The Donation

It was a deep cut, gouged almost to the bone,
And when the blood flowed, it was almost as if
There would be none left the way it sprayed
Onto the floor.  Such vitality clogging the carpet fibres,
She never would get the stain out no matter how much
Scrubbing was done.  Just another task; it didn't matter.
She felt as if it were some donation to a lost but worthy cause,
The use of that knife, that it would ease something
In the head, cause a passing-out, a paleness, 
Anything rather than the terror of the day ahead.
An emptying of bilges might make them clean again
And it was such a pleasing stain spreading red and angrily
Away.  Already she could feel the dread draining from
Her skin, until in her head was space and peace and silence,
A place where she could tread at ease and not feel
Pushed, prodded, pulled into shapes she did not fit.
Her head filled with white and cream, pale clouds
Gleaming silver-lined, until the more the red poured, the paler
And more peaceful became the scene within.  It was
Ravishing, and she watched, detached, as her legs calmly
Gave way.  A good day, the only one of peace she'd ever
Known and she felt like a bird as she flew up, up, and out
Into the widest blue sky her eyes had ever seen.

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