Moments that snag my breath and tear the stitches too tightly sewn - these moments happen so infrequently, so spasmodically - every day I pay the price for this bubble exterior I’ve rented; with every fresh gasp and rush of blood comes the fresh removal of a piece of my memory - the piece that tells me how to wrench this opaque coating off me. I indulge in words (or perhaps words indulge in me? how lenient! words are - generous, how eager to please!) and this is the abyss where the paints in my soul seep into. There are vanities I can only wish I wanted to powder my spirit with, but these are far too intricate for the big blocks layering my walls, all sharp corners and Lego clicks of approval. Because of this - because of the myriad deficiencies speckling the marrow in my bones - I sank into Carlo Dolci’s A Penitent Magdalen, lifting my chin to raise my spirit from its hunched form and siphon it to her, this feminine martyr, arms creased with defiant strength and irises swollen with the agony of injustice. It is rare that one sees the colors painting the souls connecting through oil and canvas, a thin, vibrant cord clutched and trembling in my palm, grasped in her clasped fingers of white, bloodless strength.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate this; you’re so kind! xx
She’s here and he’s here and the taste of unfamiliar territory lies sweet and invigorating on her lips - the taste of Boston was swallowed away, gulped, sweet with memories of warm summer nights at the steps of Faneuil Hall and salty with the rush of the Atlantic, cold water she spent her whole life dipping her toes into and shrieking when it bit at her ankles. But she’s here now, her toes squishing foreign carpet threads and her curls sprawling over exotic pillows, becoming her.
Hug her the way she hugs her knees to her chest - for all this satin drops open, take a closer look and skin revealed glistens with lotion hiding goosebumps, flesh raised with latent fears. She’s laid awake bathing in her own inadequacies, and that’s where every dream infiltrated her privacy and left behind escapes in thousands of flavors. But this flavor is still lonely; watch her figure rise and slip out the half-open door, she might stumble and that’s how you’ll know she’s coming - grace is lacking but God knows she’s got good intentions.
Knock, knock. Come in. Catch your breath, she’s half shadow, half milky white in muted lamplight, virginal curves and satin lining; right now she needs your kiss like velvet.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
To unwrap this gift shrouded in satin and inhale, delve into secrets tucked under sleepy lids and smooth away these fearful bumps, whisper guarded thoughts in unlocked ears - no, another night, times more apropos to beating hearts rather than glowing smiles.
She’s slipping in, he’s folding to her, hearts molding to scars pressed white and swollen desires, pink and apple red. His hand rests lightly on her hip and it’s only then that she feels the gap within her, ocean-wide and icy, fill with all things perfect - tulips and tiger lilies, tickles and cuddles, hazel and chocolate.
Perfect nights of rest have been so distant, but it seems they left a calling card this time, darling.
“Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In life, knowledge of poisons is essential. I’ve told you, no one becomes an artist unless they have to.” - Janet Fitch
With a hiss these words unfold, thin transparent layers smoking and pungent, filmy and rubbery and dripping with putrid hate. I’m holding them gingerly at the corners, I’m remembering what it was like to see my own hand shoot out of its own accord and grip them, only to take my hand away and stare without seeing the charcoal gray imprint left scarring the life line on my palm. That was back when I went away and left a ghost behind. You can’t hurt a ghost, a battered spirit, pass your sharpened swords through and feel icy insouciance murmur a response behind solid curtains. I know my poisons, I’m the one who’s poured them on my skin for the macabre pleasure of watching the scars embroider the fabric and waft their wispy essences onto the flaky skin underneath, the vellum under the cast. I’m the one who labeled them with my own blood.
Her arms dangle at her sides and for once she looks fragile, a little woman with a big heart, and the way the wrinkles have cracked her once-smooth face is the way I’m cracking her soul - over time and uncareful; beggars can’t be choosers. “Why do you always read such depressing books? You’re never happy anymore. You shut yourself up here and commit yourself to soulless things.” In her face is the mirror image of the scars on my soul - I look at her with a bitter mixture of helpless and hopeless, pitying and perplexed. These demons scrape away at what’s made me in love with the world, and I am left explaining to this woman how her daughter has become a leaf falling from the trees, crunchy and faded, edges torn and entirety crunched flat with the weight of merciless footsteps.
I am bullshit and so are you, your hungry eyes are hollowing me out once more, claw out my anger and what makes me human and let it fester, say hello to the empty throb of a human hammer flailing - you thought you’d forgotten but you knew you didn’t, the knowledge burned your blood and this bitter echo was submerged desperation fiery with feeble hope. I am the laughter licking gasoline, I am a skeleton dripping with your blood, you’ve cracked open your own soul and you have no idea that you are the charcoal lining under my bones at every joint, you are the taste of the blood I’ve bitten away from my own lips. This face is taut with the cast you’ve forced me into, every superfluous glare stiffening my stone-cold mold. This barrier’s been yanked up out of sheer desperation; I tired of the needles you sewed into the tender flesh jarring my blood along, and now look at me - I am the walking dead, I am the decay gathering brittle in your veins.
I don’t like the way he looks at me,
like he’ll gently pull these words
out of my lining -
these words that line and
cushion my bones.
There are secret thoughts in the curves of his lips,
wink,
that wink,
that goddamn wink.
And I’m always here,
and I’m always so awkward,
small smiles gritty with uncertainty.
But I’m not stupid -
You’re dark and seductive and velvet (red velvet) -
but don’t think that
you have fingernails long enough
to pry these words out from under my lining,
not if you don’t want me to bleed.
Thank you so much, all of you. :’)
My eyes are round with charcoal dust and this is why I don’t wear makeup - passion is omnipresent and beauty is fleeting, a sharp stab in the back, a reminder of inadequacy when the bags under my eyes have sagged with passing hours. Our souls are connecting through the fingerprints I match my cold fingers to; this page is wrinkled with the times I’ve unfolded and refolded, the ink cracks at the edges and seeps into my soul, our broken fragments chipped away like broken lining and mixed in with the love potions we linked our wrists to drink. You are a part of me inexorably, there lingers a taste of you on my lips and once I tried to lick it off, but you hid in the winter cracks and I’ve kept you there ever since.
I write with the mind of one beyond my years, I told her, I told them all. Or maybe I didn’t, maybe this pen picked up where I left off, where my words dropped, tumbling down cliffs and ravines. They’ll fall to Inglenook, though, I promise you - Inglenook, you silly! Whispers swirl like ribbons from party streamers faded and crusty with memories - Inglenook, where I belong. These words know the way - they’ve been there before, short visits where I paid my respects! Tucked away, mellowed out, ebullient and yellow and - how fetching! These tiger lilies, these orchids, splashes of velvet and speckles and little bits and pieces of me, I thought they all fell away, diced up like the tomatoes outside, red and plushy. Instead they played hide-and-seek with me, concealed in the penumbra of my Inglenook - the future of my smiles and redolent kisses of inspiration!
