The savagery by which we flay ourselves apart
those of us spoon fed self-hatred, in our cribs
inheriting not the lacquered confidence of our elders
nor accompanying narcissism—
but instead, chimera, hair in womb grown inside out
abomination; unnatural, inbred, unclaimed
staring at deformities neck in mirrors slick with humor
and find no place, nothing safe, all is
abjured changeling,; wide staircases containing inherited ghosts
no solidity to claim ourselves, the invert’s slope
of DNA, perhaps our very clay; weave of making reversed
mistakes leaden with ancestral weight—
best suited to drowning.
I dove into warm water that first time abroad
sun licked me clear of salt, running through Greek
olive groves, I didn’t yet know, dour scold of truth
how pinches in dark follow into daylight, and children
in their propensity toward exclusion, push away
those without succor, without piss and vinegar
for even now, ‘nice’ becomes ‘boring’ and ‘spiteful’
the lusted after beauty who steps on your neck
with taunts of skin color, body shape, moles and
diminishment; flayed, irregular, standing at the edge of
inner-city swimming pool, veruca sock and ugly blue-black hours
I heard the call of mermaids, they buoyed me on waves before
permanently pulling me under, where for decades
I trod, water inside my head, watching life magnified by
the depths, depriving all oxygen, I learned
to eat less, sleep longer, believe in no-one, least of all
myself, for to believe is to hope, and there is
no hope where cruelty and rejection flourish unchecked
by those who would save us with kindness
if they were not subject to thrall of cruelty unbound.
This earie retreat, where disappointment couldn’t remind
me I wasn’t one of them, I didn’t make the fold, seamstress
stitching perfectly straight, around me. I felt the cold burn
of Winter and equal scold of Summer, nobody came to
claim; we can stand in place forever and not see
how old we get without moving.
Lovers laid their executions at my feet and stepped away
laughing behind their fingers, at that obscene perpetual longing for
truth; say it once and mean it forever! Who but a child
believes? Till they too are ruined?
Then, older than acceptable, listing on watery shelf
staring with vinegar vanity at the demolished spaces
where once I filled, now sunken; a balloon without
helium, we speak in high pitch, against incessant crash of waves
submerged ships and their watery treasures, tarnished
and all the tan children have made their nests high
against encroaching storm, their lovely progeny, not born with
mis-matched eyes requiring patches, nor skin absent of
melanin, nor premature curl of blindness encroaching fiend
no, it was always there, you just —
didn’t see it, fool.
Portent at the edge of each day, lusting to suck you asunder
where you fade, in a dream, awaiting your birth
though you were almost born and life ticks rapidly by
your accouchement an abomination, your parents, fled
faces turned in askance; whatever could you have done
by existing —to cause such diminishment? Who said
first, the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference
they’d tell you glibly, how absurd your self loathing—
even as you learned it in their stead, somehow
taking wrong paths, listening to a voice instilled in 90 proof
ruinous it was, hijacking brief shock of joy, the sabotage
of living, a dowry without kin; so we spin, salted—
and raw, for the next cycle of moon to make us well
our faulty genes, our terrors, our poor ghosts
who wake in terror, who shake us clean of strength.
Where does a child grown, find her way
without learning first, how to walk on earth?
When swimming seemed to avoid the worst thorn
yes they destroyed me. Yes they bled—
still scarlet blood didn’t bring the living back from the dead.
I returned back to the waters edge—
where Poseidon’s flotsam memories burnish waves
and silence reigns, a lackluster gloat
for you … regarded as worthless wreckage—
you, could be anything you want, unless
those inside your head tell you otherwise
then you are beneath the waves—engulfed
oh the sea, the sea,* where rocks tall—
prevent ever, your clambor to shore
and distance is an ache in your chest
like muffled conche sound, when water
enters caves, ever screaming void.
(Inspired by The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch, 1978. Winner of the Booker Prize).
Savagery indeed, inspired by such a book. Yet your most chilling phrase is “the lacquered confidence of our elders”