In Hope Of A Poem - A Fairy Tale

The poetry had left my soul. It would float in my mind, in images; Long, lithe dancers, silken-clad in reds, oranges, yellows; dancers that would swirl to music not yet written.

Wide eyed innocents would mouth syllables nonsensical.

Musk-drenched fighters would battle bloody. Poke, stab, beg, fight to break out into the open. But, the gate was fast shut.

My soul was closed to all of them. I did not know how to free them.


Perhaps he was right. Maybe I did have a mental collapse that end-summer when I asked him to leave. But as I look back, there was so much sunshine and joy, such leg-stretching freedom upon his departure; I do not think he was.....

right.

Are the insane that happy? Is delirium so very determined to maintain itself? I do not know.

I only know that I emerged from that hole brushing long, silken cobweb hair and wearing skin that had taken on the color of the shadows that I had melted into for so many years.

You might think it is easy to blend with such things, but it is not. Stillness can be painful when the only movement is the tiger in your mind racing around the gray concrete statue of you as it attempts to churn itself to butter.

The irony is that the attempt is inane. The irony is that if I were insane, I remain insane. If I were sane, I remain that also.

It was just the heart warmed, heat blushed, woman skin that had been thick dusted by the stillness as year upon year sifted upon it in the decades quick succession.

Who knew that dust hardened into cast-like armor when you stood in a corner seeking the safety only silence and stillness might bring?

Who knew that that stillness would leave you such a lovely playground for the Spider King to weave you into his corner or that the colors of it were all wrong and would be woven right into, and out of, your very skull? When you are swallowed whole in the hole of shadows, the only color your eyes can see are the shades of gray.

He called this sane, normal, the Spider King, for it was the Kingdom he had dug in the bowels of the earth. It lay far from creatures that offended him with their trivial trappings of tastelessness, frivolous flights of fancy, pompous pandering to others that were not him. He would venture out when needed, but he saw no need for me, his loyal servant, his wife, to be exposed to such a harsh things.

So, I remained, in the safety of my corner, still, quiet, away from the world and the Kings sharp, saliva-wet mandibles, so as to save my head.

The Spider King would have remained somewhat content with his domain, happy to snap and snarl but allowing me my corner, and my head, for my obedience and silence. Normalcy and Sanity would have reigned in the Kingdom and this would be the end of this story, and not the beginning, not the preamble to the tale of my ensuing insanity, my mental collapse, but.

You see, there was that tiger in mind, racing, faster and faster and faster, .....

and those images, that poetry, dancing in the center, pleading, battling, begging to break free.

Finally, there was a Prince who braved the shadows of all the whole of that dark hole and kissed the lips of this gray statue of a woman and caused me to smile and crack the many layers that the years had put upon me, and I laughed....

and bright, yellow butter leaked from my ears in the hope of a poem.

And that is where his story truly begins.

05/10/2008