Open my eyes to the darkness, I see nothing but obsidian walls, their immensity
storm charges, wind and rain fall, the energy heightens

My head hammers and stars swim, silver sheen on phantom koi, I feel the peak of pain
the skull shifts

The fever builds, my thoughts humid, as my body temperature plummets, goose flesh and tremors
I inhale a lung’s full capacity, exhaling an incantation

The hemorrhaging commences

My weakening

Amniotic fluid, and the still, of a soft violet face

The circle doesn’t break, my body withering outside, clasping fingers about a sliver of moon, from the underbelly of a whisper
I cast: my tongue, my heart, the last energy of this life

Ambient noise and voices fade…silence and her infant face my only vision…and a breath opens..stutters to a cry…a crescendo building, pulling me with it

And the blood ceases its run

I’m weak, but she breathes
we sync, and her otherworldly eyes catch mine
gobsmacked

I read it wrong all along:
I’m not what’s new to her
she heralds the dawning of me

E.A. O'Connell