I assemble myself in the dark
A mime before the looking glass
What poor taste to xerox my pain,
What poor taste to smile
In a dead woman’s face.
Each frame haunts me
Like the reels of suffering
Used to kill a soldier’s conscious
If I hold these eyes too long
My soul will disappear
There is no photographer
More adept than a mirror
And no devil more sought.
It’s funny how we pay strangers
To listen to the stories
That we were not meant to tell
Though it doesn’t benefit them
And perhaps diminishes their faith
I sat across from you with my terror
Pinched between my bare knees
And some days I am only a little girl
But you are not my mother
Not my warden, you are a ladder
That I cannot climb, a need
That I do not wish to acquire.
I will not give myself to any man
I’ll live alone spinning whatever it is
That spinsters spin.
There are bats in the eaves
A whole colony of them
They punctuate my silences
With their shrill chirps
I have nothing to say
But the words come regardless
This is my hell to showcase
My scars for an audience
That will never know me wholly
This is my curse
And I endure it , not as a martyr,
For there is no payment
That could compare to my art
Nothing that compares to the rush
Of the grave filling up around me.
These black hieroglyphs
Scatter across the paper
The itching
The thirst for blood
That is my calling
Layer after layer
And always another
Beneath
I cannot achieve
The depth
Of my predecessors
The worms gag my mouth
A currency, a delicacy
These necrophiliacs
They alone
Understand me.
If I knew my power
Would I employ it?
To what end?
To what end?
Are we all
Muses at our core?
You may call me Galatea
You may love me as stone
From a distance
And you are my opus
The one who remains
Long after I’ve gone
Spreading my seed
My terrible legacy
The dream of dreams
Our dream
A place of hearts.
*
I staged the photo with my webcam but Isadora took it. She had to time it just when the light was perfect in the mirror she did a good job XD Encase you are wondering that is not a deer head Sam made art with the handlebars of an old bike so it looks like horns. Her b-day is tomorrow so I won’t be around as much.
mindlovemisery 