In time, from lemonade to ink

Submerged in the echoes
of my parents' love-making,
was I, a seed, somersaulting
in vitamin water.

I gushed out like the lemon
from a spilled drink,
sour and sticky, a quiet fruit
nested in the dark.

Cries became a call,
her voice, my lullaby.
And like a musician,
she built my skin.

Tile by ivory tile, she built
as if I was her piano; built
until my arms became keys
for men to run their fingers through.

Until skin reached bone;
my shoulders, my clavicle,
structures for the drapery
which would soon become wrinkles.

In time I'd be nothing but skeleton,
the ghost in an open rib cage.
Keys will not serve to open,
but to close, like a coffin's door.

In time, I'll be nothing
but a stain in your bedsheets,
a memory in your notebook,
the picture at your bedside.

In time, I'll crumple, I'll fade
like the paper of this poem.
I'll return the birth I borrowed,
spilling lemonade and ink.

27/08/2015
2:30 PM