I’ve walked on the tiles made for kings
many times I’ve been in the house of luxury
but it has never belonged to me
I am but a visitor in the palace of Eden
I could describe the opulence but I cannot tell you how it feels
to posses, to own, to carry your weight lightly in such states
I am not a beholder and I’ve never felt myself worthy of such affluent
and often unnecessary necessities
working class woman on the weekends
to clean the savvy bungalows of the ludicrous and almost laughable
wealth of Beverly Hills
it felt almost like trespassing, like jumping over train tracks
As soon as you see sight of headlights getting closer and the
earth beneath you tumble, shaking it’s veins
I would wear a uniform, a knight’s armor of invisibility
upon arrival, there was that shift in the air
That momentary feeling that you’re not in Kansas anymore
There are more trees here, the bugs even seem more alive than they did
down there below the hills
the pedestal of the hungry, greed sitting humbly on its’ throne
smoking expensive colored cigarettes
rings blowing in your face of cool breeze
Although every residence was architecturally different
it was always the same, the same austere patterns
the redundant originality, the commonplace pretension
The gates always had codes but the entrance was always open
Whenever you stepped inside the first thing to notice
were the Rorschach walls, the mirror image of whoever resided there
the hollowness it evoked, the sterility of a life that although lived
wasn’t honest
dare I say unhappy
There were usually film posters signed by movie stars long ago dead
Art that said nothing, whose lips had been glued shut by clean dollar bills
the brash ****** it tried to display lacked controversy in dusty rooms
the irony being that it had become everything it tried to displease
and yet I was envious
the violent comfort it imposed was far more inviting than
living in rations, in the poverty that ate at your skin
it was friendliness with a clenched fist, like the hostess at a
party that smiles too wide and moves her eyes too quickly
sloshing her champagne glass but never quite spilling it
I remember once stumbling upon one the owners of a house
she was sitting in a wheelchair, there were diamonds on the wheels
I thought I was meeting god for the first time
she looked like she had lived ten lifetimes, wearing fox fur around her neck
the paws resting defiantly on shaky shoulders
age spots congregating around her eyes like whispering spies
wrinkles weaving and unraveling from her forehead to her chin
small nose inhaling sharp gulps of smoke, dust, reason
she wore a translucent egg-shell colored gown
that cascaded like a waterfall down to her tiny feet
it was as transparent as her skin making her look like a
one of those see-through fishes
all organs and blood, bone with the marrow withering
her eyes were closed but she spoke, piercing the room
“so you’re the new girl. We don’t take kindly to strangers
so she must’ve thought you were trustworthy, but I know
someone’s true intentions. I can smell it. It’s a gift.
It’s always the foreigners that wear masks. That’s how
they survive and who can blame them I would do the same.
I’ve been all over the world; the tips of my boots have been
polished while there are others that fester like rats in their
own caves. I know the contempt they must feel, I’ve never
been held down by others more powerful than me and yet
I know that it only creates misunderstanding.
I didn’t ask for this. I earned this. All of this.”
She pointed around the room.
“I am the only one that can decide my fate. When you
want something bad enough it is given to you. Most
just want things for free. They want it handed
to them in a silver plate with a golden spoon. ****
will always shy away from the light because there
is a sickness in their brains that don’t let them see past
their disgusting oppression.
I assume since you haven’t interrupted, I take
your silence as a sign that you don’t believe what I am saying.
That this piece of advice has flown over you.
I very well could have written these words on a letter
at the bottom of a stack of mail that will never be opened and
that’s okay. I don’t expect you to believe to my truth.
But the emperor you see before you was not conjured out of dust
and thin air, I swear it.” She ended with an angry laugh.
I wanted to say that her environment was polluted with
cotton ***** and the furniture was contaminated with soot
and dead skin cells
that once everyone dies they turn into dirt, into
the sand from which we seemed to have been composed of
but I realized that she didn’t see herself as dying
Seeing her there in the dark room with the shades drawn
I realized if that’s what it took to become a god
I didn’t want to be any more than human
but all I said was
“ma’am your plants are in need of watering.”