Hemophilia runs in the family
A bleeding disorder
I was fortunate
My sister got the gene, not me
She is a carrier
and has mild Hemophilia
If she had been born a boy, it would have been far more severe
But even with her mild disorder
She spontaneously begins bleeding
Without anything even happening to her
I spontaneously begin bleeding too
Even though nothing is happening to me
But you can't see that bleeding
It's internal
Not inside my body
But inside my soul.
Or something.
I'm not really sure where it hurts, all I know is that it hurt a lot
People say, just be happy!
Don't you want to be happy?
Can't you just ignore it?
NO.
That's like asking my sister
When she spontaneously gets ****** noses
Just stop bleeding!
Don't you want to stop bleeding?
Can't you just ignore the fact that blood is pouring out of you?
NO
just because the pain is not visible
DOESN'T MEAN IT ISN'T THERE.
IT IS NOT ESCAPABLE THE SAME WAY BLEEDING ISN'T
That is why I'm trying to find a distraction from the pain
Because when my sister gets a ****** nose, she just goes and distracts herself with a movie, so she doesn't pay attention to the bleeding
My point is, though
No.
I can't just "be happy"
I'm bleeding too
And it is spontaneous and inexplicable
YOU JUST CAN'T F*CKING SEE IT

Betty Coutu drives a mean Rambler
takes us public school, heathens
to catechism on Saturday morn
Smokes a cigarette like a prima-ballerina
Shifts three on the wheel
drives that clutch to the floor
with her thick leg
Makes the engine roar
a little
“to warm it up”

Turns with the grace of swan
Pavlova or belladonna
Something of beauty
just to watch her
three-finger the wheel through a turn around
all while taking a drag
exhales to ceiling
to music on the radio
Elvis? Roy O, Patsy Cline
circa 1959
Betty's hair is short, uncombed
but she's not without lipstick
lights her smoke with amazing matchbook skills
Calm
like a woman who does it often
takes on wear
with I'm in love, and I don't give a care
She shifts and turns
cigarette balanced like gossip on lips
or between
those first two fingertips
Smoke swirling
amid kids squabbling and whining
in the back seat
No belts back then
till Dad got home
to keep them in line
But, I bet on Betty every time
to get us there
I want to drive like her, so badly!
I sit beside her-- ossified
watching
her smoke and handle
like a total expert
I am distracted
and will surely fumble
my catechism answers
for the nuns
cataclysmically

She drops us off by an icy foot slide
I swear to God to stop back later when we're done
...with prayer and penance  
recitation... and resolvings
to sin no more
Once we're out the door--

back to that forbidden foot-slide

Always had a plan for fun
So did Betty's son
the hemophiliac
Bless myself like an Olympian
and pray for Johnny
before he joins me for a run


hemophilia:
a medical condition in which the ability of the blood to clot is severely reduced, causing the sufferer to bleed severely from even a slight injury. The condition is typically caused by a hereditary lack of a coagulation factor, most often factor VIII.

The words fall from his mouth like blood from a paper cut hemophiliac.  The barrier that once took years to construct within his own soul crumbles like the sands of time.  The breaking of the barrier lifts his spirits farther than heaven dares climb.  With a flash of light he bleeds like the hemophiliac and falls to the lowest pits of hell where Satan loathes himself. With broken wings trying to make flight he is left burdened on the ground like a muddy bird.

These tears of red
Stain a canvas of nothingness
An artful ode to insignificance
The works of a hemophiliac

i expect to bleed
when i am cut open
and hurting
i assume the position
i anticipate the agony
i invite it in
like an old friend

i’ve taught myself to
get up and go
uproot myself when i feel
like i am rotting
and parched
when home doesn’t feel
like home
and love feels like a stab wound
that won’t ever clot

I understand

I repeat it over and over
Until my breathing gets slower
And my vision goes black
and i resort to being a
hemophiliac
i expect to bleed
when i feel anything at all
having a body as delicate
as a wilted flower
has never been easy
for someone who refuses to
drive slowly
or love carefully

I’ve morphed into a tree
Taking hundreds of years to grow
Blooming and wilting
In silence and stillness
Learning to accept that it is here that I am
And here that my body will stay
And it will always be that way

I was born to feel lost
Light years from home
to discover what it means to hurt,
to love,
to allow,
to trust that when i’ve felt it all
ill return to my home in the stars

a cute cutter,            a happy       hemophiliac
a curious                  ******   & a pretty *****
                applied for the job as
knife-thrower's assistant;
   the cutter kept moving
into the blade;           the
hemophiliac froze in place,             terrified;
         the ****** kept squirming in the bonds,
the ***** nodding off,          going limp like
a rag        doll as the target
spun round & round & the
blindfold trick                             went ahead
                      as if the girl was already dead;

thinking  he wanted           to see
America's   blood  in the   street;
he looked in his         heart   finding ther  e
    what he         called  his         children  made of  fire's  /        
     beauty,   yeh,          pink  flames   |         growing    
       great            in the     open   air        beneath  the   .  
    big          .          hands  of  . |
           the   dirtiest       |   city   in the      .           ugly   universe
        of         death where          high   poetry      
comes    true   in        time   w/      [cold   snooch  
dreams  of   a     future   turned  into the   | .         
    told                    truth   of the  
   goddess's      son;    a   |   bad   female  
wife  & mother;
holy  & sweet,           three   inside   heard the   [.]   
                     boy   star  (he licked her sweet *******;
better   full of            |          [the]        American   lady's      
   window       dressing   ;   his     mouth   full of paint upon   |
   hearing the blues           is      |   | rock's          father;
never one to pass on a challenge, Eli
         fucke d the hemophiliac ******
& had to leave Mexico         .  |   .        under an a
               ssumed name

.          

        I found this pen and a
        fully loaded cartridge
        by her side and I am
        wondering what it was
        she intended to write.

        The ink’s blood red as
        you notice, not a ball
        point either, it is a real,
        nibbed hemophiliac, I’d
        say she knew too much.


For

Shireen Abu Akleh