There is a box of books in a corner I avoid. I’ve told myself it’s not worth the trouble. My young mind couldn’t handle who was hiding in there and I’m not yet proud enough to assume I’m able to today. She was ravenous and loud, ready to swallow and define anyone who crossed her path. She was unbridled and inappropriate and went off the rails. Out of necessity there followed a string of humble, contemplative years. She’s still there, packed away like a sloppy ending. She sometimes creeps out, bleached by the sun and is gently shelved as pathology. She is so proud yet hurt by stunned faces who shield their eyes from her. She is a princess, demanding and regal, yet vulnerable and easily swayed.
Not even all the courage, collected like trophies at every trial, can openly acknowledge her birthright. We live a life that flippantly restrains brilliance. Nothing may exude its own light, like the moon, condemned as the eternal reflective companion. We live in the dark and blend in during the day. We hardly dare to write our own mythology, in fear of glossy packaging and frizzy, matronly hair, corporate tattoos.
I am deathly bored. I am suffocated in chameleon costumes. I am dying a slow death of fear and refusal to swallow. I sit at a table of cardboard cutouts and throw paint hoping to compromise their flimsy form. Rebellion is a bore. Refusing to fit in is a form of cowardice. Truth comes in the creation of a new palace and a courtyard full of dancing life. There are gardens of mirrors and banquet tables filled with blank pages and raw materials. Her book is wide open and read aloud; we are free to faint in overwhelming, endless altitude. Here she is reconciled, in the palace of the heart, unbound. Confusion and ecstasy are embraced and refined. Love and transcendence circulate freely as stimulants.
This is the woman in hiding who longs to dance as close to the edge as the material plane allows. If she falls, may she be a brilliant planet falling from the sky, disoriented and flung to new heights.