I imagined, once, that in a fever,
I would meet the ghost who had been my mother,
but instead, I saw my own face, ravaged
by the savageness of life and time,
and if that woman ever loved me,
she had long ago forgotten how to show it.
I sat outside my own body for days,
waiting for my brain to let me back in,
for the ice to melt and restore me to self,
for the black birds to stop cackling in my ear,
anxious to remind me of my unkindness to ravens,
how I was a girl helpless to stop a murder of crows.
I pray that when I wake up, I won't remember anything,
even though I know that I always remember everything,
especially who I used to be, who I am now,
and who I might have been, before the fever,
before the melting of all the good things in the world.

12/02/2013

Author's Note: A spiritual successor of sorts.

Posted on 12/02/2013
Copyright © 2023 Aaron Blair