In the big storeroom, on the old back side... There you are, a stream of salty tears, and a curse just turned!
You, you, the same woman who refused to let a fetus be carried in her womb, are today crying over the pain of its birth? Did your old refusal collude with death, causing it to fall into an incomplete, deformed piece, covered in blood, that lived in you for less than five months?
The wall supports you. You flinch against it like a cat that's been run over. You groan. You feel the blood rush. You feel it pouring rapidly from your hole. Its red streams down your thighs, your knees, your feet. It runs in a zigzag pattern with the heat of a fresh wound. It drips and drips until it mixes with the soap suds on the floor. “Damn it and a thousand times more.”
Your tongue mutters resentments, cursing the earth that urged its soap to make you slip.
Your hands are trembling. From where you are crouching, you search for anything rough and smooth. Something with the texture of a sponge. Your palms sink into the sponge, absorbing the burning sensation of your fingers. Squeezing the fever of pain away.