Hope Fell Apart: Blood and Tears

Author: Molli
Tuesday 24th June 2008 at 5:30 pm
Category: Love, Poetry, Relationships, The Ghost Of Miseries Past

Tags: children, miscarriage, us, you

My breath unravels,
a tortured sigh caught in barbed wire.
It streams through wounds
and the wounding things.
I came back to the old haunt
to be kissed and caressed by ghosts
but I have revisited these reminisces
too often.
In my hands – cupped – blood
and old tears.
They touch on spectral images
stain them,
dilute them.
Beneath the weight of hot liquid
memory falls apart.

My thoughts unreel
traversing abysses and rent ground
They scurry through keyholes
and the vein-cracked walls
They go searching out the dream
and faded fantasy
meeting only the dying
and devestated.
In my hands – cupped – blood
and a tiny corpse unrecognisably human.
Seven weeks since waking
to confusion
and shock
horror
Seven weeks since
hope fell apart.

I kept the secret
even as it escaped in gasps of breath
sobs of uncontrolled thought.
I know your dreams do not run
to things of blood and tears
and I would give anything
not to have brought them here to you
but we have been dancing though barbed wire
for so long now
that it seems inevitable to find one of us
ensnared, torn.

I cup the blood in my hands.
I hold a secret funeral.
No one attends.
In my heart
within me
life fell apart.
I let go then
and cannot let go now.

In my dreams
hope fell apart
life departed
in the slow run of blood

and so…

So.

II.

I do not know
will never know
how it feels to look into innocent eyes
carried within vestiges of your face
and mine.
Could I find you in such a being
or would I see only
the dimple which is mine (yours)
the blue eyes which are mine (yours)
the compact body which is mine (yours)?

I do not think I would recognise anything as being
uniquely yours
in a child of ours
until I heard him
her
laugh.
Only then would paternity be revealed.
Your laughter is unfettered,
your easy joy
and unrestrained happiness
are wild
where mine have been tamed
and remain guarded.
Your smile has no descending tilt,
no edges.

I do not know
will never know
the delight of your laughter
bursting forth from a face
that is mine and yours
co-mingled.

Dreaming carries me through brief moments only
and cannot compete with waking
to fingertips which return to me
bloodied.

I understand you
turning away.
Reality scares me too
and I can’t see the beauty in it either
at times
and I know
you would be every bit as afraid
had I held out my hands
cradling a life
with your eyes looking back at you
instead of the death I give you,
the mess of blood
and tears.

In the curve of your spine I find fear now
in its barest arch is the knowledge
that you won’t turn back again
not to kiss
not to touch
not to talk