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SECRET HISTORY

By Benedetta Mancusi



A bath of black tea

Used tea bags   between my fingers

The rash that won’t go away

 

I am my own dried skin

Smothered in calendula

Flower’s spit and semen

 

Every word that ends in -a

 

Sorella, mamma

 

I thought i had both

      now neither

 

I thought I was both

 

no, but, in truth

I have an identical twin

She’s blonde tiny

I am tall  mediterranean

carbs and big tits

squeezed in dresses that never fit

 

We’re both dead

But I can walk

 

Down a corridor,

Tap the oyster

To get to the morgue

my final bed? My new house?

 

This woman leads the way

She’s kind

Beaked

A more attractive Charon

Corporate and marketing and pr professional

 

She’s all the words that don’t end in -a

 

I tell her to hurry

Before I become

Black tea

 

Soon There will be a flood

I tell her

She don’t mind

 

Soon my skin will be dried leaves

      and spit and pollen and gluten free breadcrumbs

 

I thought they might lead me back home

    To you

but maybe the key to not being lost

   was always the gluten

 

We get there

Eternal bed

A ravine

My beautiful Charon smiles

My mouth is full of straw

I ask her

If she’s ever given a blowie to a scarecrow

 

 

I am a house of crumbs

bones

And stomach-aches

 

This tea tastes like sap

 

 

don’t read Donna Tartt before falling asleep



© Copyright Dark Poets Club

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