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
