Poetry Thursday, Part II

Or as I like to call it, "Geez, it took you long enough."

So, finally, with less than two hours left of Poetry Thursday I'm finally getting my own poem up. Remember? Poetry Thursday? A poem using words you love or hate? See, it's all coming back to you now.

So, here it is. Feel free to mock it in whatever way seems best to you. It's not like I ever claimed to be any good. As Justin put it "If the Muse is going to treat me like a red-headed stepchild, then I am going to treat it like the 1897 Coney Island Dollar Whore of the Year."


Miscarriage


I am losing words.

It begins with a cramp
set deep in the belly,
not unlike the first
cramp of desire that signals
a sexual awakening.
You feel the pull
deep down, gravity
taking hold of your
insides, setting them
to the unavoidable task.
I can feel them now,
the words, a writhing
tangle of snakes,
striving to work
themselves free.

I am bleeding language—
hemorrhaging syllables,
words, whole sentences.
In my wake, I leave
ink-black splotches,
thick, dense clots
marking the path of
my body’s dissent.
They’re leaving me,
in twos and threes,
unraveling my history,
letter by letter.

Gone now is my father’s
choleric temper, his
voice as sharp as
a switchblade. Gone
is my mother’s
terra-cotta skin,
her distorted view
of love. Gone is the
girl with hollow eyes
and milkweed hair, the
opalescent moon, the
brilliance of the sun.
Gone now is every memory,
choked in the rush
of the unchecked tide.

This bloodletting has
rendered me mute.

Sifting through the
wreckage, there is
little to salvage.
There is no remedy
for such an ailment,
no feasible cure.
There is nothing
to do now but
cast out the tongue,
lay it aside,
as dead and useless
as the womb.