NECROSECTOMY IN THE FOREST

By Poppi Hmlenitsky

For Ellie

It has been raining for eternity. Somber trees creek.

Plumes of silver escape my parched lips,

Cracked as stone ruins of a gothic cathedral.

I creep from my crypt:

Life-depraved, sickly-creature that I have become,

Whimpering on the edge of oblivion.

The air shudders at the sight of me, such a young thing with

Ancient blood painted along my shackled spine.

It gushes from my orifices as if engorging aqueducts.

Great clods of molded leaves pinwheel past bark

And moss slips dank and dewy against my calloused hands,

For I can barely endure the vertigo of standing.

Hidden in the knotted fist of an angular tree-

Blood-stained and naked – I shake.

I heave great weights of aromatic soil aside,

Still vibrant with the petrichor of last night’s downpour –

To find the beating heart of guilt has inhabited me;

Clawing viciously at my subconscious

Steady rain, soaks deep into the chambers of my morbid complexity;

Caressing the lacerations across my stomach.

To think: My tender body carried life, yet I feel lifeless –

My protruding collarbones smeared in sweat; My breath clotting my throat.

I am the womb of death and decay; I am the mother of pain.

I am Poisoned. Dark. Repulsive; I am grimy as the forest is grimy.

And far, far off sweet perfume of the Jacaranda, floods earth with lilac and rot –

Makes my nostrils flare and my stomach screech.

I hear the primordial bells tolling.

My quaking, splintered self, cloaked eternally in the silk lining of night.

#DarkPoetsClub