under my panties
I can bleed in secret, no one interfering in the hot
wet
blood stains enamel
but no one knows what the speckles on my cheerful yellow door
are from
intimacy with myself
the way I must touch myself,
gentle but firm, to slip the tampon in
I have layers of skin that hug me before I bleed. They cling to me even as I betray myself.
blood is better than noose. Scars better than red bath. I have never held a gun anyway.
Six.
I didn’t bleed the first time. I didn’t know then it was because it wasn’t the first time.
Seven.
Head wounds bleed. A lot. My foot held steady on the accelerator driving you to hospital.
me, in between you and bouncers.
me, wondering if you knew you were raping her or not.
My mom dropped a stone chess board on her toe.
It was the first time I heard her bleed. The first time I saw her swear.
I wanted to see her bones, too, not believing, really, that something had pierced her silence.
Nine.
Blood in black and white photographs tastes metallic. Like death. Those Photographs in That History lesson, waking the skulls in the back of my head.
I am not in control.
ever
Sarah Godsell is a 32-year-old woman, born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has lived in Joburg all her life. She is a historian, poet, and teacher. She has been writing since she can remember but began performing in 2009. She has been published in journals nationally and internationally, such as Poetry Potion, New Coin, and Illuminations. Her debut poetry collection Seaweed Sky, came out in 2016 and was a 2018 HSS awards fiction finalist. She believes in poetry and history as activism, crucial world building tools. Although often pulled down, she consistently and stubbornly chooses Up.