She told me her story holding a knife in her hand.
How she awoke and reawakened to the very same nightmare,
The same shouting grimaces and torn tongues, horrid saliva,
Spewing its misery into her ears. Stomping fists beneath her
Foundations, the repetitive fears in her overburdened heart,
Time passing by, the same images running in a loop.
Angst from the past meets angst for the future and who
Dwells on and acts in the present? She went through it all
And evacuated herself from her cooking-pot-silence, here to expose,
To talk, not to stay, the movement of her language, the hand-me-down
Narratives of mass-murdered voices and who listens without consequences?
Head in the sand, head in the clouds, flirting with the kill left and right,
Power, power, power, in a dying moment, an instrument, soon to
Disappear, dissolve, wasted, death, a short statement, money fell
Asleep on a throne, the court does its own thing, dreams have never been deeper.
Backstage becomes an onstage debacle, the reaction from our cheap seats
Remains the same, entertained we rot and feast and devour and deplete.
They have sent their conscience on a never-ending sleepwalk.
I look at her face and how her eyelids have had enough, the
Megalomaniacal efforts to give hope more weight than her traumas,
In response to her non-withering love, someone calls her home.
Within marshlands of pure ugliness, she painted a grander picture
Of ideals and gazed only at them, squinting away the demoniac gestures
Surrounding her body. She collected more force than she ever possessed
To equalise and overturn the adversaries of life and human dignity.
One body can only take so much, enough, no more, what she gave will never
Be lost, the silhouette of love that she held on to, aspired towards, fleshing
It out, with words and meaningfulness, substance and ever-creative compasses.
“For the Last Time” by Emily Mary Osborn (1828-1925)
Croque-Melpomene 