deep in the dark dark wood

twisty stuff, this.

Deep in the dark dark wood there lived a horrible horrendous terrible tremendous— 

Slipping between cracks and calling out with a mother’s name to a child lost, to a woman scorned, to a man in the midst of some horrid undoing. You know these marks aren’t mine, right? I’d give them all back to you, I think. Knowing what I know now, seeing this unfold from me, I am not sure I can look in mirrors anymore. It’s true what they say about seeing yourself. The eyes. The window. The soul. 

In some ways the blinking helps. In some ways I can gallop forth from this mess into another, and muddle it up, and pack my things, and run once more from you. In many ways I can huddle in the warmth of a Known Self, and get together with Myself, and I, and we will deliberate and determine the Best Way Forward. It is a terrible thing to know the face of fear and still have to clock into work every day. I’m not sure that I ever did look away.  

Write me into your story, do not let me fall from the face of narrative. The face of History is lined with the kind of wrinkle that leaves no room for me, no room for you, it will let us sink into the folds of age and disappear as the years do. It is truly a most profound question for a five year-old to ask. “Where do all the years of the past go?”. She is a genius in thigh-high boots. She is a genius with shrinkage—a wonder I’ll never cease to know. 

How many years did you spend in Montserrat before this was the next place to hold your great words, your great hands, your great heart? I will visit you and have tea. I will visit you on that corner, and sit and hear the stories you have to tell. Forgive me if mine are not as tall, but just as dark. I am only twenty-three.

I’ll sit there and look through the window, and want to break out, and the Horrible Horrendous will glide across the street, and under the door. And I can’t find my keys and the conversation is fading, and everyone sees it, except for me.

Can you write your way into another self? I will try. I’ll let you know how it goes. I like this one just fine, but I’d like to see what is possible. That is something my mother cast off decades ago. That which is merely possible. What could it mean, to have no fear? I think it would mean I would not be here, I would be with you. At the very least, I would be in the sun. Thank you for shining on me. I lit a candle for you, its flames were battery-powered, and I wasn’t sure if modern technology had made it to heaven so I had to pray that it would.

Close the door to that self. Open another on the same morning. I’ll wear the sequined top and you can wear your blue dress, and we would make love a spectacle. Something to gawk at, take your eyes off the road for a second too long. Don’t leave me like that, at least do it with a smile, shake off all the glass and walk in straight lines to my house.

You know, I think, what it means to unfold from yourself. You know, I think, what it is to be burdened with the sorrow someone placed on your shoulders. I feel it in the way you braid my hair. Your fingers hold some solid thing, invisible to all but you. Over -twist-over-under-over-twist-over. There is a pattern to these things, it’s why I haven’t been to the salon since then. You do it so well, this weaving. I haven’t a story in me that isn’t half yours.

Keys open doors. Bricks open windows. Climb in here, I’ve got the electric blanket on. Did you go up the tree? How did you do that? It’s freezing out there. Will you make tea? I’ll be here, at the foot of the bed, staring into the mirror. The glass is still on the floor, and the brick went through the wall but I was too busy thinking how best to tell you you’d never looked at me like that before.