Lunacy
Linda L. Bielowski, Ph.D.
What was I to know of fate, fear and loathing, or sleight of hand?
When all and everything I wanted was to spend time with you, on
an evening perfect in its predictability, soothing in its sameness,
waiting to purify us in a baptismal pool of tepid air. But you spiraled
downward on a shaky staircase, moods waxing and waning in erratic cycles, lunar phases gone awry. You stole a soothsayer's prophecies
and a fortune teller's deck, shuffling and turning them backwards and
inside out until you picked nihilism for your trick. Hearing nagging voices call Ophelia, out of sight, out of time, out of touch, you took the razor blade, slicing through layers of numbness and somnambulism to quicken the dead. A slap on the birth ass, a shriek of becoming, and you freed the face behind the mask, the flesh beneath the make-up. The yoke of the moon ran rouge red over your full cheeks, as the clock pendulum mimicked your body--quivering and standing still--a lone bird shot in flight, cast from heaven.
At 11:59 p.m. your round photograph slipped from its silver frame and fell to earth.
