The One Inside Poem by Ojone Amedu

It is happening now. For some reason, it is happening again.
It was building up and I knew it, it would rush out soon.
No one can save me, nobody knows.
Dust the cobwebs from my drawing board. I must begin again.
Wailing pounds my head, a banshee's cry for her prey.
Slit my arm, one more cut wouldn't hurt. No, slit my chest and take the blood.

Then write my name. Do it again. Take out my heart, take all of it.
It is happening again.
I call her the Sensitive Recluse. And she's here again.
I longed for someone to keep her at bay.
I thought it was something else, I thought it was him.
But it's her, and she is crying for blood. My blood.

She will have it, all of it.

So write my name in the limited waterfall of my maroon ink
Chalk it in deep red against the seething black. Write!


So I can remember myself, in her silence. Again.