Some things hold on longer than they should. They take in pressure, adjust to strain, and stretch to contain what was never meant to be there. They keep holding, reshaping themselves beyond recognition—until they can’t anymore.
Then they break. The moment is quick. There is no warning, no escalation—just a sudden shift. No one sees it coming, but once it happens, there is no going back.
Something inside stops holding, and nothing rises to take its place.
Hemorrhaged
By Kerry Ann Wiley
Something inside tore open.
No sound—
just the collapse of something vital into silence.
A death without witness,
messy,
blood where love once lived.
The floor darkened,
red spreading,
unstoppable.
A bloody hand,
trembling,
pressed against the wound,
trying to hold back what could never be held.
Something inside tore open.
Silent.
Messy.
Unseen.
Blood pooled where love once lived.
What Breaks, and What Stays Broken
“Hemorrhaged” speaks to the breaking point of strain carried too long.
The poem begins with pressure—something held beyond its natural capacity. Something stretched until it lost its shape. Something forced to contain what it was never designed to carry. Under unforgiving burden, the structure bends, remakes itself, and finally gives out.
When the break comes, the moment is sudden and irreversible. A vital center fails, and nothing steps in to hold what has collapsed.
The poem moves directly into that collapse. The wound is already open. Blood spreads across the floor. A hand presses against it, desperate to hold back what refuses to stop.
A death without witness, messy, blood where love once lived.
The images remain anchored in the body: a floor darkens, a stain spreads, a hand trembles against what has already escaped. These are not abstract gestures. They are physical truths that record the collapse in detail.
The blood keeps moving. The hand keeps pressing. The collapse has already taken place.
Trying to hold back what could never be held.
This is the shape of survival: clinging to what keeps bleeding out, trying to bind what will not stay, pressing against what cannot be contained, reshaping again and again until nothing recognizable remains.
The poem returns to its central line: “Something inside tore open.” The repetition reminds us the wound persists. The bleeding does not stop.
As the poem progresses, language itself begins to break down. Sentences lose their shape. Thought falls into shorter lines, no longer able to carry weight in the same way. Form mirrors rupture.
Where love once lived, blood spreads. The mark deepens.
Pain stays. It stains. It does not let go.
The hand keeps pressing, but the wound does not close.
The Questions That Linger
The break remains. The bleeding persists. The hand still presses down. And what lingers are questions that refuse to fade:
- What still bleeds, hidden where no one can see?
- How long must someone carry what was never meant to be carried alone?
Some things hold on longer than they should, and when they break, the wound remains and the mark endures.
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