I LOVE MY TOWN, a place where cobblestone walkways meet picture-postcard themed brick houses over shadows of sickening sunlight. here i'm free to run across the willowy grass or by the tip of the old broken down canal and nobody ever sees me crawl in. the adrenaline of cutting through the dark kills me but at least i can keep away from pa and his blaring voice. and they're saying the canal is haunted but really, it's me. i'm the only ghost there and it shows on my bloodstained hands. the television tells me there's only so much of time left before my escapade turns into an episode of bone-cracking capture but i know i will get away every time as long as i smile.
I LOVE MY TOWN, the way the night air chokes me on the wish of corpses hanging below from december skies like puppets on invisible strings. i love the glistening hillsides painted orange, crimson and gold as they glare at me from my periphery when i take illicit midnight strolls arm in arm with my demons. i never plan on surviving yet somehow i always end up alive with a pounding monster for a heartbeat. when i don't gulp down my pills for the hangover the voices in my head grow louder. they tell me to break and shatter and break and shatter and break until nothing is left of my pa's wine bottle collection or his wood-framed portraits and i obey their commands.
I STILL LOVE MY TOWN and everything that comes with it after all, as my pa used to tell me on the mornings before sunday school (when he was still alive): i am his lawful, obedient child. i was brought up here. i am going to die here. the oaks in my backyard have overlooked my sanity spilling like juice from a glass, they have overlooked the grey slated chimneys of my pa's red and white thatched cottage and they will continue to overlook my swivel-eyed meltdowns balanced with a little bit of good-natured mania and raging ecstasy every time the clock strikes 12. and if anybody asks, i never knew that kid's routine that day i just happened to see her walking back home by taking a short cut through the boulevard and playing hopscotch in deserted parks, i never knew how she ended up dead in a gasoline station a mile away from this lovely town
─ WHO CAN A MONSTER
BLAME FOR BEING RED?
(anne carson)
⍣
thoughts?
