Sticky red blood in my foes
As I cut their flesh off,
Smelly rotten red liquid
Paints the white canvas in the room.

Beneath the garden
shed, her bones bleed
Without much notice of
decay.

Smells of rotten garbage
Permeated the building
Of her demise
Without much notice of
isolation.

Souless, lifeless carcass
Becomes her as she loses
Unconsciousness beneath the
Rotting soil.

And the malevolence
Took over.

"write a poem,"

Sylvia Plath commanded summer before last.
Her voice in all places I looked.
Avoided and silenced letters
Crawled in front of my mind and knocked on my skull:
A polite entry into their society with a family,
Other words in Gregorian chant:
You cannot undo insanity in the third decade.

I tell the others, the eyes around me, that these words
Feel like birth announced just now,
With no time to prepare or plan, to nest and caress
The down feathery face, or kiss his tiny mouth.

A poem emerges with a scream,
Bony hands encircling my throat and pushing
Into formation. The existence of new words--
Always the ones in the language before,
Though in this birth the roots twist under the tree.

Stay home, they say.
But my home is no longer a safe haven.
I’m surrounded by demons,
Threatening to destroy me.
They watch my every move,
Viciously plotting for when I fail.
I fall to the floor screaming like a Banshee.
“Leave me alone!”
The demons retreat with devilish grins.
They will be back,
For I cannot hide from them forever.

~sdr