A night of silver spoons and tiramisu, crystal drinkware, champagne like water –
that’s not me. Savagely, wildly imbibing the nectar of hibiscus blooms – you will see me. Head thrown back in laughter (echoing so a stern man will attempt to silence me with his glass eyes). See through the thin costumes and reassure me my mask wasn’t a disguise.
(That maybe even superheroes wear masks – ones that counterfeit their true nature and play at empathy for the masses.
What separates a hero from a vigilante?
Flight from falling?)
You ask me – do you write only with a quill dipped in tears and wax-seal your letters with your confettied bits of heart?
Don’t you see? When you’re as wild as I am, as savage as my duality and dichotomies allow, you will unravel to understand everything is experienced in the extreme.
(Why do I write in white on black pages? Why cursive in colors of neon like ribbons from a birthday party when talking about the darkness?
Why not? I’ve hidden from myself for three decades and it’s time to take up space.)
The dandelions aren’t weeds but a bouquet. Life extended past its deadline feels like Lazarus resurrecting. (Roll that rock away from that tomb. I live again, but not as a saint.
You know, I’d never reincarnate as a saint.)
The phoenix sometimes looks like a butterfly. The scratches on my chest above my heart look more excruciating than they feel. (I tried to escape too often when I was locked in a cage of normalcy. I bickered with a mountain lion,
then a dragon.)
I could tell you “once upon a time”, but my stories are long (and though I’m a storyteller, I’m tired of being soft).
“I’m not like you,” she announced. But I wouldn’t want to be an analytical automaton.
(Sorry, love, this poem is more about her than you. I cautioned you that my heart aches. Time to restitch the crooked halves and mend my heart.)
But you asked –
do you write only the sad poems?
My love, I wear my heart as a locket.
It tarnishes & rusts from exposure, but when I revealed a vein, he took a razor, severed me open. The blood on the door was from the slaughter, & though I’m not innocent, I have not atoned.
(Though reconciliation was only a sacrament away, I much preferred confession to the page, not to the man in black judging me from behind a screen.)
This is where I purge every demon.
(Wildly and savagely.)
Isabelle Palerma 