Respiratory Haemorrhage
by SM Colgan
CW: Blood
There is blood on your lips but it is not yours. You say it as if it should be a relief, as if it is not a mark of the great horror whose name you dare not speak.
You tried to mop it away, earlier, but missed a droplet at the corner of your mouth that has dried to a flake. (Missed it, unconsciously or not.) You refuse to touch it with your tongue, lest the iron and salt taste will absorb into your body and take it away.
not mine, you say, not mine, not mine
Then whose?
And you cannot say whose because you kissed it off his lips after it came from his lungs.
They would lock you both away, if they knew.
SM Colgan (she/her) is a bi writer living somewhere in Ireland. Her work focuses on emotion, history, sexuality, and relationships, romantic and otherwise. She writes to understand people who are and have been, and to ease the yearning in her chest. She has recently had prose published with Emerge Literary Journal and dreams walking, and poetry with Lucky Pierre Zine. Twitter: @burnpyregorse.