Chapter 4: The Fourth Dance – Entreaty

Whenever I am like this, and
          I don’t mean to be,
I am burdened by a sense of permanence.

Nothing will change,
          not with effort, not with help, not with time -
and yet,
          there are always gaps in this dread.

I let the arts pull me out of time
          like I am a lost sailor and a siren has called me.

My paint streaks dark,
          ink on page sows color,
                    and I pass the hours,
hour after hour,
           letting myself imagine my own escape.

Sunset and sunrise, forgive me
            for not greeting you today,
                     but the world was too heavy,
                              and I needed a siren like oxygen.

Where do you go when it’s all too much?
Please.
Answer honestly because tonight holds too much of me.

How do you watch a sunset when you know what the sun can see?
War and famine and crying children
              and so much all at once -

Who is going to tell a chickadee what greed is
               and why we let it take us this far?
I cannot go there tonight.

Is it healthy to tell a child to smile when I know,
               know all too well,
                        what we’ve done to her bright and shiny world
                                    that she is supposed to enjoy?

I’m sorry, sunset.
I'm sorry, chickadee.
I’m sorry, sweet child,

that I cannot tell you the world will be kind.
I speak from a balcony I cannot climb down
               and have yet to try jumping.

Do you think God regrets anything created?
I know of the garden and the flood,
               but rainbows aren’t a sign of remorse.
I am talking around things again.

Do you think God regrets creating me?

Forgive me. Unfortunately,
                tonight is one of those nights -
                               one where the universe impresses upon me.
So here I am, scribe,
or perhaps auditor,
for the cosmos.

A noise bounces off of my door,
and I let out a sigh.
Tonight is no night for the beast’s tireless game.
I do not call back.
You could not call this feeling in me
                 loneliness,
I have walked far past those meadows.

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He knocks once more and I deny him his pleasure.
This evening has wrought through me,
                and I do not crave his embrace.
I feel shame to have wanted it so often.

The beast’s game of retreat
                is his only show of love,
yet tonight I have heard that
               he will never love me,
                             not in the way I need it.

His third thump surprises me,
              though I am loath to admit it.
In seven-hundred days and seven years
               he has never knocked thrice.

The sound is one of frustration,
desperate and bitter,
like someone has interrupted his meal.
I do not call back,
and will not call back.

Neither of us could stand to face the Goddess,
              nor her wicked husband,
                         but together might find our escape.
Without me, he is nothing,
               and the same must be true for me.
Yet tonight I resolve to let myself fade,
                cast away into oblivion,
                           simply to pull him there too.

He cannot leave these walls without me,
                 and I will not move.

There is no fourth knock,
                but if I sit quietly enough,
let my ears deepen their grace,
                 the shuffle of his feet pace to and fro.

Sometime later it ceases.
I am left to my peace, no longer holding my breath.
I go about my art and my order,
                resolved to let the morning come find me.

Another noise at my door,
                not a knock, just a light scrape.
The beast’s feet rumble away,
                and at the threshold of my entrance,
tucked quietly through the crack,
                 there is a small note.

Scowling and half-hearted,
I rise to claim it,
                  only a little surprised he writes anymore at all.
I take one more breath,
                   rife with pity and disgust,
                             and fold the envelope open,
                                       greeted by fine script.

There are few words,
though together they resemble beauty somehow.
In a slight scrawl,
and dazzling fine ink,
he has written me nothing more than this:

Not tonight,
but tomorrow.

 

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