My mother,
She knows my skin,
The scar on my limb
The twitch of my lips

The vagrant eyes
Sleepy temple
And a heart tucked
In my sleeves.
She tells me,
To be close.
But not too close,
For the 'too'
Leaves too much blood.

The blood doesn't gush out
It settles,
Coagulating
Making a home out of misery.

The platelets,
They plunged
Into the misery.
They could have let
Me bleed to death
But no.

They mourned for the red martyrs
Who fought for me,
So that I could be granted
Another lifetime
In this one
To not get too close.

Yet I did.
As I tended towards
My sunset
Wondering
How much is too much?

If it had a critical value,
What could it be?
Do you have cups to measure the "too"
Or even scales?
Curves or graphs to atleast reveal the trends?
When do you know
It had hit its ebb
Or worse
Run its course?
You don't or do you?

So, be close.
Not too close.
Better if not even
Close to close.
Just be. Why let out something
That's supposed to be
Lurking
Beneath the skin.

She repeats.
I nod.

My journal however notes
The last time my mother
Barged into my room.

To think, I might have been
Bleeding,
Bled her internally
Almost
to death.

But then if
She knows
How much is too much?
Why would she let it
Bleed in the first place?

For what is blood, if not pain persevering?