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marianne's favourite raincoat she was talking. she was standing there talking to me about something nearly as meaningless as you could possibly guess, just a year ago, believe or not...to think it was only a year ago, but of course it was longer. sometimes i doubt she ever really existed, except perhaps in the most artificial, superficial explosion. and her death of course was an absolute figment of someone's imagination, even though i'm never quite sure if it was mine or hers. on mornings like these i remember standing in her kitchen under that painting, you know, of that big table and supper, that jesus guy in all those blue robes - the whole deal. sometimes the wind still smells the way her house used to, the way her mother had taped all the windows shut, as if that would really keep anyone from seeing her bruises...god, all the bruises...or hear her screams in the dead of night. but they all saw, everyone saw, the day she stood out on the edge of the world and put her heart on display. it was the first time they had ever seen her cry, and i think it hurt them all, it hurt them even though they didn't know it, or they didn't believe it. humans have such absurd ideas regarding faith. there were no doors in her house, and there was a box of baby ducks in the corner. little fluffy baby easter ducks, with eggs and all. she killed them, accidentally. she killed me accidentally, too, but of course i forgive her, and i'm sure the ducks did, too. after all, did any of us really need to stay in the box? boxes are only plastic metaphors for caskets without handles. oh god, here's her song, that song, they're playing it again, and i watch her ghost waltz clumsily through my living room, wearing momma's clothes again. she glances at me as if she expects i know what she's going to say, but i don't, i never know what to expect with her, those knives she gave me and these scars i wear. i wear them like badges of shame, deserving and proud of my dishonor. but i'm not that same little girl anymore, i'm far long since away from the cabbage patch, and i know where the doorways were all along. and they said marianne killed herself, and i said not a chance....when i turn around with these gypsy gloves, i still see her in that same white dress, bloodstains where appropriate, the ghost of her face streaming like tears against the backdrop of the evening. inside this frame, this picture where i live, i blame myself, i mark the red x's over my forehead, i let myself bleed. i could have, i should have, but i didn't, and i can't anymore, it's too late, her face is gone, even though the angels still weep for the lost lenore. poe poetry, that's always the worse, the sing-song rhyme of annabell lee, the premonition before everything fell...sometimes when i close my eyes i can still hear her reading it, somew here lost in the evil cold unfeeling boundaries of english class, how could they, how could they do that to her? (well how could you, charlotte?) i wash my face again. it was just another dream, another one of those, when i watch her with her lipring and pray she doesn't remember who i am or was or will be....one day, though...i swear i'll say good-night... |
