Black Hole

Last night, I made ritual, for the crater-sized black hole of victim-sadness living in between my uterus and my psoas muscle, on the left side of my belly. I’ve never met this black hole before, but my stamped feet and whimpered begging means I’ve been cohabitating in my body for quite some time now, and pretending I’ve never met it makes me a bit of a liar. 

My black hole pulls on my bladder and stagnates lymph around my pubic bone. It twists my uterine ligaments when I bleed. A doctor who I’ve never met and wouldn’t trust with my fingernail polish might have called it “endo,” which is pop culture speak for “we don’t have the funding to figure out your blood mysteries, sorry, incarnate male next time around.” In normal-girl speak, it just gives me that sweetly familiar lower back ache of too many hours bent over the oven, and too many mothers made silent. 

Last night, at my altar, I spoke in upside-down tongue to my mother and my mother’s mother, saw rips of lightning tear through quantum-ville, and watched the pond ripple moonlessly. Candles were lit and tears were shed and I was alone near my altar, dancing with my devils for a room full of ghosts. I heard no applause, but jumped and squealed at the rumbles of the windows and the wind. Maura, they sigh, you invited us here.

One day, I’ll admit I like my ghostly company. 

I hold my smoke in my lungs and extinguish the burning plants on my palms and wrists. I wait for the tickle of burning singe to tell me a price has been paid.  (The Allmother doesn’t need your money, but extraction without exchange smells of rape and tastes like gasoline.) I pay my price and chant my tongues and fingertip my candles to smoke. Blood healing needs blood magic, so this witch cuts hair and touches flame. 

I’ve never met a black hole before, and I’ve never healed a bloodline. 

Besides for when I’ve only ever been, a bloodline healing black hole. 

And when the moon rests, the ghosts won’t let me forget it.