self-injure aren’t just girls who are sad and sit in their bedrooms listening to depressing music and draw lines in their skin with blades. It reminds us that they go to school and work and drive cars and wear Timex watches. Which is, I think, what poems of this nature generally tend to neglect, diving straight into the misery and the melodrama.
This is beautiful. I’m bookmarking it right now.
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This is good.
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