Sap

myself as a splinter of you, a bark shred from our family tree,
its branches encumbered by rotten apples. The diseased roots poison new sprigs,
seeping their bitter sap into them. I’ve beheld the poison in you,
heard and smelt it— 
putrid aroma seeping beneath
your locked wooden door,
undoubtedly recognisable. I sit in silence from the other side,
absorbing every choke,
every retch,
that leaves your mouth. I bow before the toilet bowl,
our knees lie in the same position,
just moments apart. I clean what’s left of what was inside you,
scraping away old sap
from purges before. I feel its spores spreading,
infecting my bark. I find it beneath my own splinters,
festering—
bitter and unmistakably yours. The roots remain. Perhaps I didn’t fall
as far as I thought. I am what you came from,
and what I am afraid to become.