I am becoming the woman he imagines me to be: a strange, lithe creature beneath a foreign sun, dark hair whipped by a breeze that presages an afternoon downpour. A white linen dress, crisp in the cloud-scattered light, my eyes haunted by a despicable, unwarranted hope and, on my lips, the acid drop of some impending cleverness.
I am evolving from whore to virgin, exile from the patterned world of love and disenchantment, refugee from the camps of other men’s desires, having escaped from their beds and their venereal diseases with nothing but a poignant sense of nostalgia for the smeared youth I spent there.
The woman I am in his fertile mind is beautiful, always young, always wanting at once too much and not enough, always a mystery and a cliché. He has built of me a vast, soaring cathedral of the feminine: warm and terrifying, guileless and sadistic, horrific in my innocence, an openhearted, hanging judge of men.
The more I know of him, the more I learn the minute details of who I am in the process of being. He’s making me up as he goes along, dreaming me into existence, fleshing me out, one quality at a time.
And so here, in this hospital room dimmed for sleep, where monitors murmur their electronic vigils, with the prim scent of disinfectant warring with the cloying smell of well-meant flowers, I sit beside his bed, or rest my head next to his, on the raised pillow, and whisper. This is where I’ve trapped him, in that last moment, between the taking in of the final breath and its exhalation.
“You haven’t finished me yet, and I can’t let you go until you do.”
‘crisp in the cloud scattered light’ I love that, this is beautifully crafted, we ruin people do we not when we sanitise them just like the ‘cloying smell of well meant flowers’. this offers more each time read. I felt in need of an uplift earlier so i reread ‘motorcycle Hug’ from the ‘Coming Together’ it is just so fresh and lovely, such a buzz ; TDP is so well crafted, rather intimidating in a way. Thank you. love and best wishes
Agreed. RG has the rarest of gifts….harsh and tender insight that grows over time matched by an open cocktail of craft. Pleasure’s Apprentice started this readers’ journey with her, for she captures changes mid motion and the memory banks change fills over time.
I find this bewildering and darkly enchanting.
Sometimes you write things and I have no words but too many, if that makes sense. This is your comment section, I’ll keep it brief –
Lovely.
Much more beautiful than sad, luckily. I wonder if he ever finished you?
And if he didn’t, who did?
Seems the more i discover in this place , the harder it is to find words that might do justice.
Your words inspire me.
Whore to virgin, a refugee…..hard to plumb the goddess isn’t it? But how you do it makes for soundscapes and landscapes and innerscqpes to explore. Eroticism explored.
“Refugee from the camps of other men’s desires…” Revisiting your work always brings me back not just to language, but to your command of psychic truth, strength in process. Southeast Asia is such a journey, and the films you create have ongoing resonance. Once again, thanks.