"The Past"—New for National Poetry Month

New for National Poetry Month, a poem: "The Past"

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The Past

—Bacil Donovan Warren

Your wounding edges scrape

And through scraping, reveal deep things

Tendons and veins and arteries

Bones and blood and brain

But also fears and searing anger

Hate—love—acidic regret

Emotional ties, long since cut and left for dead

Are resurrected, vampiric in their frenzy of awakening and rebirth.

Cycles of pulsating energy

Melancholy, tear-stained missing

And overly joyous rejoining

These things, revealed to air and light

Turn into a muted, ruddy mess

Crimson and gleaming to start

Dark, sticky, and thick at the end

Suffocating coat of coagulated

Past

Choking out the life and breath of the

Now—Future—forever