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It was a cold, clear day in the second week of April.
I remember that it was a Saturday and that I was in the kitchen making coffee for the two of us. I remember taking the cup from me and holding it up to the light to see if it was clean. There was a smear of coffee on the rim, but the coffee inside was still clear. I remember how the light shone through the coffee and made the liquid glow. I remember how he stood over me then, and how my heart fluttered like a bird. I froze. He took the cup from my hand and threw it against the wall. It shattered into a thousand pieces and I remember watching as they fell to the floor like rain. I was the river god’s daughter,
And a daughter is nothing more than a blank page after all, waiting to be written. When Apollo was my pursuer my father, transformed me to a laurel tree. It did make great poetry of course; and there was justice too in the sense of order or what they call balance, a cleverness; Rapunzel had been waiting years for this moment.
She let the information slip casually, playing it off as a mistake, but knowing that Mother Gothel would be furious with her for allowing anyone else into the tower — especially a prince. Therefore, she was expecting a punishment. So, when Mother Gothel pulled a pair of shears from her cloak, Rapunzel acted quickly. She seized the witch’s wrist, twisting it as hard as she could. Mother Gothel let out a cry of rage, not only at Rapunzel’s defiance, but also at her unexpected strength. But Rapunzel did not falter; after a moment longer of struggle, she was able to tear the shears from Gothel’s grip and pierce them straight through her heart. Rapunzel pulled the shears out of Gothel’s chest — allowing the body to collapse on the floor with a thud — and stood up, pushing her hair back over her shoulders as she admired her work, chest heaving with her heavy breaths. Of course, there was the matter of getting rid of the body and cleaning up the copious amount of blood before the prince arrived for their nightly meeting; she couldn’t have him suspecting anything was wrong — not with what she had planned for him. It was exceedingly difficult, but Rapunzel managed to get the job done before nightfall. She dragged Gothel’s body to the closet that held her cleaning supplies — including the mop that she needed to clean the blood that was now smeared across the dark hardwood floors of the tower. How they threw themselves
into projects like us, poured their secret desires and fears and fetishes into our lands, our laps, all to starve their own souls of humility, and paint our faces with their reflections. Polarity might breed division but Nuance makes way for indifference And wasn’t it good men who stood by and did nothing that were the ones who let evil win? On the furthest edge of the coldest corner of the steppe, a herder lived in a yurt with his three
children. The herder’s wife had died years before, so it was just the four of them who huddled around the great stove in the tent’s centre, faces blackened by soot. They were bored and achy, for when the winter bit like this no-one could go outside. For days and days they had had only each other for company and tempers, which had started out thick and mellow as yak milk, were running thin. “I wish I could check on the sheep,” fretted the youngest son, who loved the outdoors and all that breathed there. “I wish I could visit my friends,” sighed the oldest son, who enjoyed the village and all who danced there. “I wish I could trade for coffee,” grumbled the herder, who as a father thrice-over was reliant on the stuff. “What good is a fire if you’ve nothing to brew on it?” The daughter of the yurt, who was also the eldest child, opened her mouth to speak - but before she could, a great flurry of snow blew down the narrow chimney and snuffed the fire right out.! By a stroke of bad luck the father’s words had been whipped up by the north wind and carried to the Fire Maiden, a goddess much revered in those wintery parts. The herder’s thoughtless words badly offended her. ‘Mother’ – the word, to me,
Has always been my other An entity quite apart from me Until I saw her In that childhood picture Gaze gleaming, smile beaming – A reflection of what I’d been – A burning light among her siblings But to reconcile that image With the present I had been looking at the wrong place – Her eyes, in my eternity, have always been dead – I just had to look into her words Splayed across my skin – I was the princess
whose blood, spurred the winds of war to Ilium, and launched a thousand ships. To my father, I was but an answer to the Gods, a piece for appeasement. To my mother, I was first a bitter question, then a bloody cry for justice; and in between the answer that came before the question I was only a daughter, Not yet Iphigenia. The evangelists were getting louder
bending the ears of presidents but at the same time the backlash was growing They needed a sacrifice so lots were drawn and they chose Bakker he was too loud And they didn’t like his wife So they sent a temptress his way and he fell and everyone focused their eyes on him All his accumulated wealth the power of God through success through positive thinking through investing your hard earned dollars so he could spread Jim’s word disguised as His word it was all over I am someone that Death did not choose
The waters, silenced with a warning The fruit of love, dangled before my eyes A deer caught in the headlights The sins of the father, a haunting reminder That the lies of men bring the demise of the less fortunate At Aulis, I plead to you with Heaven in your eyes And Hell in my father’s I am someone that Death did not choose I am as sacred as the holy wars you wage I am as lustrous as the blade you lay on my neck on my neck the first song you memorized,
singing along, maybe snapping with the beat? Not a nursery rhyme nor lullaby and not the alphabet song. The tune you heard on the radio wormed its way into your soul so deeply, every time you hear it played, nostalgia floods your heart, a strange sense of déjà vu. Maybe you smell coconut and chlorine or even popcorn and pine trees. Memory defined by melody and love remembered within beats. |