Drilling a spring well in the backyard of her arse I discovered a little package buried deeply by her old self It was wrapped tightly in shame and a deathwish and secured with the padlock of a child's survival But for my aesculapian bent I'd have been wise to leave well enough alone what the years so dearly kept in safety Predictably the small box exploded in my face the soonest I pried its lock lacerating my soul with the ten thousand shards of its grief It was the mother and her coat hangers that came thrashing at me in her chemically induced trance It was the father in his drunken stupor beating the mother that blood ran aground It was the trauma of self-preservation at risk the infinite sadness of being unwanted It was the impulse to disappear -- the collapsing of a self as yet unformed and strong enough to stand, to know better For those would-be Good Samaritans I have the following advice: Exorcism comes with a price -- Post nubila Phoebus -- He who frees the daemons owns the soul (but only sometimes) 2 VII 08