i remember the first time
she says
lightly tipping golden syrup on to her pancakes
he slit his wrists downward like this -
your mum tuts and sucks liquid amber off quick fingertips
moving down the sheer white and iridescent blue
underside
demonstrating
you were two when your uncle first tried to die
but it was far from the last time
and liquid velvet made his heart beat so slow that
his blood waited, hesitant and
he went quietly
but not quickly
into the night and
suddenly
its family truths on the florescent menu
suddenly
you remember the box that he gave you
when you were nine and the wood was carved -
inside was a butterfly but one wing was crushed
and your breath went tight,
chest constricting because
it had felt like goodbye
and now you know it was
you know who else liked morphine though, don't you?
and you just look away because you don't like
the theme of the room
the patriarchal symmetry
the certainty that you are not the only one who feels
inside like you're dirty -
that's right, your grandfather
every day
his pint of tea and Valium
kept the doctors and bad dreams away
your eyes flick up to the flippancy
in her tone
and you wonder if she still feels alone
like that time you found that note
but couldn't find your name
and you wondered
is that because she blames
you
maybe
it's just one of the reasons you never told her
about the baby
but it's more than that
you never really told anyone
because you knew you weren't ready
to be a mum
head and heart strangled between two purple lines
of course he got away with it
he always seemed fine
though
apart from that one time on the phone
and it feels like a cruel irony
a bitter retreat
that you love morphine too
because it feels like the womb
the one that didn't want you
the one you didn't want
history repeats itself
DNA kaleidoscopes
until your body feels like a tomb
for all that came before you
but
you are alive with particles
fibres of being that know
that you are not the sum of these mistakes
your families, your own
the bones
of your body are a chorus, a hymn
to the secret within
that you are made from a universe
that collapsed to grow
shrank to expand
and
inside you is a storm
that bellows in the darkest corners
where you have bent,
where you have broke
and then again, somehow you rose
because you are more than what you cannot forgive
you are more than your invisible scars
you are made from a universe that loves you
you are made of stars