HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN NOW

HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN NOW

 

for Alysia Bell

 

How long has it been now since childhood

had to become an adult pre-emptively

to survive your infancy

and take the blindfold off your innocence

in front of a firing squad of guilt

to see what was coming

like a last-minute reprieve

or another bullet through the heart

you could no longer pretend

was merely the harsh kiss

of someone you needed to believe

really loved you?

And what does it say of a world

where it takes more courage to be a child

cornered in the shadows of her bedroom

than it does to be the manic grown-up

on the other side of the door

smashing their eyes like felonious mirrors

in another drunk tantrum on the kitchen floor?

And who was there to know

how many lives you’d already gone through

by the time you were ten

trying to fit your family to the right shoe

like Cinderella to the happy ending that eluded you?

How many times have you stood like a stranger

at the graveside of your own funeral

like the only one who attended

and thrown your last best hope in

like a broken rose that couldn’t be mended?

And I’ve seen the red skies in the morning

that bloom like apocalyptic roses

just before the storm arises within you

like the ferocity of your offended innocence

trying to uproot the lightning

that lashes out at you like a wounded snake

to strike the place where it hurts the worst.

And then you’re as calm as a Zen dolphin

in a kingfisher sea

that’s just endured its own bad weather

like nothing worth watching on a broken tv

and there’s nothing absolutely nothing

you feel you can’t be

as your darkness passes into lucidity.

I’ve watched the waxing and waning of your eyelids

like phases of the moon

and I know where you keep your eclipses hid

in a shoebox of unanswered loveletters under the bed

and I’ve seen how you’ve tried to heal

the broken leg of your unicorn

whenever it’s trembled out of the shadows

to drink from the virgin elixirs mingled in your tears

like mystic antidotes

and old wives’ tales.

You’re a moonboat with black sails.

Your heart is a rose of dark blood

whose highest tide is a biblical flood

and whose lowest ebb

leaves its fish stranded in starmud

and its stars dangling

like mummified flies in a spider-web

like boyfriends who didn’t have a chance of coming true

once you plucked the jewel from the dreamcatcher

like an eye that offended you.

It’s only when God’s in love

that she creates the world

in her own image

and sees that it is good.

And when she’s not

even the rain’s

just a distant memory

in the heartwood of a leafless tree.

But the world isn’t always something horrific

offering you ice-cream

in a terrible dream you can’t wake up from.

Sometimes five petals open and one flower blooms

like an orchid

like a waterlily

like a dandelion far from home

in a swamp

in the shadow of an outhouse

in the armpit of a gravestone

in a broken home

and even the lonely teenager

in a tormented bedroom

sometimes looks in the mirror

and sees that all her sunspots have gone from the shining.

Sometimes the checkers

are jumped by an ostrakon

out of left field

that’s learned how to get over things on her own.

And night comes to the lips of the daylily

and sips fire like a dragonfly

from the grail of its burning goblet

before it closes it eye in the darkness

like a sky that’s pitched a tent

out under the stars

and falls asleep dreaming of Venus and Mars.

And there are mirrors

with cracks in the corners of their eyes

that haven’t been broken yet

by anything you had to throw at them

when they told you not to forget

how beautiful you truly are

underneath the scars you use for makeup.

And sometimes when the first snow comes

it doesn’t lie down like a virgin princess

on the pyres of fall

that no one can wake with a kiss

like a snowflake on a furnace

or a sacrificial lamb

at the eleventh commandment

of a bloodthirsty thorn,

but drifts slowly down

like the big untethered flight feathers

of an extinct species of bird

disappearing in the aerial blue perspective

of a thoughtless oblivion

sweeter than anything

that’s gone before it.

And if there’s no fairness in creation

there’s no fault in it either

and if you open your eyes and your ears wide enough

like seashells and telescopes

you can hear the leaves

you can hear the waves

you can hear the pebbles and the stars

all in the same voice you use

to talk to yourself in your solitude

about what you think your life is turning into

exonerating their homely existence

by remembering once they walked with God in freedom

but after the Big Bang they had no choice

but to be what they are

in the unique scheme of things

like porn stars and butterfly wings

or the sappy endings of bad novels

that bleed like maple syrup

that doesn’t run sweet in the spring

because they’ve made pulp fiction

out of the dark secret themes of life

that flow through us like mindstreams

always on their way to somewhere else

that flowers like the universe in all directions.

If sometimes your heart burns

like an urn full of the ashes of the voodoo dolls

you once called friends

that turned against you like unfaithful curses

that couldn’t keep your secrets to themselves

and told everyone how scared you were

of your own magic,

try to remember

that pain isn’t funny

and life isn’t always laughably tragic

and there’s a hidden antiseptic in honey

that can heal the worst burns

like acetylene and steel

if you don’t saint the sweet things in life with pins

or gore the new moon on its own horns.

And when you’re taking the schoolbus home

and you’re sitting by the window

looking out into the sad distance

away from your hilarious companions

because of some emptiness they couldn’t understand

remember that the breakfast of champions

isn’t a bowlful of thorns

and the best way to lift a hex

you’ve imposed upon yourself

is to let someone sit down in the empty seat next to you

and exaggerate your loneliness into laughter.

And when things get heavier than bells to bear

and the air chokes on an evil wind

and the only course available

is to throw the compass out the window

and let it finds its own way north

like an eye seized by stars in all directions

you can always lean on your skeleton

like the strong beam of a rafter

that’s more than enough

to keep the big bad wolf

from blowing your house down.

You have been through much early and overcome

the worst of the morning

to show the sun your flower

like a poem you just finished writing

in which freedom is a wolf

love is a heart in an earthquake zone

that’s always cracking along its fault lines

to give birth to a baby bird

in a family tree

that’s just been struck by lightning.

And everything about you

that the world has yet to believe

everything they can’t see yet

everything that’s bright and clear

and deep and dark and wonderful

about who you’re becoming

because they haven’t opened their eyes enough

in light of the unearthly things

that haunt a teen-age girl

like a mere slip of the moon

growing into a woman

is symbolized by your cherished unicorn

standing at the edge of your painting

waiting for you to come ashore

like the Lady of the Lake

or Cleopatra showing off on the Nile

in a silver lifeboat

with crescent moons for oars

and a heart as big as the sky

where Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

and Alysia in the Sea with Whales

are two of the latest constellations

she’s painted on the flip-sides of her sails.

 

PATRICK WHITE