words

The Dubliner takes hold of me, is scolding me, wagging my tongue and folding me into paper boats to set sail with me through rivers far away from me to worlds hidden deep within my history.  Behind my eyes are towers crumbling into castles falling into villages burning into memories.  Do you see the sorrow in the shadows, hand in hand with the shining promises of blessed beings?  Sleek and brilliant, black feathers iridescent in the sun, shimmer milk white in the moonlight when I am left alone with her; cross legged on the floor drinking shots of whiskey till the morning when I wake to the loss of two, of three, of ghosts and dreams.  I laugh from the belly, and shake the world with joy while a single tear lingers unable to fall.  I will not cry for you she says to me.  I will not die for you she says to me.  I will not lie for you she takes my hand, embraces me.  I am too strong for failure.  Have too much grace to break… but I am not immune to missing that which has passed like gauze in a little girls dress-up costume yellowed and faded and tossed out with age.  We grow up despite ourselves.  Give way to lives to spite ourselves.  Can’t let go of the little girl who made up songs to delight herself.  She has worlds alive inside her mind growing behind her lowered eyes.  She is me and we are thee and each have lives we long to sing.

We gain the man and lose the girl.  Give over lives to sacrifice, the child turned to loving wife, long suffering wife, unconditional forgiving wife, the ever cherished never noticed left behind with broken tokens of a life.  Why do we settle for these roles so diminished and belittling.  Who made these archetypes so limiting.  I do not wish to be the reward to a hero, the left behind virgin, the pious woman waiting; forever waiting, forever mating for life to an existence of strife.  Who calls the casting for this misery, this mystery, this tomb of long lost prophecies to call me home and label me something I would never be if given the free liberty.  I struggle with the duty of menses, the cycle that brings me lives of magic and beats me into tragic martyr silent mother to every broken being walking past my door.  No locks!  No locks! The cock a doodledoing of the rooster calls the dawn and you roll out of bed to carry on.  There is no open sign anymore. No vacancy flashing red and neon following me.  I recount the days I’ve spent appeasing the damned. Recunt defunct.  Turn in my halo for a silver sword to fight the hordes of rising dead walking  like they own the world.