A Billion Burning Dreams

Splitting A grain of salt that sits on the soul. Itself, an opened wound. The sting of my own secrets emerges, a jack-in-the-black box. A shadow on a spring. I sense my mother in my disposition. The dismissal of backhanded transgressions. Passive aggressive expressions passed off as if shields would not weep if they had eyes. I share her pain-impregnated laugh, the screams that sink in the corners of her mouth. She was a kind woman. She raised me right. Spoken as if she weren’t still alive. How many times must we die in each other’s arms before we can be called a family? This house is infested with sabotage, self-fulfilling prophecies that profess:

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