I used to bleed here

I used to bleed here. This is the place I used to bleed. I was not afraid to bleed here. We bled here. This is the place I used to tell you how my skin, scalded and peeling rage, my eyes shedding tears like puss, how all of that feels when molded into pixels, when splayed flat on a screen, how to make words into three dimensions: pain, loss and grief.

From that place I come again.

Secrets more secrets undone--kept so long, generations bear the heavy weight of tumors, origins unspoken. She could have told me. She could have held me. She could have stayed. Except that she was me once.

And either way, we bleed, if not here, then in white porcelain tubs under jets of warm water, your cheek against mine, you promising, me alone, fists against walls, my own tears washing away the blood.