a history of nosebleeds by Sky Davis

it comes mid-sentence, somewhere between (sorry) and (i didn’t mean to)

blood blooms sharp as memory, thick as inheritance.

i grab a tissue. tilt my head.

my mother taught me this: never back, never swallow

what wants to leave.

(some people were taught to bleed politely)

the first time it happened,

i was twelve, the principal said "wrong shoes"

and my nose cracked open. a warning shot.

it happened again when my father’s name

hit the concrete of a job application and sank.

the blood stains my teeth. a mouthful of metal.

“just a little blood,” my mother whispers. “just clean it up.”

she doesn’t ask why the body breaks at the sound of no.

we don’t ask those kinds of questions.

i’ve bled in bathrooms, in boardrooms.

bled through denial letters and price tags.

at the embassy, i left a red fingerprint on my own passport —

they handed it back like it was still clean.

in the waiting room, a woman crossed herself.

(god bless you) she said.

as if faith could stopper the leak.

my mother never told me it would be like this.

how a body will split itself in the name of love.

how milk turns sour when no one drinks it.

how the sink stains pink, and you call it nothing.

(some days i walk through the world

knowing i am only one thin membrane away

from spilling myself whole.)

i touch my nose. the tissue blooms dark.

the bleeding always stops. but the body remembers.

the body always remembers.