Civil War, The Malignancy Of Betrayal Poem by Gina Teel

I imagine it bloomed within me,
that small round berry,
As I was throwing a load of whites
into the washer.

The moment it emerged
from wherever it is that enemies
stealthily lie,
I did not know. Did not sense the tissue give way, did not feel the burgeoning tenacity of cell birthing cell birthing cell.

Unable to commemorate the emergence of this thief, this un-miracle, this uninvited guest at the table,
I assign it a hypothetical moment of debut - one so banal it seems appropriate.
A down-grade of sorts, a deliberate negation.

In that second of a second, something shifted, went off kilter,
rose up defiantly from its den.
Coward. A fraud the size of a bean.

How? How did I not know?

From within it grew.
But not like my babies,
not the divine intentional cells.
Not the sweet heaviness of love made flesh, desired life working to assemble.

It is not knitted of the same yarn.

It is a ragged, filthy cloth, deep stain on pale satin,
its dirty sword swinging wide as wings through my frame.
Like a fallen archangel, its blade a blight, spreading rot in its wake.

A personal Judas Iscariot.
My own blood betrays me.