Nightmares
and Dreams
Camille Claudel
In the
beginning, things were good,
with a pair of delicate white hands
that could caress stone into shape,
and quietly coax the lovers in the clay to come out.
They adored
you in Paris;
everyone thought you were beautiful and talented,
with your Cacountala, and your
slick, sad statues that were waiting to predict the future.
You were
in love with a man
who was not a man at all but a genius or a tyrant
or at least, someone with a plan.
He loved
those hands, too;
wanted to keep them pickled in a jar
and claim that he made them himself.
But this
would not do-
You grew tired of shadows
and he grew tired of you.
The goodbye kiss
sucked out your mind in one breath
and when it got away from you, that happiness,
they thought you were mad, chasing it
down the sidewalk and into the street.
Your mother
wagged her finger and shook her head
and began sentences with
"Well, if I were you..."
which
was all she could think to say to a girl
who was not like her at all.
And it
was for your own good, they said,
that you were sent away, locked up,
and those beautiful hands did not touch anything
for a very long time.
They became
something else besides you,
went underground, grew into the earth,
roots that kept you chained and yet escaped you
no matter how much you tugged and pleaded,
"Don't go, don't go."
Thirty
years of being swallowed
by the same mouth,
you sent letters begging to be let out
and got get-well cards in return.
Your brother felt bad, but not bad enough
and kept busy writing poems about
girls with heartbroken smiles.
Your hair
went gray and they forgot your name.
The smashed bits of masterpieces
were swept up and thrown out with the trash.
And through everything you sat in the dark
with your face in your hands, small, white hands,
with the cloudy remnants of clay still under the nails,
all the while those tiny little fists aching
to tear apart the lives of men.
Mad
Girl's Love Song
Sylvia Plath
Everyone
knows the story of the girl who went mad,
changed her name to Electra and
folded into herself, a neat labyrinth of Russian dolls.
It began
innocently enough,
with Friday nights that were spent
on dates with boys who wore
toothy grins and awkward haircuts,
always vaguely hoping
that a poet might come to the door instead.
Daily life
read like a resume:
Fullbright scholar, Mademoiselle intern,
fashion spreads, acceptance letters...
and everything was accomplished with
arms outstretched and eyes closed
as if soon expecting a kiss.
Behind
the schoolgirl's careful smile
lurked bottles with skulls and crossbones that
might have well been marked EAT ME
the way she gobbled them up,
hoping they'd make her grow or shrink or
disappear altogether.
The newspaper
stories left people covering their mouths
and eyeing each other with a frightened animal stare,
their hands itching to take apart what was broken
to understand what was inside that went wrong.
But that
was left to the professionals-
and when the doctors cut her open
they expected to find something
beautifully fragmented, like a stained glass window
yet saw nothing but wiry veins bound into her like roots
and a heart ticking quick as a bomb.
No one
understood the tongue in her mouth
that jabbered the language of ghosts,
but could only vaguely comprehend
those glassy eyes like jewels
rotting in her head, and how they quietly seemed to say,
"It is very hard, to be in love with everything."
The
Devil Inside
Margery Kempe
Keeping
a secret can kill you.
She found this out the hard way,
holding that untold sin in her mouth,
locked between her jaws until it burned
into a fever and scalded her throat.
Because
she could not, would not confess,
Madness dragged her off for his own,
all the while kicking and screaming,
snarling like a dog as they chained
her wrists to the bed posts.
But then
as if in a storybook,
Christ sailed down on a moonbeam
and offered her his heart,
thick and runny and a hurtful
shade of red.
She had
it for dinner, and licking her
fingers when she was finished,
smiled at the consummation.
Like any new lover
she was ready to tell the world.
She left
her husband to do the dishes
and took to the street all dressed in white.
The townspeople chided and sneered
when they saw her, their very own angel whore.
She was not like Julian, not scholarly
or chaste, or quiet or predictable or
anything that made sense to anyone.
Everywhere
she went her hands
were knotted in prayer
and onlookers couldn't help but be
suspicious of the tears and wails
that shook through her body,
wondering to themselves
whether something was blooming
on the inside of her
or gnawing on the out.
The priests
did not know what to do,
their heads in their hands, grimly watching
this woman who was so eager
to make love to God in public places.
They wanted
to reach into her body
and pull out the demon,
carry around its pink little corpse
to prove the tumor was real.
But their
hands never quite made it around her neck,
and she claimed her luck was Christ,
keeping her secret under his tongue.
More
Wonders of the Invisible World
Ann Putnam Jr.
The words
roll in quick and heavy as thunder.
Parson Green reads her letter
as she stands before the crowd,
a witness to her own confession.
She wants
to apologize for pointing fingers
but it's not entirely clear if she is
taking back what she saw in the shadows
or is just sorry for mentioning it.
Back when
going mad was fashionable,
the girl's mother mourned her dead babies,
and sent her daughter to look into the faces of ghosts
to come back with a message.
The girl
went as she was told,
but ended up huddled around a fire
drawing in the heat and the secrets,
and that message did not stay on the girl's tongue
but
fell down her throat, dissolving like poison
into her bones and teeth and hair.
Her fragile
body took on an electricity
that it could not understand-
clawing and howling, she
bit at the phantoms that hung in the air,
and because she was the youngest,
the most pure, her threats tied the tightest
nooses.They had no reason to doubt her.
But that
was over a decade ago,
and now time was growing short
for things like repenting.
Earth had long mended around
Sarah Good's body and the girl,
who was not such a girl anymore,
could offer no explanation
for her mistakes other than saying
that she had lost her way, and the Devil
had found her.
As his
voice hits the empty corners of the room,
her head is wrapped in echoes,
eyes glazed with a thick syrup of tears.
Wanting nothing more than to be forgiven,
the dirt she ate
turned to mud in her mouth,
thick and rich as new life.
Copyright © 2001 Jolie Braun
