sometimes, I bleed out a stanza,
standing in the shower,
watching its rivulets running down the insides of my thighs

what does it mean to own a poem?
—i laboured its music from my loins—
so it must belong to me

do you lose a piece of yourself
when your words make their way onto another’s tongue?
or into the lines of another’s pen, inking their meanings into your margins?
what does it mean to crack the world open
and have somebody else’s hand stitch it back up?
—is sharing a re-creation, or a loss?

the placenta remains uncut—the poem is stained with its mother’s blood
blood which cries out,
“this poem belongs to me.”