Hannah Bailey DRAWING BLOOD

Hannah Bailey The room is bare, my footsteps echo off the hollow walls. I sit before the window – thin film separating me from endless

possibility. I reach out to touch the view, today, a little too hard; a little too curiously I press and press

into my faded reflection until it shatters around me, leaving the wind suspended and gaping.

I fall among the broken shards, scattering my limbs across a field of small knives.

So numb from the whirring of the world that at first I do not feel

wet lesions running over my spine. I wrinkle, the craters filling with crimson ink.

Emerging from the glassy bed, I push the broken pieces together into a pile on the floor, leaving

a space for my cross-legged form to nestle quietly amidst the ruined hope. I finger the sharp edges,

feeling the weight of each heavy through my fragile bones. I close my fist tight.

The glass forges shallow pits along the planes of my palms,

drawing from each lifeline the mud of endurance.

I begin, gathering the small prisms into unlikely pairs, sorting joy with sorrow, anguish with laughter;

the two spines slowly wake. They find each other and slither soberly into

a knotted silhouette. They move as one, snaking towards my feet and up

my legs. Twisting, spiralling; the beast of antithesis

wrapping me in a scathing embrace, engraving course truths along my skin.

A dyadic inscription of rivalry mapped onto my flesh.

I wake to birdsong and the trembling sound of wind against empty glass.

The serpent waits, its heads rest lazily upon stray dust. It unfolds itself as I stagger, once again, to my feet,

dried blood tight on bare legs. Motioning towards the open frame, it uncoils itself

a passageway; inversed lovers yielding the path

for my weeping soles to tread. I nod, stepping into its wake.

I scan the emptiness once more, and it slithers infinitely out.

Hannah is an Australian/Filipino actor, musician, poet and teacher based in Brooklyn. She has performed OffBroadway with The Irish Repertory Theatre and Bard City, and her original music can be found on all streaming platforms.