Synesthesia Garden » Writing

To My Future Husband

Lisa — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:23:35 +0000

Please don’t open the closet door.

Please don’t open the cabinets.

Don’t look under the bed.

There is no past, no future. How can there be any present, either?

The children will wither like rosebuds, slough off their beauty and
frustrated growth and slump with a malodorous sigh.

Don’t kiss me gently on my neck when I am lying on my side in bed,
tears silently streaming down the side of my face and soaking into my
hair and pillow. I couldn’t stand it.

I hate
to be humiliated.

The wolves are coming. I can hear them howling through the walls,
through the sound of the dead leaves as winter closes in. They come
with their bright eyes and shining coats and softly lick me…

They are beguiling, those wolves. But don’t believe them. I don’t lie.
I am the tongueless woman.

I am the thousand flakes that shimmer when the sky decides to come down.

Darling, you could not dare to imitate me.

It would be –
What do they call that thing?
blasphemy.

Don’t sweep too closely under the oven.

There is a little girl who lives under there, and her eyes, red as
blood, peer out from under, her face charred and her heart restless.

Your love is a shape with no name. No words, and no hair.

My husband, Tom, Dick, Harry, and Merv, don’t look into the chest of
drawers. Row on top of row, they open up to release unutterable
horrors. They reveal soiled undergarments, bloody pearls, decayed
roses, abortive fictions, and tears.

Please don’t open the closet door.

Don’t look in the kitchen cabinets; my little girl lives in there
still, has never lived anywhere else indeed, with her head in her
hands and flashing eyes and soiled black hair and fingers addicted to
kill.

Wendigo

Lisa — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:19:15 +0000

There is nothing in the world so fragile as your heartbeat
There’s nothing so destructive as your whirlwind temper
You met me in mid-August like a zephyr, lulling
My sensibilities and sharp edges to sleep
And left my heart like the site of a hurricane
When you wound up, you tore to shreds my dignity
Shattered my bones, shot out
Razor-wire tendrils that wrapped around my veins
And lacerated, lacerated, my dear
And left me forever shaking
Like a lone leaf on a charred tree
You destroyed me, destroyed me
You killed me with your love
When the love was too much
For a merely human (and, after all, flawed) soul to bear
Your rage was so unbeautiful,
so unholy,
that it shook me to the deepest marrow of my bones and
I’ve been shaking ever since.
I’m still shaking.
You sank slowly into my bloodstream, like poison,
And brought your many incarnations out to haunt me
You flayed my pink skin,
My newborn vulnerable flesh,
Strung up my bones, and laid waste my heart.
You tore apart the bone cage that had kept it firmly contained,
Kept it from jumping out
And, shocked at being outside, dying.
You loved me with your blood, bones, and soul
And writ your decrees upon me in kisses of red
You buried me, my love,
You buried me.

Velveteen Darling

Lisa — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:14:17 +0000

You’ll be a Hollywood star, a hero of the Elysian Fields,
utterly redeemed and reclaimed
to glory, beauty, splendor
The lands of milk and honey –
– the neon and strobe lights that melt your eyes in tears
Many will adore you, others scorch you immortal
with the flame of their hate (envy)
Your gestures are white and lovely –
You’ll be like a model, long and thin,
gazing off into space like the earth’s not good enough for you,
distant, abstract, with a geometrical sort of beauty
With a perfectly crystalline face, cheekbones to die for,
a perfectly notched long spine that curls inward with pride
You’ll be beautiful and – untouchable; yes.
It has been decided.
No more worrying, doubting,
no more crying
No more thinking of your limitations
Nothing now but the sky, that burst of blue
that hurts your brain to conceive of
You will be someone, not who you were before
All you have to do is obliterate yourself to make room
for the persona, that image, that deathless song –
this will be the Viking funeral of your essence –
to make room for something short of your current agony,
something definite, different, and easy,
that you can live with.
You look ethereal as you walk across a room in a scene –
feeling some furtive feeling in darkness
That kind of sentiment, that movement of the heart
could heave and break the chest.
They’ll drop at your feet in waves at the drop of a hat –
love you if you say to
You’ll be beyond your poor gods and devils then,
at the mercy only
of the whims of a capricious, malicious,
and sanguine audience –
Finally –
Beyond salvation.