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I worshiped the Buddha in you. Squeezed my knees onto sharp stones and sliced. Wrenched from my divinity, I groped for yours while the dark gnarls starved me.

Vengeful oblivion.

You loved me for a time, but gladly shoved me deeper into the abyss. Self-righteously savaged the "blight" off your beloved tree.

A mercy that you lacked the conviction to fully exterminate me, which you could have, whichyouresistedbutjustbarely,

which your father before you did not, which my father before me did not.

The mirror image was unbearable. You poisoned and chased me out: hiding gleeful behind your professed care -- your victimization -- Releasing me back into the wilds of my own brokenness.

What you did to me, you did to yourself.

Returned to the wilds of your brokenness. The traumatized rage that haunts my nightmares.

When it ended, you blamed the ancestors for our bloodmemory feud. I think you were just pissed and looking for reasons.

Nevertheless, the enmity was resurfaced. One of us will sweep the earth with tears and face the Yama we created. Imagination balks at the mountain ahead, the event horizon of energy and grief, but the earth has seen its like before. Xe smiles.

Body weeps and softens. But the screams.

image description: a bleak, shadowed woods opening to a plains in the distance. dots of rain and splashes of red bird line the branches.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash