The Veil Between Us

A lament in thirteen breaths

2 min readFeb 4, 2025

I was born in water,
screamed my red mouth open,
kissed salt upon the tongue
of a drowning world.

My mother knelt in shadow,
her hands a cradle’s clasp,
her voice a river’s hush,
her prayers a rusted chain.

O hush, my mother, hush —
the night is lined with ghosts,
their hands upon my throat,
their breath upon my glass.

I walked where ivy gnawed
the bone-white ribs of houses,
where windowpanes yawned wide
as teeth in wind’s cold mouth.

The streets, all slick with morning,
unraveled beneath my step.
I gathered crows in silence,
let their wings unmake my name.

O hush, my mother, hush —
your voice is tangled wire,
your hands are split with ash,
your hymns unlit with flame.

I saw my face in water,
saw the trembling of my skin,
the fever-bright of being,
the hunger in my eyes.

The clock unraveled hours,
and the rooftops hummed with crows.
I counted them by dying,
one by one by breath.

I burned my hands in winter,
held the frost against my lips,
broke the ice to hear it
cry in silver sheets.

O hush, my mother, hush —
the night is a broken spindle,
the wind a voice unthreading,
the dark a needle’s bite.

My father carved the silence,
pressed his palm into the dust,
spat the morning from his mouth
like seeds upon the sill.

And still, I walk in water,
carry winter in my hands,
let the crows consume my name,
let the wind unwrite my breath.

O hush, my mother, hush —
I have swallowed all your ghosts.