I hide poetry in medicine bottles and paint in blood.

They are accusations. J’accuse.

You were distant when I sowed the forest of words I wouldn't write.

It doesn’t matter. I hid it in Xibalba, the Mayan hell.

Because you wouldn’t look there.

Because the rivers run in circles. Because I know you fear renewal.

Because you are an invasive species.

You said you were a friend and I was a weapon. Whose weapon was I supposed to be?

If I am a dancing sword, who made me? Where am I from?

Was I born on Bearskin Neck, in tearing winds? You were there.

You called up a winter storm, made the ocean thunderous and invisible.

Summoned us up like a story, tirer de l’oubli.

If you had worn a red cape, I would have died there. A wolfling drowning in the sea.

Later I hear that you fled the sea. You fled away inland. You fled up the mountains.

You fled towards the sky. When the land ran out you built a tower.

I heard the tower collapsed.

Me, I just wandered to distant shores.

Always near the sea. Close to saltwater and fog horns. Close to drowning.

Over time I swallowed a mountain of pills and defecated the ghosts of medicines.

I heard a thousand twanging instruments rise up from the waters.

I forgot the scent and shape of your rose tree.

And this.

Now you are counting pebbles on my beaches.

Again you are trying to shape the world into a jumbled bunch of narratives.

No. The world is a ball of thunder caught between two great flames.

You can’t have it.

This is the version of the myth where Hope escapes.

In this story you enter Duat with two ibs.

You are devoured.