danse macabre
adapted from Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire
I was tall and proud of it,
all my other insecurities were secrets
I walked in, barefaced and insane,
and I left with a closet full of masks
and memories of you, threadbare,
soft with washing and worn,
hidden in the shadows behind
all the structured garments of day-to-day
I chose each outfit like armor,
flutter sleeves and straight leg jeans
boots laced up and straps all secured,
bringing the chest plates closer together
that openings might tighten up to seams
but none of it mattered, costumes couldn’t cover
my fear that you scented like sweat
and emptied like my skull, my dreams
loosed like a child loses a balloon,
you painted my clinical portrait
all manic pixie melodrama, the moods were real
but disease was just a cocoon I refused to spin
my frown was a stain I refused to wash,
standing was an affront to your sensibilities,
I was a moth and you were a spider
feelings all filaments and silk smoke
no music softened the air of that room,
no lullabies or war cries, he heard my lament
from down the hall and assumed control
silence speaks to him more clearly than truth
each cycle is a curse without a cure,
he didn’t hex me but it’s his name in the credits,
prescriptions wielded like chains,
autonomy melted down and welded into a cage
“why do you need it?” he asked,
“it protects you just as well in this form.”
I held my pieces in my hands like shards
but he turned them to dice, said “roll for damage.”
his eyes cut but his voice would undulate,
his power always present and presented
as largesse, noblesse oblige,
I did not thank him in enough tongues
to assuage that vampiric ego
he told me, “armor invites confrontation,”
he directed my every performance
then said I was no heart, all conceit
ten years spent nestled in his cave,
and now if I saw him, I’d say,
“your suit of skin doesn’t cover your scales,
the cut of your cloth may be fine
but your pattern recognition isn’t,
I played Antinous until you put me on the boat,
the knife-flash slipped out the cuff of your sleeve
and I remembered how to swim.
all the memories you bled, all the humors
in my attendance returned at once,
the cold wash of water over skin.
I jumped and the river embraced me
as your ironic hunger never did,
paper pushing tiger,
my thorn still haunting your paw,
the muse you lost to scorn.”
Monica Deck is an author and recurve archer living in the US Midwest. She has four cats, one husband, and one kid. She is currently writing her first novel.
