feminism

She’s Long Gone: Sour Wisdom from Lilith’s Sister.

 

Just who do you think you are, you so sly temptation?

She has no time to inhale your musk or flick her tongue into the lying lumps of spoiled honey that drip from your open mouth. Don’t even bother. Her back is turned, and you cannot glamour her with those wet, black-water eyes of yours. Her hands are busy packing, and she’s taking only what is hers.

Leave every bit of her red, running heart that she gifted you in the smallest pieces during her most vulnerable moments. Stack every one of the raw, thumping parts on the bed. Don’t try to piece it together; she’s taking it with her and swallowing it whole.

She’s long gone, so don’t look for her. She’s headed so deep into the haunted forest you would die before you stumbled upon her stone circle and quiet fire. That Witch demands to be whole again, and you, you feckless, fem-fire dowser of a demon, gave up your hard claim on her soft body the moment you tried to split her in two and stuff her into your boxes. You have no psychic shelf for the majesty that is she.

You have no colors in your box of tricks that could do justice to her lines. She is working her greatest manifestation magick for a life she truly wants, and there is no room for your self-righteous condescension and mystical mockery in this new house she is building.

She’s long gone. I know it seems unfair. She used to be so willing to put up with your bull-headed, pink-dicked politics and pseudo-psychological theory that always seemed to make you right and her crazy. She used to kneel at your feet while you waxed poetic about the pain of privileged life, and she wore every dress you bought for her and painted her face like the doll you always wanted.

Did you have nightmares of your baby doll sprouting sudden self-esteem and learning to walk? Well, your night terrors were her fantasies, the mask has melted, and she’s more alive now than she’s ever been.

She didn’t tell me when it was, that moment she decided she was worth more than to be owned and pranced about like a prized pig whose tongue had been severed, and it doesn’t matter. Don’t ask me who she thinks she is, and don’t ask me about the nature of this new magick she has found. You don’t really want to know, after all; had you asked her earlier, she may have told you.

Alas, it is too late, and that Witch is long gone.

I can’t be certain, but I believe she must be in the woods by now setting crystals in the four directions and envisioning a lust-filled life full of revelry and validation in equal parts. She is brewing some heady smoke of dragon’s blood resin and osha root, and she is shielding her space so only her most beloved freaks may enter.

I know you imagine she is dancing bare-breasted with 12 handsy women for the pure entertainment of wizards, warlocks, and horned hellspawn while they get drunk on dark magick and red wine. Perhaps I might offer some comfort by assuring you of her safety; that Witch is all grown-up, and she doesn’t need your furrowed brows and heavy sighs to protect her any longer, not that she ever did.

She’s long gone. No need to change for her now; it won’t do any good. Let her be. Seek solace in the soul’s darkest night and know that this too shall pass. Remember she is not your teaching tool, though her wild may well be your greatest lesson in this life.

She’s long gone. She is hot-spark divinity embodied in goose-bumped skin and framed by spiraling bones. She is the high, rebel Priestess, now she knows it, and she could never return to the too-small, so-quaint life you were offering that made you God and her, disciple. She’s awake now, you see, and you can’t put her back to sleep with your charming poison and crocodile tears.

Tell her she can’t make it on her own; she lives for it. Tell her she needs you; she doesn’t. Pat her on the head and say you’ll wait for this phase to end, but don’t be surprised when she bites your wrist and speaks in a language you never learned.

I know the world has told you the crown will always be yours, and that wasn’t fair. Of course, a king since birth does not expect a lowly servant to think herself his equal, but you really should have noticed the heat coming off her belly before now.

You really should have noticed how she stared long out of the window, the sentences she started but couldn’t finish, and the small escapes she took in endless showers, midnight walks, and forbidden fruit.

I know you think her lost, but she’s never been more at home than she is now beneath the mother oaks. Tonight, she will sleep on cool moss and welcome wolves into her holiest-of-holies. She will not miss the warmth of your bed one bit, but, should it make you feel better, go ahead and tell yourself she is the one who will be lonely.

Sure, in her darker moments, she may succumb to a fleeting thought — a thought that fades into smoke puffs quicker than it came — about the ill-fated love she once knew.

One day, she may even giggle at a mundane memory of simpler times when she thought you were the whole wounded world wrapped up in sinewy strength and wide-jawed beauty, but, and I say this with all the honesty I have, she is not coming back.

She’s long gone, and she’s sprouted black wings from those bony shoulder blades you used to try to hide from leering eyes. She’s long gone, she has no plans, but you can be sure she’ll find herself on top of another lover come Summer. Best get used to it. She’s long gone, but she never belonged in your garden. She’s long gone, and she’s beholden to no one but her uncaged soul and infinite wild.

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Danielle Dulsky

Danielle Dulsky

Danielle Dulsky is a heathen visionary, Aquarian mischief-maker, and word-witch. Author of 'Seasons of Moon and Flame: The Wild Dreamer’s Epic Journey of Becoming', 'The Holy Wild: A Heathen Bible for the Untamed Woman' and 'Woman Most Wild' (New World Library 2020, 2018, 2017), Danielle teaches internationally and has facilitated embodiment trainings, wild circles, communal spell-work, and seasonal rituals since 2007. She is the founder of The Hag School and the lead teacher for the school’s Flame-Tender Facilitator Training and online coven, The Hag Ways Collective, an E-RYT 500 and YACEP, a Fire-Keeper for Ord Brighideach, and a dedicant to Irish-Celtic spirituality. She believes in the power of wild collectives and sudden circles of curious dreamers, cunning witches, and rebellious artists as well as the importance of ancestral healing, embodiment, and animism in fracturing the longstanding systems supporting environmental unconsciousness and social injustice. Parent to two beloved wildings and partner to a potter, Danielle fills her world with nature, family, art-making, poetry, and intentional awe.
Danielle Dulsky