Thursday, January 16, 2025

The Knife Flower

 

There it was

sticking up from the soil

like a skeletal hand from the crypt.

 

I didn’t expect it,

and to be honest,

I had stopped looking down

for quite a while.

 

It split my heel open

and curled around my ankle—

how could I

let it do me like this?

 

Strong

hold.

 

And now,

this ghost snake

has coiled around my insides—

my demons

 

barking out

ancient names

as if they’re in charge.

 

I can’t stop the tremoring

of a thin flame running through me,

a living Siberian ice maiden

with mercury blade.

 

It seems

this grief has no rules

and neither do

the nightmares I feel condemned to relive

 

while the mirror of my self-respect

asks me

if I really want to keep

doing this to myself.

 

Do you?

        Do you?

                Do you?

 

Just

stop.

 

Stop.

 

But, torment, too,

has no rules

when you’re split in two,

 

offering no answers

to questions

I can’t quite

bring myself to ask—

 

the mirrored me

begging to fracture completely

the us

I am

 

or bury the pretty,

dead-white, petal fist

in mudblood

 

until I am whole, and strong

enough,

to crush it

 

again.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

OLN #376

10 comments:

  1. those ghost snakes are relentless. and no, grief has no rules.

    fantastic title, too. ~

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love the way you began with a shocking image, Jennifer, and in such a conversational tone built it up so subtly. I love the phrases ‘a living Siberian ice maiden with mercury blade’ and ‘bury the pretty, dead-white, petal fist in mudblood’. A powerful poem about how grief creeps up on you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You got this! Nothing dead is stronger than the life and light inside you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wonderful Jennifer — love you friend… 🙂

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is so nighmarish image... the torture without rules (expect the pain)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Like the whole story here, from the beginning right through to the end, Jennifer. Simply gorgeous writing. It also gave me the Stephen King feels! In that everything seems fine until one day, the most innocuous thing has you gripped, unable to escape. So glad you crushed it! I've no doubt you will keep crushing it 🩷

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a compelling write, Jennifer! I love "until I am whole, and strong
    enough,
    to crush it
    again."

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm not sure what, exactly, this split you describe is, but I do know intimately what it is to fight off a destroying impulse. It takes everything you've got and then some. Such destroyers are patient and hit you at your weakest, but they are also like vampires in that, ultimately (and in my own experience, not presuming to speak for you) they have to be invited in, despite all their seeming power.

    ReplyDelete
  9. So many perfections of imagery enclosing every fracturing pain and torment of memory and piercing sorrow, Jennifer, I literally held my breath reading. This really got to me as I knew it so well:
    "this ghost snake
    has coiled around my insides—
    my demons
    barking out
    ancient names
    as if they’re in charge."

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for your thoughts!