Origin by Gemma E. Mahadeo I wish to pick up the forest floor and drape its blanket about my exposèd form. The colour seeps from my face into the mossy earth at my heels. I peer down at my bare feet and see my red brown streaked calves; a puddle of blood saturates the ground. My legs piston, my soles witness the moss squelch, my bludgeoned ankles are stained with mud. The natural hue of my wrists is tattooed with the bruises from the fingers of angry male possession. My mouth is smeared with the porridge of vomit and cheap wine or blood I know not which wiping the corners of lips till it cracks and burns. I was walking in my forest. I do not remember how I came to be in this state. The dress that hangs off this rack clings suffocatingly to the sweat on my back. my décolletage appears razed by bramble barbs; dripping over my breasts is my life substance some liquid atom-mass My fingers rise to my eyes to wipe away the dew and stinging salt. I am standing in a forest. I do not remember where I am. My hair, half ripped from my scalp hangs limply and unevenly to shawl my bony shoulders. Some falls like gossamer to join the blood-soaked sponge that the earth has become. I am forming from carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. I do not remember how I came to be. I kneel to scrape the dirt off my legs scratching away till I see gristle and bone. I touch my fingers to the ground; the soil yields to me accepts me back, such giddy reuniting… my mind goes black, my senses dull. I was without shape, consciousness or substance. I do not remember what I am. I must be home. Gemma E. Mahadeo Australia Gemma E. Mahadeo came to Melbourne, Australia in 1987 from London, UK. She is a writer for the online magazine Blogcritics and has been published in Words-Myth Quarterly Poetry Journal. Primarily trained as a classical musician, she is active in the Melbourne early music community.