"That is my wife... And this is what I wish to have... look at the difference! ... then judge me... and remember, with what judgement ye judge ye shall be judged!"

-- Jane Eyre


It was a cold autumn night,
When the sky is deprived of the waning moonlight,
The clock struck, the bell chimed,
You heard a most otherworldly cry.

Awakened, you rose up from the bed,
Surrounded by curtains rendered to a darkened red.
Holding a candle, and the key from the pocket,
Without a sound into the hall you went.

Under the guide of the flickering flame,
You walked the staircase, the saloons and the hall ways,
And the drawing room vacant of cheerful chats.
You scrambled, you quickened,
Running away from movements in the shadows,
The sensation of being followed.
The place kept a secret.
It lingered, it whispered,
Of a savage form with thick black hair,
And a red dress bright as fire.

But he assured you it was nothing more than a dream,
A feverish, delirious dream.
Wouldn’t it feel nice to hold his hands,
To be consoled by those very eyes, and say,
‘I will love you and live with you through life till death’?
It was just a dream, my timid little thing,
A creation of your pure imagination,
(Yes, that was the explanation,
As things were known to happen.)
You have exposed for too long under the moonlight.

It was not real, the dream was not real,
Neither were the seas and the mountains,
The country called England,
The fire of the white men’s Hell and their salvation.
The church bell rang and you said, ‘I do.’
You woke up and shouted when you jumped off the roof.

The clock struct two,
In the dark corridor like a stone you stood.
You passed the looking glass,
And saw the creature who haunted this place.

This was the story of another side.
There was always the other side.
(‘You are not feeling well,’ he said.
‘Madness runs deep in their family blood,’ they said.)
You came to become nothing to him,
A doll, a marionette,
A mad thing without feelings,
A disgrace to be kept secret,
There was only one way to escape this cage.

The clock struct at the dead of the night,
The hour of fatality to bring on the grand finale.
Holding a candle, and the key from her pocket,
Out of the attic without a sound you went.

We talked about things, my one-time lover and I.

Words. They floated in the air.
He read a poem to me.
Syllables of dreams and memories, succulent desires,
Death, venom, as well as more pleasant things.
The clouds upon which I danced,
Into rain they formed and fell
To an ocean under which I got lost and drowned.
Words made up everything.

He wielded them, like a tool, a weapon,
A scalpel that dissected me.
Oh, he’s so good at it, you should have seen it.
A pair of scissors to cut open my belly,
Let out my stomach, my gut, and my ******,
The whale that was singing in my body,
The forests, seas, lakes and deserts,
And all those little snakes and scorpions.
Some tweezers to make a fine specimen.
‘Beautiful.’ He commented, after the surgery’s nicely done.
His handwriting was all over my inside out, a grievance story:
Hope, lust, illusions, and horror.

Words made up everything.
They forged the daggers piercing through my rib cage, casually
Instructed by a never-be lover.
The drugs I turn to, the shelter I seek.
‘If I can find the exact words, then illuminated
Must be a way to end my pain.’
But words are the most useless things.
They made up nothing
Except for the shackles of my own self incarceration.

Then why do I keep scribbling?
For what am I without words?
How do I break the walls of this labyrinth,
And find the breadcrumbs leading back home
Where I am comforted and safe?
How do I understand the song of the whale
And nurture poppies and chrysanthemums off my wounds?
I am but a body forming words,
Formed of words.
‘Why don’t you write? You must write!’
So I strike a line across my skin
In search of the beginning of a new story.
The ink is fresh, flowing through my veins.
Words make up nothing,
They are just my trap, my poison, and my remedy.

There must have been a time when we didn’t have words for it,
When it had no name yet, the silver creature in the night sky.
A mystic monster, while having no claws nor fangs,
Has kept us tortured—haunted—
Ever since the first time we raised our heads.

Did Minotaur look at the Moon once, too?
When he waited for his redeemer in the labyrinth,
Wondering, would his redeemer be like him?
Who was that woman, the face that Salome saw,
Before she kissed the cold lips of John the Baptist?
A ghostly young Moor wandered the streets, he sang,
‘There is no cure for my sadness, except for death with no return.’

I hear them calling it many names,
Madness and lunacy…
But the Moon does not speak; it never has.
Even if it did, it spoke in a language I do not cypher.

I could not remember the first time I saw the Moon.
Has the time come, we’ve lost the words for it?
The sound of its name chimes no more.
When I look up all I hear is a gloomy voice,
‘What is there to look anyway?’
A lifeless rock.

Feel free to **** the Moon,
Mutilate it with sense and reason.
The Poet screamed and woke,
For they saw the Moon dying in their dream.
‘Who killed the Moon?’ The Poet cried, in anguish,
The silver creature was covered in red,
As red as the first drop of blood of the month,
As red as the flesh born out of a woman’s womb.
A crow came and announced its death.

What is there to look anyway?
If the silver creature offers no answer,
But just a question only the Moon knows.
Sure, it is also in your heart; it always has been.
But you do not know the ring of it
Until you’ve seen the Moon for the first time.

‘I must seek it, go find it.’ Said the Poet.
So the music of the Spheres praised, ‘Onwards!’
So the Goddess who shape shifts pointed her finger,
So the winged serpents held candles in their mouths,
And lit up the way to the underworld.

I’ve head the Poet’s story many times,
A wandering.
How they walked the Valley of the Shadow,
How they passed the Gates of the Castle,
Heart burning like a fire with sorrow, seeking,
For one night, for a thousand years.
‘What thing could I find that served as my landmark?’
The legendary King sat and wept,
And admitted to his defeat by the inevitable fate.
Was it not a scene, though?
The bricks and the foundations, examined under the moonlight.

So riding on a thousand eyes the silver creature rises,
And hides behind the dark clouds,
After shedding its pale light for one last time
On the cold face of the dead Poet.
The Moon is reborn.

The room was cold.
The muffling curtain shut out light at my window.
The air was thick, pungent of alienation.
I thought of my father who sat in silence.
He made me breakfast.
I thought of my mother who left the house in the morning
Before I woke up.
I thought of the child who came before me, an unknown face,
Dying in her belly,
And the woman who raised me with a never spoken grief
For a never born baby.
And I think of the child to come after me,
Existing in the non-existence inside my womb,
Their face,
A white daisy withered too early.
Oh Mother, I am so ashamed, Mother.
A crack in this mask has made me naked.
I searched and searched, and found nothing to cover me.

The world used to be not so big, I so small.
A whale used to sing to me from across the ocean,
Now I’m afraid I can no longer recognize its song,
Before it dies, and falls, and fades away.
So much void, so much sound,
The aloneness suddenly became deafening,
And in its wake I can no longer discern,
Had I loved an idea of a person that is no longer they?
Like art and literature,
A book, a song I love,
But with flesh and bones, a tangible face,
Vivacious, alive.
Divine Eros showed me his face behind the veil,
And whispered to me an unknown craving,
For earthly warmth, love, and companionship.

Do I hold a false tongue?
Am I silenced by the crushing waves,
The blank space?
Is it cynical to long for what you renounce,
And turn your head away at this image you see,
Staring back at you from the looking glass?
What is it that you saw,
That reflection,
A quest, a question, an enigma?
The body possesses more than my mind comprehends.
But do not take my relinquishment as cowardice,
No; I shall love, I must love!
The passerby carried a burning flower in his hands.
He told me beauty can grow from misery and pain,
From loving, from love,
That I shall present my wounds with valor and pride.

The room is cold.
The room engulfed me.
The room echoed my existence,
Bouncing off the white wall, the ceiling, and the window sill.
The room is cold and I shuddered,
As air started to flow through my nostrils.
The flesh under my fingers, however,
My skin, my blood, and my bones,
Soft and warm.