Sincerely, Jennifer x

Longing for the lilac valleys of last night,
I awoke in a crater.
Fighting the feminine urge to cry,
denying myself the decency of dim lights,
distant music and total isolation,
I was aware of myself,
but unsure of her all the same.

The sky was full of thunder and magic.
I watched it with wistful eyes,
waiting for all the ways I had been pulled apart to reconcile,
for each inch of me to find a way home,
but there was nobody brave enough to bring me back and allow me to sleep.

The sky put on a show,
stories spun from the stars and blank space,
and I was grateful for the peace,
graceful in my quiet contemplation.

I am at the centre of the stage,
but the audience talks among themselves,
chattering and chewing on my scattered limbs.
They are desperate to evolve,
but their tracks trash everything that I am,
and each of their prints collapses into a crater,
capturing and making a monster of me.

The cat does not drag me in.
She nudges me, lovingly,
soft glances with yellow eyes,
secure in herself,
unthreatened by what I am and what I have always been.
We sit together in star surrounded silence,
because there’s a moon out,
and lilac valleys look down upon us.

The two of us have no home.
We belong nowhere,
but we persist in being,
because there’s nothing else to do.

Agents and imposters arch their backs,
crawling along grubby floors with grins that disgrace them,
my name written in neon across their ever speaking shoulders and under neck chokers.

I am not dragged in by the cat,
I just follow her to safety.
The ladder behind me burns,
it is incinerated by those who have been crawling up since the beginning of time,
but now let their daughters toil,
charred and scarred by judgement,
shame and pressure.

I don’t know if I’ll ever go home.
I don’t know if I ever could.
I just wander the world with my long craved companion,
complete but completely lost.

She is real and true peace.
I do not disgust or fascinate her.
I am just a small speck of space under the sky,
not repackaged,
not reimagined,
just understood and accepted.

I am free of my fairy tales now.
Once upon a time,
I truly believed that there was a hive of heroines ready to rescue me,
but I found the violet night all by myself.
There was nobody to teach me,
nobody to hold me,
nobody to protect me,
because they were all so busy, burning ladders and posting perfect PR statements on Instagram.

They called me by their name but they treated me like something different.
They invited me into their arms and then cuffed my wrists.

It’s all fine.
I lived.
I crawled through fallout and active volcanos,
only to meet curious reporters with no self awareness who ask in booming voices,
where the shame comes from.

I could answer, but I’ve gone on long enough.
My throat is sore and tired of the arrows,
shot by those who cannot swallow inconvenient and uncomfortable truths.
I could answer, but you’d never hear me.
The ground would shake, as would your head,
your hands would clamp over your ears,
and I’d be lip syncing to the lifeless silent scene.

You still ask the question of why we will not be clearer,
but I have been as clear as I can be,
without becoming a catastrophe that ends the world as we know it.

There is a war going on, and they say it’s my fault.

I don’t even know if you know the question that you’re asking, anymore.
I don’t even know if you know why you want to be here so much, anymore.