I counted five nosebleeds today

If you lose enough blood to fill a cup, seek medical attention. The last time I had this many was 19 years ago. A little boy in a white shirt full of roses. My mother tearing napkins up to stop the bleeding, feeding wounds like hungry mouths. Holding me close like it was her fault somehow. This body was hers once, after all. I think it was trying to tell me a poem. Is repeating it today. It's hard to get the words out with the blood all on my mouth, but it's something about how once the tissue scars, it tears again more easily. Grief etched on the inside of my nose. I cut it off to spite her face. My house littered with blooming roses, and I'm nothing but a hungry mouth tearing up my body. I've read too many poems on grief to have two living parents. One day that won't be true. She stopped the bleeding in the end, but no one wants their child to drink an empty cup. So let me give you back what's yours. The words all on my mouth, my overflowing nose.

Shailesh Vasandani is a Filipino and Indonesian poet. They write out of Brooklyn, NY.