Death In the Thickets
They can’t find me for I hide in the thickets
I float faceup,
Lips breaking surface just barely
Kissing the air between my teeth
Is it my time to dive?
To die?
The rocks all around me scream
To be tied to me
My feet my arms
And the river it pulls I can feel it
Tugging my hair gently
Like I once wished a boy to do
And he did but he was
A boy parading as a man
But he’s why I’m here isn’t it?
To wash off the filthy fingerprints his hands left on me
The water dips beneath this useless waistband
I beckon, I say
Wash me, cleanse me
The cloth drops and I am almost free
Washing rape out of curly brown hair which surprises me because the hair on
My head is straight and red
Genetics.
And maybe it was in his
Maybe his father-
His poor mother-?
No don’t think about that now
His reason is not mine and
His excuses always dribbled like
Black tar from his lips
Pich stains and stays
Water heals and removes but
Not enough
The sopping bra is gone in moments carried off by rapids
I
Cannot see
But the listening gives me a different heartbeat to
Listen to
One that is not numbered
I will not die from his pain
I will end,
As I began
Stubbornly,
From mine.
The skin it touches water, touches reeds
I scrub his hands away
The pink grows pinker and the white
Turns red
I am bathed
I am clean
But not reborn
Not yet.
I dive to the bottom of
The lake, hands grasping through the silt I
Find a sharp pebble
Imagine my grandfather’ face saying
“This is not a good way to go”
I agree but agreeing with
The old is not
Enough to stop the force
The slash across my
Crying wrists
Crying red rivers down my fingertips
I will only be sorry to this red river here, tasting like
iron.
I would have liked a blue death, tasting like
Sky.
They won’t find me for I hide in the thickets
I float faceup,
Lips breaking surface just barely
Kissing the air between my teeth
It was my time to die.
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