Two pink lines folded between my fingers.
The same fingers that have been clawing at my vacant womb month after month for years.
Wondering why the blood kept coming at strange intervals until it stopped and nothing came anymore at all.
The same fingers that longed to shovel the earth and plant tulips.
Pink and yellow from my childhood.
When I clung to my mother in the garden as we buried my goldfish. Their pungent perfume neutralized by the black earth.
The same fingers that signed the decree proclaiming my freedom from a life sentence of abuse.
And now
Two pink lines between those fingers and a porcelain bowl full of blood
Red and clotted.
Dry for months
Like a desert in July.
Wondering why there was one pink line and I was still empty
With nothing more than cherry pits and arsenic in my stomach.
Maybe this is one more thing that I don’t deserve.
I live in a constant war between lack and abundance.
Abundant in all the places that fool my neighbors.
The pictures look good from paradise but I sit alone in a dark room with nothing but blue frames projected on white walls
Bouncing and flickering their empty shapes between my glassy eyes
Numb from the oil and wet from the waterfalls.
And this white bowl
Full of red clots
Taunting me
That finally I have what I’m longing
The two pink lines that symbolize my roots growing deep.
Deep into the same soil my grandfather cultivated and healed.
He was a gentle genius.
I sat near his bed for a week while he was dying.
Watching him shift in and out of consciousness and talking of a reunion with his beloved.
His breath slowed like the pendulum on an antique clock
Oak and solid
Then bamboo and frail.
I never felt closer to God than that moment near death
When I looked for the last time in his eyes and whispered
“Thank you.
I love you.
I’ll be fine.”
Now this moment here
With my trembling fingers
Clutching two pink lines
Over a bowl of full blood
Weeping
“I’m not fine.
I was not fine.
I will never be fine.”
Is it comedy or injustice
Losing something I didn’t know I had?
Begging and pleading
For that trembling spirit to stay
And wondering
Where is my God now?
The same fingers that have been clawing at my vacant womb month after month for years.
Wondering why the blood kept coming at strange intervals until it stopped and nothing came anymore at all.
The same fingers that longed to shovel the earth and plant tulips.
Pink and yellow from my childhood.
When I clung to my mother in the garden as we buried my goldfish. Their pungent perfume neutralized by the black earth.
The same fingers that signed the decree proclaiming my freedom from a life sentence of abuse.
And now
Two pink lines between those fingers and a porcelain bowl full of blood
Red and clotted.
Dry for months
Like a desert in July.
Wondering why there was one pink line and I was still empty
With nothing more than cherry pits and arsenic in my stomach.
Maybe this is one more thing that I don’t deserve.
I live in a constant war between lack and abundance.
Abundant in all the places that fool my neighbors.
The pictures look good from paradise but I sit alone in a dark room with nothing but blue frames projected on white walls
Bouncing and flickering their empty shapes between my glassy eyes
Numb from the oil and wet from the waterfalls.
And this white bowl
Full of red clots
Taunting me
That finally I have what I’m longing
The two pink lines that symbolize my roots growing deep.
Deep into the same soil my grandfather cultivated and healed.
He was a gentle genius.
I sat near his bed for a week while he was dying.
Watching him shift in and out of consciousness and talking of a reunion with his beloved.
His breath slowed like the pendulum on an antique clock
Oak and solid
Then bamboo and frail.
I never felt closer to God than that moment near death
When I looked for the last time in his eyes and whispered
“Thank you.
I love you.
I’ll be fine.”
Now this moment here
With my trembling fingers
Clutching two pink lines
Over a bowl of full blood
Weeping
“I’m not fine.
I was not fine.
I will never be fine.”
Is it comedy or injustice
Losing something I didn’t know I had?
Begging and pleading
For that trembling spirit to stay
And wondering
Where is my God now?
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