Saturday, May 30, 2009

Demeter's Daughter

She was drifting again. LIke the wind could pick her up and blow her away, up into the clouds. She only wished to be with him, he was her anchor, her two strong arms that wouldn't let her go.
But it was Spring and Demeter's Daughter had to, once again, emerge from Hell.
Her thoughts glide sluggishly, slick as oil but still brackish and torpid, praying to find that thing that clears her head and allows her to return to the light of day. She remembers dancing in sunlight and embracing the dawn. When life was innocent, placid, naive.
Now things are of a gritty, worn out, greyish cast, crunching under feet unpleasantly. She desperately wants to wake up. She begs for God to make it better again.
She slips from night to day, day into night again, stiffly, slowly like a sleepwalking zombie.
People ask how she is and she lies so well now she forgets to tell the truth to people she loves. She forgets to tell herself she's lying. She hates telling because she feels like she's complaining, and that's never been allowed in her childhood. All she can wish for it for it to end. And soon.
Please, oh please, just let it all stop long enough for me to breathe. My soul is tied to a string and dragging behind me, shards of glass and rock piercing it's core, to lodge without leaving, scarring forever.
She she collects herself, scraping together the blood and bones into a passable girl. Opens her eyes from the mist to squint at the day. To work faster, better, harder, stronger. To pray for Saturday to come, and soon.
She forgets for a few scant hours to press against the dark smothering sadness and simply allows herself to be. Filling coffee cups with inky brown liquid and taking baptized dishes from the washer. She merely follows along, doing what she's told because the robotisim is soothing to her ringing ears, her twitching eyes. She doesn't have to think except to give the correct change.
Until she has to take a break, until she is done with work and standing on the street corner feeling the buses buffet by her grey and black form.
Her entire body is consumed with the desire to mount the steps of his bus, to allow the metal dragon to spirit her away to a place where it doesn't hurt quite so much. Her self control is second nature now, and it burbles beneath her dewy face, claiming dominance. Winning without fighting, and fight for control.
She ducks into her novel, and a fresh Southern Carolina breeze steals her away to another world until her mother calls and she raises her wet head from the literary waters. She wants nothing more but to duck under again, let the world go passing by until things stop hurting. But life grabs her by the soul and won't let go.