Hurricane Season. {poetry}
It is rising. I feel it rising.
What do I do with the rising?
This bellowing cauldron
Of rising emotions
That have no outlet?
Hurricane winds and tsunami waves
That swirl and beat against chest and belly, thighs and mouth.
Seeking out.
Out. Out.
Can relief be found in fists on flesh?
On feet pounding ground?
Toss the cat through the window?
Throw the baby out the sill?
This is where the monsters come from.
This, with nails and fangs
And bulging eyes and wild hair
That we pull at,
Because our hands can’t stop clawing.
Again and again, crying and screaming
Into the howling winds
How could you?
Why would you?
How could you
Leave me?
Unleash it.
Throw open the doors and windows
To the ripping, roaring,
Flatten the trees,
Fury that wants her out.
They don’t tell us what to do with this part.
How to manage, corral, release, ride this part.
We are not taught to ride the hurricane.
There is no logic in this place.
No rational thought in this place.
It is the brew cooked way too long.
So kick something.
Throw something.
Tear something.
Slam something.
Break something.
Crash something.
Smash something
Into a million billion pieces.
Because that is how it feels inside.
The million billion shards
That tear and shred from the inside out.
That gut my belly,
Choke my throat,
Leave me dizzy and frenzied
With no place to go.
Get me a punching bag.
Let it fly from my fists.
Tumble from my mouth.
Flay from my feet.
Will they, at last, call the doctor?
Bring relief, release, with little white pills
Or blue pills or amber liquids?
Put me in a padded cell?
To quiet it, dampen it, put it back to sleep.
Trap it, still it, stuff it.
Shut it the hell up.
No, we are not taught to ride the hurricane.
No platitudes, please.
No, “There, there.”
No, “It will be okay.”
Not now.
Not right now.
It will not be okay.
So go.
I just need to go.
To the sea.
To the sand.
To dance.
To run.
To shriek.
Banshee, wild woman shriek.
It is where the monsters come from.
We give them shape and features,
But it is where they come from.
I look in the mirror
And can’t quite believe what I see.
That woman with blue eyes and soft lips,
Her brown curling hair.
That can’t be what she looks like.
It certainly isn’t what she feels like.
She should look like a monster.
She feels like a monster.
Hurts like a monster.
I have to put the cat out for her own protection.
Ask my sister to watch the babe for his own protection.
I am not safe to be around during hurricane season.
When the monsters come out to feed.
***
Born to a family of artists, Marianne Simon has spent her life exploring creativity in its many facets. For over 20 years, she trained and worked as an actress and director, and has been writing for longer than that. She also received a degree in Landscape Architecture, and founded her company, Poetic Plantings, as a way to incorporate her love for growing things. It is this blending of nature and the human spirit that inspires her writings. One of her most exciting achievements was the writing, producing and directing of her work, Skins I Have Worn, a piece about the courage, resilience and wisdom women discover as they journey through the dark lands of abuse. Though challenging in theme, it is ultimately a celebration, for it is these trials by fire that shape us into who we might become.
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