The Flood

After seven months of nothing, I hear about his horrors
And start bleeding from my sex.
And no, I don’t write this for him, he doesn’t get to have this.
No one gets any parts of me anymore, I scream
at the email asking my opinion in a political survey

“You’re not a poet,” the voice in my head whispers
Well no fucking shit, I answer, but the voice doesn’t get this, either
This is mine all mine, now that the flood has finally
Washed over me and covered me in blood
My blood, her blood, and her blood, and her blood…

I bruise without knowing why, blood gathering under my skin
Finally escaping now, overwhelming me with its thick
ugliness, suffocating, making me dream of places I don’t belong.
I’m a reptile, I know, slithering through the swamp, a snake.
I should be so accustomed to blood

I fall down for no reason but to remind me to keep slithering
Because it feels good down here, slithering and devious
Ready to be a witch’s reagent, part of a scheme, to make blood
My best friend, blood the color of my lips blood the color of my pain
The flood might kill me but I’ve died before, over and over again

And I’ll rise again, as I always do,
different and more hideously frightening
Less ready to please the world and more ready to tell the terrible truth
Less interested in being told about my own predicament
“Oh, do educate me on my own pain and my own body again,”

Try it. Because I’ve already drowned in it and I’m not afraid of blood.