Birth---2/7

Birth

I used to think I was some sort of heroine.
My footsoles stealing down the alleyways, my red hat
fixed like a dreamcatcher.
I thought I was some extension of god
like a bud from a spiritual sponge.

That was before I sat in your bathroom at 3 am.
an oracle folded up on her knees
and met the ghost in your bathtub
the woman you tried to drown over and over
whose blue eyes your fingers tried to close
but they snapped up again and again.
Now toothbrushes fly
and lights flicker
I leave when she asks.

I know her name, but I'm not stupid enough to call it into the mirror.
She sleeps in each lobe of your brain.
A new one every night
twenty identical bedroom sets
twenty identical shadeless lamps
twenty identical portraits
one dancing ballerina in the jewelry box.

I thought I was some sort of exorcist
but the only thing I set free
was a premature i-love-you.
Dead on arrival, I let it squirm
and you stared at it's oddity
as it lay in the incubation box.
Full of tubes and sacks of blood.

But I am not it's mother.
You are.