Alexandra
At My
Mercy
I am poured down the center of a very tall cup, and when I hit the bottom I find that everything around me changes. I am the change, and all the rest is at my mercy. What was once cool is now warm. It's hot. I'm the hot center of this cup. All of the liquid gets hotter with me. It’s hard to drink me. Let me cool. You can wait and turn me into something like a hand inside of a glove as I fill your body with my indifferent wet fingers. I can move your arms and your legs and make you babble and sing. Even though there are no strings, you are not a boy yet. You are not yourself. You stare into the cream in the cup or my thighs and you are my doll. I will drag you across the floor into the rooms where I choose to go. And you will go with me. Your eyes become strings and they tie themselves to the tempting parts of me. When my parts move, you move thoughtlessly. Even though you boast of being the puppeteer, I assure you that you are not. You are mine to make dance and sing and laugh and crumble. Because I will not be your marionette. I will not be your Pinocchio. I can tell you stories that will make you weep, but every one of them is true. No angel comes to me. No blue fairy. The only cricket in my pocket is the one I found on my back porch. And that cricket is long dead. I keep it as a souvenir to remind me that I am my own conscience. You are the whale. I am inside of you, and I am starting a fire. You will spew me into the ocean. You will blow me through the hole in your head until I am free and swimming away from you. I will turn and watch you sink into the sea. You are no longer my Leviathan. You are a bag of wet bones. And you will sink until you hit the cold dead bottom of the cold black sea.
Exhale
I have been here since the time when things were melting and nothing had shape. I have pushed the clouds, and I have brought life to the birds. I have twisted the sails so that they lurched forward or collapsed into destruction. I have been the progenitor and the killer and the ghost behind the kites. I have made so many living things lean and fall. And I have given so many relief. Now I look to her. I make everything her, and I lean my enormous body on her slender shoulders. I circle around her. I quietly slip past her lips. I step into her lungs where I am a dancer and a showman and the most important creature she's ever known. And then I become a part of her. She uses me to make her bones cut sharper and her blood run faster. She uses me when the bombs explode and her nerves are jarred like the door of a hut during a hurricane. I was the hurricane not that long ago, but now I am her servant. I travel reverently with my head down, filling the gaps where her marrow misses the mark. I surprise her brain and cause it to rattle. I am the reason that her eyes blink. She looks out into the terror that she lives with every day, and she gathers me bravely to hold me tight against her ribs. She won't let me go. I am her prisoner until her fear is gone. She won't exhale me until she's ready to keep living. If or when. If or when.
Parenthesis
We are stationed here on either side to settle a score. We are strong, and we can command so many who have so little. We are here for her hands and her fingers and the many things she likes to wear. And we will accept her legs and her torso equally with pride because we are the stilts that hold up the house. We are the bars that protect her from the beast. We are the years that have seen us grow stronger. We are the letters that like to curve and slide when she moves. She can rely on us. The world can steal the glow that we transmit. We move when she walks and we move when she's standing still. We are perpetual motion. We are desire. We are muscle. We can hold the weight of a baby or a basket. She confers on us the responsibility of protecting the parts of her that make her herself. And we earnestly and carefully accept the challenge. We smile and coo because it feels so good to have her touch us in this way and that anytime she is awake. We are the palace guards. We are her courtesans. We are the parenthesis. We protect the queen with the bloody devotion of a hammer.
The Wall is
Gone
She can imagine the wall and where it was. There were calendars hanging and pictures of grandparents who no longer live but were remembered. There were clocks that sometimes told the time and a wooden cross carved by some ancient ancestor at least a century ago. And through the wall there was a window. From the street you could see up into the home. This is where the family lived. They weren't a special family. They were just a family. It doesn't matter who they were. It only matters that they were. They lit candles and ate bread. They ate bread that they baked in the oven which also sat against the wall. Standing at the oven, you could see down into the street where she would have been if she had been standing there when they were still standing up there at the window. But they aren’t. No longer. There was a wall. But now she inhales only smoke. The wall is smoke and she is breathing it into her lungs. And as she breathes in the wall, her chest shudders. The wall is gone and so are her tears, but still something deep under the layers misses them. The wall and the tears. She wants them. But she has nothing left. Because the wall is no longer there. And the family is no longer there. And the word “home” is no longer there. It is not a word that she now knows the way she did. It is a new word. Brand new in this land that once was her home but now the word “home” has turned to “host.” And her home hosts a virus. A virus that rolls slowly and sends bombs into the walls. She presses her palm into her face as she smokes the cigarette that now costs so much. Everything costs so much. And they are paying the price. They paid it with a wall. They paid it with a home. They paid it with a word. They paid it with the bread they baked because the bread is no longer there because the oven is no longer there because the wall is no longer there because the family is no longer there. And all that's left is one word: Війна (war)
Palm to
Palm
We are partners. We've been together forever. Do you believe I would ever lie to you? Well, I have. I have sat right next to you, and I have told you lies. But you're the good natured one. You look so much like me. We could be twins. But then again we're not. Because I can do things you cannot. I can commit crimes. I can break hearts. You are good at steadying things. You're good at acknowledging the hard work of others. Me, I am ready to assault the eyes and the lips of our enemies. We have enemies because of me. Not because of you. Because you hold me when I'm close to you and keep me busy lighting a cigarette or trying to make a cocktail. But my trouble is your trouble. And that's the sad thing. Because I can't protect you. I wouldn't know how. I don't think I would even if I could. Because if I want to damage myself, then I know I'm going to damage you. And even though so many would say that you don't deserve to be treated this way, I couldn't care less about that. Because you deserve what I deserve, and no one disagrees that I deserve the worst. So here we are. Mirrors. I can make a church with you. Or I can strike you and make you bleed. I can pinch you. I can bend you back until you murmur mercy. I am dominant. You are not. I can write hurtful stories. You can barely play the tambourine. But you remember that we were once tender. We once paddled together pretending to be mermaids in the tub. There was a time when we synchronized so often. It was too hard for us to be independent. We were too young and too scared. And if I'm honest, I needed you. You who can be so gentle and so sweet, stroking the back of me. You can send shivers to our spine. And I can feel the weight of the universe slipping. Decreasing. Like a man on a massage table, and the sheets are coming loose. I know I am the upper hand and the underhand often rules the day. But you have found a way to take charge too often. Where was I? When did you become more dexterous? When did you become so shrewd? When did you learn to ignore the pain I cause so carelessly and constantly? When you steady me, we can pray. Palm to palm. Holy palmers’ kiss. Without you, I would be crippled.
Demeter of
the Cossacks
I know you to be the gardener. I've been in your flower beds and seen the trees you planted. I know how the wild ones grow from the black and white and the color and the misunderstood images that you plant into the universe like seeds. You have the hands of a gardener. But you are a creator. The things you plant come from deep inside of you. You are the water and the soil. You are the sunshine that they need. You search your mind and you search the universe and you find the things that will blossom in our heads and in our hearts. There is a tilted head here or a rib cage there. A tarot card. A set of keys. You are on a couch, crunchy like an ice cube. We're just waiting for your frozen curves to melt. And soon you will be in the earth. You will be the harvest. When I come to you and your garden, it is always Fall. We are always filing the earth with the black eyes of thought that constantly get punished for existing. You are an elegant gardener. No overalls. No canvas gloves. Sometimes there is rope. Sometimes there is a harness. Sometimes you lift your shirt and show the world the rows and rows of flowers that you've planted inside yourself. Your followers pick apples from your trees and dig deep for the carrots and potatoes. And you let it all go. You stand in the middle, a porcelain scarecrow. Demeter of the Cossacks. Dark haired southern traveler across the celestial equator.
So Much
Time
I don't know how you built the cabin in which you live, but I know you built it with your bones and skin and the blood that sleeps deep inside of you now. I know that you live in this cabin made of you. When I look at your eyes, I can see that even when the windows are open and the lights are on there is darkness inside. There aren't enough lights inside of you to keep that darkness quiet. It's a noisy darkness. And even though I've never heard your voice, I can hear the darkness singing inside of you. It's not heavenly. God's not there for you now. He's not interested. Even though it's tiresome to be the reason that so many feel brave and unleash their tongues, there certainly is a part of you that wants him to notice. I don't know if you're religious. I'm not talking about religion. I'm talking about God. I'm talking about the center of something. I'm talking about finally evicting the darkness from your cabin. Letting the light come home. Darkness has grabbed your smile and bent your lips and smashed your eyes to stones. It's an ugly tenant. And it doesn't leave. It's squats. And you can be the envy of the sun for as long as you like, but the sun only admires you from afar. You’re blurry. He looks at you and thinks that he would love to be your friend or make love to you or sing duets with you at karaoke bars, but the sun knows there is no approach. There is no sidewalk. There is no front door. There are only windows that are open but they are broken and they are jagged and to climb through them is dangerous, and so you do not. You stay stuck inside your cabin made from your bones and the sticky blood of your heart. It is a shelter that will eventually tear you apart. But for now, it holds you still. You’re a slave. A model who can’t move because the artist needs to recreate every naked inch of you, and that takes so much time.