She is the woman I follow,
whenever I enter a room
she has been there-

with her hair smelling of lavender & lions
with her dress blacker than Indian ink,
with her shoes moving like lizards
over the waves of silken rug.

Sometimes I think of her as my mother
but she died by her own hand
before I was born.

She drowned in the gushing of her own blood
She choked on metaphors.
She suckled a poisonous snake at her breast
like Eve.

She is no virgin.
Her eyelids are purple.
She sleeps around.

Wherever I go I meet her lovers
Wherever I go I hear their stories
Wherever I go they tell me
different versions of her suicide.

I sleep with them in gratitude.
I sleep with them to make them tell.
I sleep with them as punishment.

She is the woman I follow
I wear her cast-off skin.
She is my mother, my daughter.
She is writing this epitaph.
~SAS