Ashmilk

"Ashmilk"

I do not cry for the girls I once was.

I buried them with my own hands—

one beneath the altar of obedience,

the other in a bed of silk and salt.

Their voices live in my marrow still,

but I no longer mistake their ache for mine.

They wept into the night hoping someone would come.

I rose at dawn and became the one.

I have worn shame like a corset—

tight, laced by trembling hands

who thought pain was the price of beauty.

Now I wear scars like pearls,

each strung by a lesson I paid in blood.

There are names I no longer speak aloud.

Not out of fear—

but reverence.

Let the dead lie.

Let the ghosts rot into compost.

Let me bloom.

I am not soft anymore.

I am soil, scorched and sovereign.

I have been fucked, fed, forgotten—

and still I rise,

not as the innocent,

not as the vixen,

but as the witness.

I am the breath between sob and scream.

I am the mouth that blesses and damns.

I am the matron of memory and midnight.

The milk of my spirit is ash.

And still—

it feeds.

So come to me, child.

Lay your secrets down.

I will not flinch.

I have eaten darker things than your grief

and still kept my teeth.