I Am

I am of the wilderness —
Ancient, elemental, and spirited,
Wrought in imagination,
Borne by womb.
Secrets and silent nights.
Lions, witches, wardrobes.
Ferocious battles and forbidden loves.
All by the flickering light of a candle.

I am of curry powder —
Strong, bold, and exotic,
Passed down from generation to generation,
Treasured, cherished, and coveted.
Family gatherings and lush feasts.
Red, yellow, green.
Old stories and long-standing traditions,
All by the steady light of a lamp.

I am of porcelain —
Delicate, fragile, and stunning,
The belle of the ball,
Seen, but never heard.
Ivory skin and plaited hair.
Wispy pink tulle and soft Pointe slippers.
Demure, on the windowsill,
All by the caressing light of a sun.

I am of these things,
Shaped and molded by memories.

Thoughts.

There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either after one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamored of death, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through the chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality itself, and instinct with all that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques, and that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one might fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled with the malady of reverie. Gradually white fingers creep through the curtains, and they appear to tremble. In black fantastic shapes, dumb shadows crawl into the corners of the room, and crouch there. Outside, there is the stirring of birds among the leaves, or the sound of men going forth to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down from the hills, and wandering round the silent house, as though it feared to wake the sleepers, and yet must needs call forth sleep from her purple cave. Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colors of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. The wan mirrors get back their mimic life. The flameless tapers stand where we had left them, and beside them lies the half-cut book that we had been studying, or the wired flower that we had worn at the ball, or the letter that we had been afraid to read, or that we had read too often. Nothing seems to us changed. Out of the unreal shadows of the night comes back the real life that we had seen. We have to resume it where we had left off, and there steals over us a terrible sense of the necessity for the continuance of energy in the same wearisome round of stereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it may be, that our eyelids might open some morning upon a world that had been refashioned anew in the darkness for our pleasure, a world in which things would have fresh shapes and colors, and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in which the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate, in no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance even of joy having its bitterness, and the memories of pleasure having their pain.






Don't wet your pants.
I didn't write that.
Oscar Wilde did, in his brilliant novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

He, among others, is what I hope to be.
As far as writing goes, at any rate.

Read the book.