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v u l v a l i c i o u s the critic You are superego. Lording yourself over me. A tight, trim suit. Hair back off your face. You are ungendered, or else your gender is Control. You are my mother's internal monologue. You have silenced her for too long. The look that I feel on my face I have seen on hers--the scrambling of her mind's fingers on the rocks as you crush your hard foot down. As you tell her to give up. I am not so easy. You will not win. And I will have you the way I'd like you, I will take what I need and let the rest fall back. Or I will turn it around and use it against you. Whatever it takes, I will shut you up. I will tell whatever story I want. I will climb and fall and cry and break on my own terms. I will scream out a song from my aching heart that will break you into your component parts. I will do this on my own time. I am not complacent, at least I won't be now. I left home. I ran away to make myself into something different. And I have kept moving, I can do anything. You tell me: yes, but not well. You whisper about mediocrity and disdain, disappointment. That story that I believe about myself sometimes, where my best friend is running away from me all day at the playground, and I am calling her name and she is turning and going, laughing. "I was pretending you were a ghost." It happened, yes. So I believe it, yes. But that isn't now, and it isn't me. It wasn't even true then, not really. And why should it be now? But you're silent and watching, waiting for the moment to come back and take over. Sit down, be quiet. Let me work in peace, in power. |