From Page to Person

In terms external to you, your life was unpacked before us. With cold and careful surgical precision, your mind was made bare for us to see. A mannequin of symptoms, of signs painted on your lips and limbs. Twined between criterions was a narrative of you, though that was held in question by many a varying view. So stroke by stoke I recorded the unfolding image in black ink. I underlined the headings and made my points succinct. There was process, pace and structure in the discerning what did cause your mind and heart to rupture. Graphs and tables were set, and its cutlery polished. Every meal was served concisely so that uncertainty could be abolished. Behind my eyes you were pages, a process, and a diagnosis. I could not have foreseen the face that induced that construction’s necrosis.

Something soft and broken had been festering beneath the skin and smile you wore to help remind you of a lie, though you clothed yourself in a weakness and the need to be held high. I have loved many like you; perhaps I’ve saved a few. I know those eyes, that walk and bleeding, it has stained this skin before. I know the road before you, and it will tear your bare feet raw. For heavy are the arms that heave the longing for a dream, for as my pages do not reflect your face, nothing is as it seems. The tearing of the tendons from the thorns coiling beneath your skin, are whimpering then crying to be reconciled with any type of kin. Their seeds have all but withered in the recesses within, and soon they will start flailing as the death of them begins.

Though set aside the sorrows, the scars and hurt; for beyond our norms and wedded dysfunctions lie the individual as vast. I cannot help but wonder, how much of her suffering is hers, and how much is the cast.