Ink Stains

DASHA VALLE


RED

 

Is that right, my dear?

Is Love why you really ache?

 

Did you crave 

Its ambriosic warmth to lay 

Gloved hands on your heart, the wick,

To trace each tear-dropped quivering break 

In slippery golden seams?

 

For Love to catch that dying flame.

To clutch the cinders

The match in water.

Do you remember that grey still?

 

Before it kissed the wind.

Now ripple, ripple,

Where day’s waking thrum

pummels every breath,

Flicker

 

My dear, 

Can’t you hear its hiss?

Before its lusting arms wrap 

you and wash over your face

And the waves on your thighs

 

My dear, your trembling hands 

Cradle whispering, bickering, teetering, lies

My dear, why, could you not see?

 

The wind found a way to make water bleed.

 

Bathe the moon in rose red light

And shivering scars

And late-night car 

Rides, snarls and

Gnarly talons that gripped your thighs 

 

My deer, backed into the corner

When monstrous lights

Hits monstrous eyes

His monstrous eyes

 

Blazed

And blind—

The grinding of porcelain cracks

And broken wax.

 

So please, my dear, 

Beware the red moon. 

Beware its lovingly crimson hue. 

 


BLUE

 

dear bruises

why won’t you fade?

fade, fade, to

 a time when

 2 + 2 once equalled 4. 

 

when everything that came before

could wane

and sink 

no more. 

 

but like sunken fruit 

you mottle, 

your sickly hue achored to the peel. 

so I ask instead

for teeming rains

to numb away 

the littered footrprints. 

 for waves to thunder, no, let each tide 

send tremors through my spine, i 

do not care if they break my sails

if it means i may take breath the next day

without pain. 

 

please, 

 

i beg, 

carve my fear out.

 

too deeply has blue bled into every fissure and vein

and brittled my skull

and rolled my glass eyes

side to side

my face, stained 

in sinful watery streaks, you called me

freak

 

You

 

and your threats that gurgled through the floor. 

 

You.

 

 who thread your ribbons through my ribs

right through 

constrict

don’t move 

 

You

And your necromancer’s touch.

 

You tatted skin, You 

Punctured holes, You

Revelled in the way the

Teeth of the page tasted Me

 

And when that wasn’t enough 

You took to glass screens

To sink your teeth

To your delight 

Half a dozen times 

Your words, your knives

 

Your sangreal feast. 

 

I pay the price for what you’ve wrought.

These bruises come from 

Your bones. Bones you 

battered against my 

Skin, car, table and clothes.

 

The way 

Your hungry growls 

Closed up 

My throat 

And choked.

 

 And

Choke—

 

The breath you stole was not yours to take. 

 

No more. 

No more. 

 

 


Dasha Valle is an Australian-Peruvian writer, passionate about the intricate web of language. She avidly experiments with her writing through her interwoven study of linguistics and creative writing at Macquarie University. Dasha often examines themes of love and loss through impressionistic works of poetry and prose. 

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Childhood Confessions – A Memoir