Alligator Blood - Nicole Dollanganger

Drinking a cup of alligator blood

Tastes like the heads and feet we’d see

For sale at the local pawn

We’d make necklaces out of

I’d wear them 'round my neck

I’m a sucker for the love of the flesh

All things rancid and delicate

But the smell in the summer heat

It still gets to me

Knee-deep in the poacher’s dream

He dragged that thing out back and he

Hung it upside down, slit its belly open

And let it bleed out

And he held my head and made me watch

He filled my mouth up with its blood and said

«Grow up weak or grow up tough»

Playing in the swamp of alligator blood

Behind our house in the marshy lawn

He’d always hold my head

Under the water a little too long

'Cause he wanted me to be all guts, no glory

«All survivor, no guilt,» he said

But he calls me his crocodile tears

While I’m chained up to the bed

Knee-deep in the poacher’s dream

He dragged that thing out back and he

Hung it upside down, slit its belly open

And let it bleed out

And he held my head and made me watch

He filled my mouth up with its blood and said

«Grow up weak or grow up tough»

When I was done

Wiped my mouth on his sleeve

I fucked the soul of the south but it crucified me