immure
“The real violence, the violence that I realized was unforgivable, is the violence that we do to ourselves, when we’re too afraid to be who we really are.”
Celeste of Unreason
The laws of gravity point to the inevitability of life. Everything is eventual. Death. Rejection. Heartache. Pain. On the other side of suffering, you meet the sacred. On the opposite side of the fall is the rise of the phoenix. Gravity is essential as praise. The force that draws your body to the earth is grounding as each breath. Mass attracts and repels. The power that draws us downwards hints at the many ways we will learn to rise again against the odds. Wake up. The glass will shatter if you let it fall. Pick up the shards and make something magnificent.
My heart is a room with high windows. Rounded edges that nearly skim the ceiling. Curvilinear spaces. Each window is wider than my wingspan. A thick wooden ledge at the sill to hold a coffee cup to bid the day good morning. The border of the glass is painted white to match the room. The panes of glass are edges with gilded gold to reflect the light. Long, gauzy, white curtains border each window. Tossed to the side, the silk flutters in the wind that moves through the room. I keep all the windows open, even in hail and rain.
The ceiling presents a painting of a blue-haired child sleeping in a wide bed with three white swans. The birds have spread their wings around the girl. Their feathers are cream and milk. Black beak, orange webbing, and the girl’s blue hair glitter from the heavens. One hand held at the child’s mouth. The other reaches outwards towards the room below.
Rustling leaves spin through the room’s long windows. Seeds, dandelion puffs, seagull feathers. Someone should sweep the floor. As people arrive, trumpets blare. Clattering heels and swishing skirts. Brass and wind instruments. A quintet dressed in chartreuse. Velvet slippers and platform espadrilles. Leather straps that wind up to a thigh. Long skirts that skim polished toenails and rings that sparkle silver, onyx, and gold. Eyes as candy; soft and stretching. Toffee and buttercream. Fingers splayed, arms thrust overhead to feel the wind. To wander with the breeze. Bare chests and nipples. The clavicle is the key.
A rinse of song presses to the walls. If only the dark wood would speak. What stories this room would have to share! Lovers leaning in corners, hot hands tucked at a waist or a thigh. Cupping a crotch. A tongue at a neck, sternum, stomach. Lower and lower; be still. The windows watch. Eyes open, always. Violins stretch each note, decant before the pause. A piano sits in the corner. The pianist extends each digit as the sun wanes and the warm breeze melts against bare chests. Fingertips strum lightly against the ivory. Watching the swans, throat thrust upward, play on. The one who soothes the transition from light to dark.
The room's name is Valeria, meaning ‘strong, healthy, capable.’ Hail symbolizes a loss. The windows ping and shudder. The drapes become soaked and the floors wet. Puddles are the residue of what we longed for. The dancers slip and glide. Swatches from torn gowns are used to mop up the floor. Hair becomes tousled, skin pimpled, lightening as a gash in the eye. The thorn is there and must be removed. Thunder rolls as you take it by its stem. Silence. Now, pull! The wound is deep. The glass will shatter if you let it fall. Pick up the shards and make something magnificent.
Photo source.
