By Accident

By accident
I’ve cut myself.
Considering 
the number of knives 
in the house,
I am surprised it 
happens so seldom.

As always, I put
my freshly-opened thumb
to my lips as if to draw
the freed blood back
to its home. 

Surely it had rejoiced
at first touch of open air,
and I resented that joy.
What warm life, released
from its prison, would not
feel such release?
But to my mind
it belongs in the dark,
in my darkness.
I cannot let it go
so I suck it back in.
It may die on my lips, as so much
of what I’ve let go
has; nonetheless
I need it more
than it needs 
to be free.

I bind the wound
out of habit. I wash the knife 
out of fear of discovery.
I write this all down
out of fear of thinking more
about all this, and in the end
I put the knife back within easy reach,
back where it belongs.