*This poem is a creative response to
The Yellow Wallpaper
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.*
Alone.
Three years gone, all
Spent in this room.
I barely leave, I don’t try. I
Know I am desolate. I see it
And so do they.
I live, but I don’t feel alive.
Why eat? I don’t deserve food.
I don’t feel the need to indulge
in the senses. I merely don’t crave it.
Every night...
I stay up staring at the dimly lit Walls.
Every day...
I Lie awake while the sun peaks
Through the cracks in the blinds
Illuminating my only companion.
I gaze into the eyes of the Walls.
They stare back
Watching me struggle.
Laughing at my regression.
What is happiness? Joviality?
What is a gleeful day?
A happy thought? I
Wouldn’t know. Because I...
Well I am nothing. Nothing
To him, and nothing to you.
I am repulsive. Who could
Stand my reflection, it’s
Repugnant.
I have removed the mirrors
In the room that holds me
Captive. Like my self-esteem
They are shattered at my
Own gross reflection.
Gave up.
I gave up long ago,
I’m hopeless. Incurable.
I have become nothing. And
Like the rest, my Husband
Will leave me soon.
I don’t concentrate. I can’t.
I used to pulse energy of
Knowledge to minds that
Drank the gulps of enlightenment
Making their brain’s throb.
He tells me; I’m sick. I
Tell him; I’ll cope. He gives
Me a pill once a day,
I keep it under my tongue.
He repeats over and over…
‘I am a Doctor, and I will help you.’
He’s not helping me.
It’s for himself. His own self
Appearance. He wants to look
Proficient to his patients. If he
Cared he would listen to my words.
He would have heard the cries
In the script I taught and wrote.
My friends are gone, they
Left me to wallow in the
Eyes of the paint that covers
These Walls.
Sometimes I’m disillusioned
That people care when I speak,
Until I realize that we are all
The same. In small groups
That my Husband leads we talk
About our lives that are left in
Shambles…
We discuss our own
Worthlessness. Utter forlorn diction
To one another. We understand
The lexicons we produce. We are
All alike. We write our thoughts
But no one cares.
Together we look for Happiness,
But she hides from our group.
My Husband, the Doctor
He pries when we talk.
Pries for more. He questions me
About the Walls. He thinks they
May be alive, in the eyes of myself.
He thinks they talk, he thinks I talk
Back. But the Walls can’t talk;
The Walls can only judge.
They judge my dreadful appearance,
They judge my inability to change.
The Walls deem me an unfit wife,
A Mother of nothing, a friend of
No one, a tragedy to this World.
He thinks I misplaced my Sanity,
As if I’ve gone madd. I may see
No light in the day, for I am
Not blind, I am just alone.
I have made the attempts
But I have never set a plan.
I don’t have the capacity to
Project my future, I can only react.
Reacting is what I did... What I’ve
Done. I reacted to the Walls constantly
Judging me. I reacted to a three year
Aversion to the outside World.
I reacted to my reality.
The only way I knew how, I
Reacted. The Walls think they
Can judge me? Now the Walls are
Judged. It was your fault, your
Eyes pierced my soul, and
Stole the breath from my lungs.
I was not deranged, my faculties,
Were never vanished but my heart was.
I lost my smile, I lost my life... everything
I knew... I reacted. I left my body contained
To those Walls that judged my dreadful display,
I rose above and looked down... And I saw a smile.