clarke bowers [d8/cb] fin

i have grown so used to the ebony funeral dress,
that for a moment, i thought it was a part of my skin.

i grew up in the graveyard,
burying boy
after boy
after boy.

i once counted the number of deaths in my family
on my fingers.

one- owen bowers-fox.

two- noah bowers.

three- cody bowers-fox.

i felt
like snapping them
as if they were twigs.

when they put cody in the ground,
my fist collided with the mirror
perched on my dresser.
i remember
the glass and the blood,
leaving my knuckles a ruin.

my image stood broken before me-
flesh shockingly fair against the black dress,
steely and blue and cold, cold eyes,
ebony hair, dark as the sky enveloped in midnight,

and bloodied lips
from all the biting and biting
and biting.

i hardly recognized her
but she was me.
i was her.