Fractals Of Despair
When I was a girl
I kept a make-believe world
In the bottom drawer
Of my yellow nightstand
I arranged finger puppets
With troll-like faces
For when I was lonely
I would open their sky
Pretending that harmony
Was hopefully contagious
I am looking at a plexiglass box. It is sitting on a shelf near my books. It is nestled between my first editions and my favorite authors.
But the walls of its casing are blurry: what resides in the box feels muffled, as though its screams are silenced by a lack of oxygen.
Is it me inside?
Or am I locked out?
Is it me who paces
As I look through the panes of
Bullet-proof glass?
I etched my thoughts with
A backwards alphabet
Because the mirror images reflect
The inverse of my tears
Your face is permanent. It is traced in white against a moonless night. And I soften your gestures with the brush of my lash-line. Your profile is illuminated in my pupils: the darkest points of my eyes hold the silhouette of your shape.
And like two torn paper dolls
They no longer hold hands
In their consequential dimensions
On either side of my mind