Q u i e t u s

I whisper through the grate

until the darkness hides the bars,

and the rasping gasps of dying leaves

scrape across the pavement at my feet.

There in the thick, sickly black

under the concrete wall

I press myself against the ground

and I drown in the silence,

in absence

and in blame.

Hours and hours;

I will not leave.

The night coats my throat

seeps around me, through me,

thick, thick black

sticky, sweet venom in my mouth

so that the watchman finds me choking.

He grabs me, presses into me

hurting, hurting -

Your daughter is dead,

Your daughter is dead.

I will not leave.

So cold, shivering in the wind,

wretched breath on silky skin,

the oppressive hand on my breast,

and always the black,

the morbid pulse,

Your daughter is dead.

Your daughter is dead.

Stone, wind, skin.

The silence of the black,

no sound from the iron bars,

nothing.

Pounding, pounding,

driving into me –

Go home, whore,

Go home.

Supreme stillness, like death.

I crawl to the bars,

I rest my forehead there.

The blackness is in me,

The blackness is numb.

My baby, I whisper,

My baby.

His hands grasp my waist,

he drags me away.

Cold steel against my breast -

I curl beneath him as my skin explodes

heat and light, pain and blackness

the venom in my mouth,

red and gasping.

It’s all welling up inside me,

spurting out of the hole in my flesh,

pooling onto the pavement,

falling through the bars.

His hands are wet with it,

I’m drowning in it,

this black and red night,

this silence.

His laughter slices into me,

I am in pieces on the pavement.

He laughs and laughs and laughs,

until his laughter is the air

and I’m breathing death and needles

and aching.

A light pours out of his mouth,

white, white light

scalding my exposed heart,

and everything is burning,

burning –