Copyright (c) 1989 Ashtoreth (William Haas)
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                           fear of blood

can you stand the sight of blood? your blood?
prick your finger. squeeze.
a red drop grows out of a point of nothing
in the flesh-colored blank that has filled your vision
as you anticipated losing that one drop.

outside of you it grows brighter, healthier
as if you confine it, take away its life.
outside of you it grows to a pulsating, eye-hurting crimson
no matter how dark you had made it
it clots, as if to form its own flesh
as if it could do perfectly well without yours.

your body steals from blood.

why do we fear the sight of it?
the sight of blood is the sight of a thoughtless red pool of slime
inhabiting every one of our bodies,
a dead thing racing through each of us endlessly
chained within us, suddenly escaping its slavery.

--Ashtoreth, 1989