It's like a telephone call from the bones,
a song that sings you, whether you love it or hate it,
persistent as a blow to the head.
While all this is going on, you must smile,
set the table properly, oyster fork to the far right.
Lay a linen napkin across the mocking lie.
Walk through the funhouse to your job,
your marriage, the gibbet of your identifying papers.
Become an object of hilarity if you finally birth yourself.
In short, do anything but this, and then
cut a rug, or your wrists, when all other options expire.
We are the girls half gone by the time we start,
Brave, gorgeous, cursed, strangers even to ourselves.
Shay--The last three-line stanza blew. Me. Away. "Cut a rug, or your wrists... half-gone by the time we start..."
ReplyDeleteWow!
The beginning of the end for many ~~ coming out with all the myriad expectations that are close to impossible to fulfill. I cannot fathom that life ~~ you paint it perfectly.
ReplyDelete"It's like a telephone call from the bones" That. is. amazing. And this: "the gibbet of your identifying papers" And everything else.
ReplyDeleteYour writing always cuts to the bone of meaning but often you snip away delicately and leave things shadowed. Not here, where every word speaks of alienation and painful retrieval of true self, like deliberately pulling white hot metal out of the fire with your bare, blistered hand. Stunning work, and every line a punch to the gut, but also, every line full of a strange triumphant music. "Lay a linen napkin across the mocking lie..." Just stellar.
ReplyDelete