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i shout FIRE FIRE FIRE inside myself. i shout it and no one knows. i lay composed and pretty on my side of the bed like a fat, mean infant, in the middle of my own warmth. i lay and the hours glide slow and greasy as hair. my desires go selfish, fueled by the nag, the nag, the shout of FIRE FIRE FIRE. crowded by old heavy pillows, i go hot. the filth of my body trapped in the fibers of its coverings. the filth. my filth. my shame and from my shame selfish desires take shape. my eyes are closed. my face is still. no one knows i shout FIRE FIRE FIRE inside myself. it is silent. the body next to mine has no clue of the FIRE FIRE FIRE. i picture myself laying under a white wedding-knot quilt under tall windows and a high, bright ceiling. i picture myself and in the picture i do not waste time staring at the ceiling. i curl below the wedding-knot, unwed and warm. the white room, the white walls are far from my head. i am not crowded. the walls are clean, open and bright. i gaze at the walls and not out the window. in the white room there is no nag, no need. in the white room there are no curtains. there is nothing to hide. i pull the wedding-knot thick against my throat. my shame bulges. i pull and pull, shame bulging out on all sides, until my throat splits and out it drops, clear as a diamond, clinks and twinkles across the floor. the hot of my body burns itself out and i fall asleep, finally without fire, inside the white room. the white room. easy as a child.
and in the corner, a glittering
white
light lodged.
.
4 comments:
This is amazing, Angela. All this outpouring. This is where you get the good stuff. That fire. It's where all the best things get forged.
xox
forged. oh, i hope! trial by fire... but somehow necessary. i feel like i'm chasing something. run run run. my legs are burning but i don't want to stop.
Hi Angela. Have you read Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story 'The Yellow Wall Paper'. http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl_gilman_yw.htm
Something in the passion of your words here remind me of it.
If you haven't read it yet, you might like to check it out. If you have you might recognize what I'm talking about.
hi elisabeth! i had not read it! thank you! and what a thing to read right at the beginning of the day! amazing! it reminds me of that part in the bell jar when the patterns on the floor begin to make her ill and paranoid. absolutely stunning writing in this short story. and also, from an historical perspective, a very cunning document of "female trouble". thank you so much for the link! and the comparison. :)
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