Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?
Hamlet, Act II, Scene 1
I wish someone had given me this advice in my youth. Instead I have aged with desire and
it has eaten holes in my viscera until there is little left but a labyrinth for worms to breed in.
I could have died young and beautiful – I was once, you know – but instead
I find myself a middle aged and deranged woman who cannot abide to look at herself in the mirror.
They say that atheists pray in foxholes. That sad men think themselves in love with whores
hired by the hour. In lighter moments we laugh at them, pity them. In the dark, we hope that we will never be them.
How much more pathetic we who, husks of the women we once were,
cling onto glances and flirtations made in generous jest. Reading obscenities into kind words.
I have bared myself in ways that beggar the imagination of beggars. Exposed the moist interior
of that worm-eaten place what use to house heart and womb.
Dreamed of being someone else – anyone else. Tried on a thousand costumes, worn a million masks
for a single moment of reciprocated desire.
And when it came, convinced it arrived in error, mistrusted what was offered, or judged the offering
too pallid or pragmatic. Having waited so long, the honest truth is swallowed in the void of hyperbole.
Stitch up my cunt and glue my eyes shut.
Cut off my useless breasts and stop my mouth.
I am worn from wanting and cannot be trusted to go gentle.
And there is nothing so annoying, nothing so inconvenient
as an insignificance that demands attention.
