Mother Nature

I could not have been 

more than fifteen-years-old

when my mother 

told me the story of my aunt's

abortion

at an age

that could not have been

much more than my own.

Fallen twigs crunched

beneath the tires.

 

She spat the words out -

pregnant,

sex,

abortion,

clinic -

as if they had come alive

and, in their shameful manner,

bitten her on the tongue.

 

We had just placed a bouquet of lilies

on my uncle’s grave.

 

The blood must have tasted sour

in her mouth

because she puckered her lips.

Her freckled nose scrunched.

That tangy, metallic smell

of red iron must have been putrid,

an offensive smell

for offensive words.

Despite the air freshener,

the smell of nature lingered.

I remember the way she revealed it,

her voice a rainbow feather duster

in a house of unpolished obscurities.

For over a decade, my family

had stowed away the pain

of a teenaged girl

in a buried, unmarked box

of shame.

 

Wilted leaves were pressed

into the denim of my jeans.

 

She got out of the car

to pump gasoline.

Methanol fumes

crept up my nose and

made my throat tighten

around a question

that threatened to choke me.

What about him?

 

I rolled down the window

and threw a yellow petal out.

 

Chilled autumn air

rushed in through the crack,

and my lungs expanded

to greet it,

much like how she must have

stretched herself,

so vulnerable and so wide,

to welcome him.

 

The freshly cut stems

had dyed my bony fingers green.

 

As I rubbed at the stain of chlorophyll,

I wondered why the boy

who had sowed a seed within her

that he had never intended to water

was not decaying

inside that coffin of dishonor,

inscribed with the epitaph

of a terminated fetus.

 

My nails were blackened

by the embedded grit of earth.

 

I could not have been

more than fifteen-years-old

when I swore

that if a man ever planted

a flower in my garden

that I did not wish

to see bloom in the warmth of spring,

then I would dig it up by its roots

 

with bare hands

and wash away the dirt in the kitchen sink.

Author's Note

I need honest critique, please!!!