ABEL AND CAIN IN A PINK PETRI-DISH
The weight of the world sits on the shoulders of a red apple. / And you! An apple cheeked lad born from the dark womb of Eve of Eden, cry for your brother Abel—death on your cheeks, heaven resting on the brink of your eyelashes. / You can taste God’s anger on your red red tongue, but was God angrier at your mother for disobeying him or you for killing your brother? / If you knew a cross would absolve all your sins, you would have crucified yourself at birth; your mother’s silk umbilical cord shimmering around your neck. / When your milk teeth fell as you suckled on the bosom of a black sheep, jealousy grew instead of molars; and may God have mercy! Your mouth was always open. / Sinful and wishful you wander the grassy hills like broken bones and split ends. / At dusk, you see your brother sitting under a lemon tree, his head bent over his bare knees; he tells you he loves you, and you wish you can bite off his sinew; shred him into tiny pink ribbons and hang him from a nearby tree—iridescent; like shimmering beetle wings under a pink sun; a wishing well or a wish you well? / Your eyes, like most things circular and poetic, ache for winged seraphs and sharp objects. / You can’t write to God; your pen keeps turning into a pink thorny rose; nail and cuticle bouquet; nailed to a cross-shaped rose. / Forgive me Father for I have sinned. / Forgive me Father for I have sinned. / Forgive me Father for I have sinned. / Forgive me Father for I have sinned. / Forgive me Father for I have sinned. / Forgive me Father for I have sinned. / You fed me bread with your rosemary scented hands, but you never loved me. / You ran your shell-pink fingertips through my coarse raven hair, but you never loved me. / You grew pearlescent blueberries under my feet, but you never loved me. / You loved my brother, so I killed him. / Underneath rose bushes in Golgotha I buried him, along with all the letters I wrote you with my rose pen, my heart aching—bleeding, drip drip drip—a knife tearing through soft vanilla skin and hitting creamy bone; a pen scratching tender bloodthirsty confessions. / This is my sacrament; my eucharist. / More than one brother died that day; we are Abel and Cain in a Pink Petri-Dish.
Raneen Rabadi, 26, Jerusalem ✯
“Raneen Rabadi is an (aspiring) author & poet. Slowly, over the years she has metamorphosed into a grasshopper; a dove; a stingray—anything but a girl.”