Friday, July 26, 2019
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Monday, July 1, 2019
Little Black Dress
Little Black Dress
Her steep decline began with much balancing of the ratio between dust, cobwebs and human occupancy in the cottage.
She could feel the muscles extend in her solid calves, the sharp edge to her clavicle that pleased her a little. She could feel the precarious, worn rungs of the old wooden step ladder bend just enough to offer the thrill of potential danger.
She could lose herself amidst the grime accumulating in her greying hair. At least, she could imagine it to be for a far more valiant cause than the tweaking of her small domain.
She slept at the close of those long summer days, she would remember with fondness, the exhausted prelude to slumber.
She hunted down prey from eBay and Etsy. She meticulously obsessed over the gifts to adorn the Christmas tree. She stage managed a coup of a day to hold her loved ones in splendour. Balance, always seeking the geometry of perfection. Each bauble carefully placed to form a pyramid of pleasing, seasonal wonder. She suspended her self doubt in tiny, carefully choreographed and sparkling, fairy lights.
She was fading, malfunctioning, falling. She was plaster of Paris exposed to the harsh weather of her inner emotions. She wore her clothes as splendid bandages to hide her slow decay.
The revellers mostly believed her gilded mask, although she secretly could tell that etiquette led some to avert their eyes as a steady trail of chalk-like fragility escaped from her petticoats.
One day, the woman just stopped having the energy to open the mirrored door of the old carved wardrobe. Lavish silks and linens slid from their wooden hangers to form an impenetrable midden she could no longer navigate.
The wardrobe had always been something of a juxtaposed struggle between her reality and the events lived out in her mind.
Her small world and exponentially larger dreams colliding in an oblong-shaped box of desire.
She sometimes flagrantly dressed for a grand ballroom, allowed silk slippers to caress her stockinged, chipped toenails.
She was a fraud enveloped in the shame of an audience witnessing her step above her station. She was Salome in perfect, ruby-red lipstick then the unspeakable tragic elephant woman, hiding far from a place the golden mirror could show her true self.
The slow decline gathered some pace as the first leaves withered on autumn trees. She felt as though nature she spied through the window of the little cottage was as it should be, the stark beauty of winter. The punctuation in the growth, as the sun released the relentless pull of blooms and vines.
She felt the decaying leaves move to the inside of her face, drawing sustenance, claiming the last, fragmented flights of the imagination that kept her immersed in splintered shards of hope.
She wandered through peoples cast off garments in charity shops until one day, a humble black dress slid perfectly onto her body.
No one notices her decline as the hue echoes perfectly the shadows beneath her eyes. The uniformity of the black dress, worn each day is her safety net for the great heights from which she still may fall. Her cloak of invisibility.
A spore of yearning that the previous owner's life may shed from the fibres shrouding her now unfamiliar skin.
She may slowly ascend or descend yet it is hard to say. So hard to know, these nuances of the stranger on the inside or the crone in the mirror, as they are hers alone.
Her steep decline began with much balancing of the ratio between dust, cobwebs and human occupancy in the cottage.
She could feel the muscles extend in her solid calves, the sharp edge to her clavicle that pleased her a little. She could feel the precarious, worn rungs of the old wooden step ladder bend just enough to offer the thrill of potential danger.
She could lose herself amidst the grime accumulating in her greying hair. At least, she could imagine it to be for a far more valiant cause than the tweaking of her small domain.
She slept at the close of those long summer days, she would remember with fondness, the exhausted prelude to slumber.
She hunted down prey from eBay and Etsy. She meticulously obsessed over the gifts to adorn the Christmas tree. She stage managed a coup of a day to hold her loved ones in splendour. Balance, always seeking the geometry of perfection. Each bauble carefully placed to form a pyramid of pleasing, seasonal wonder. She suspended her self doubt in tiny, carefully choreographed and sparkling, fairy lights.
She was fading, malfunctioning, falling. She was plaster of Paris exposed to the harsh weather of her inner emotions. She wore her clothes as splendid bandages to hide her slow decay.
The revellers mostly believed her gilded mask, although she secretly could tell that etiquette led some to avert their eyes as a steady trail of chalk-like fragility escaped from her petticoats.
One day, the woman just stopped having the energy to open the mirrored door of the old carved wardrobe. Lavish silks and linens slid from their wooden hangers to form an impenetrable midden she could no longer navigate.
The wardrobe had always been something of a juxtaposed struggle between her reality and the events lived out in her mind.
Her small world and exponentially larger dreams colliding in an oblong-shaped box of desire.
She sometimes flagrantly dressed for a grand ballroom, allowed silk slippers to caress her stockinged, chipped toenails.
She was a fraud enveloped in the shame of an audience witnessing her step above her station. She was Salome in perfect, ruby-red lipstick then the unspeakable tragic elephant woman, hiding far from a place the golden mirror could show her true self.
The slow decline gathered some pace as the first leaves withered on autumn trees. She felt as though nature she spied through the window of the little cottage was as it should be, the stark beauty of winter. The punctuation in the growth, as the sun released the relentless pull of blooms and vines.
She felt the decaying leaves move to the inside of her face, drawing sustenance, claiming the last, fragmented flights of the imagination that kept her immersed in splintered shards of hope.
She wandered through peoples cast off garments in charity shops until one day, a humble black dress slid perfectly onto her body.
No one notices her decline as the hue echoes perfectly the shadows beneath her eyes. The uniformity of the black dress, worn each day is her safety net for the great heights from which she still may fall. Her cloak of invisibility.
A spore of yearning that the previous owner's life may shed from the fibres shrouding her now unfamiliar skin.
She may slowly ascend or descend yet it is hard to say. So hard to know, these nuances of the stranger on the inside or the crone in the mirror, as they are hers alone.
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