Ink-Stained Hands

I am a burning thing.

I was born in a house blessed by sacred flames,

skin consecrated with droplets of plum purple and blood red,

lungs blackened with the undying breath of something unfathomable.

Whatever god, goddess, or deity that exists out there in the ether, 

beyond the conflagration of my existence,

I understand their fear in approaching me.

For I am perpetually dying,

a thing in between survival and extinction – 

and it is hard to understand anything, anything, that can exist in between.

I was born with a flaking complexion,

as a death-rattle songstress,

into an anesthetized and branded world.

and I will never know any different.