Gray Moths And The Cold Moon

She is sitting in the rocking chair
on the front porch, watching the
the pure gray moths look for places
to hide, and she is trying to make
herself have a realization.
Sometimes she wished she
could hear everything dying around her
because if nothing else
it would potentially make her
used to it.
When her little brother was born
dead her mother didn’t cry once.
He wasn’t the first child that she
lost, and she told her that to create
life like a mother does you needed
to be able to stare back into death’s
eyes even when he beat you.
It wasn’t until she was a teenager that
she figured out all of that was bullshit,
and her mother would intentionally cut
her fingers with broken wine bottles,
in the mornings when she was alone
in her room.
Nothing in nature is supposed to be weak,
or at least that’s what they tell us when
we’re young. The whole world turned
to red as the sun rose, and it didn’t
change back until the cold moon
was high above the mountains.