A poem by Bob Goodrich.
Borne
through the blood it travels,
motes of filth too small to see
but I see them all the same.
I sit beneath a gas lamp on the bathroom floor,
scuffed and yellowed ceramic tiles beneath me.
I stare at my hands and trace the lines of life
with the pads of my fingers.
Across the palm.
Up the arm.
Pulsing and pumping.
My heart betrays me, the traitorous instrument.
It spreads the sick with every beat,
hurrying along its own end.
I want it to stop.
The doctors can’t help me.
Their ministrations are useless.
It’s too late, too much,
spread too thin.
The blood itself is tainted.
I scrape my teeth along my tongue
and I taste it, metallic, copperish, circulating
down the back of my throat.
Blood will out.
I cough crimson in my palm.
Tacky. Smeared.
Onto my hands and knees,
I choke and spit.
The vomit that comes
is darker than red
and lighter than black.
I feel a heavy stone in my chest grow white hot as I retch.
As the cold light dims around me,
I see my body in the shine of the blood
on the pale yellow floor, curled around myself.
A fetus expelled, born again
from rotting offal.
The body and the blood,
resurrected.
And then I wake
strapped to a bed with tight leather belts.
A baleful light shines through a barred window.
My escape thwarted, trapped
in this prison of flesh.
And still it pumps, over and over,
a nauseating thud in my ears.
Borne and buried,
in the blood.
Biography:
I am an English major at UMM with a focus on creative writing. My passions include long walks on the beach, film criticism, history, book design, science fiction, and bad memes. I’ve been telling stories my entire life. It would be insane to stop now.