Finalist in the Webster Groves All Write Competition for poetry, 2015
I am a landscape.
Covered in mountains with their snowy peaks reaching for the heavens.
Deep valleys filled with lush wildlife, each one a Garden of Eden in it’s own right.
Grassy plains that shift and sway to the rhythm of some unknown force, bowing and stretching gracefully.
The great, grand sky.
Poets write about my vast volume, the hues that color my skin, each fading and melding into another with the passing of time and the changing of mood.
Scientists seek to understand me, worshipers look to me for guidance.
Would you tell a landscape to destroy it’s mountains? To fill it’s valleys? To burn it’s plains? To darken it’s skies?
I am a landscape, and no one on this earth can carve into me the imprint of their existence.
I am a heart.
I beat and throb, pounding out an infinite tempo.
Music is composed to follow my rhythm.
Drums are smashed,
hands are clapped,
voices are raised,
all in praise of my living, breathing metronome.
The thrumming of the earth, the strength of the stampede, terrifying and ominous.
Would you cut through the taught silky leather of the drum, dragging the knife down as you do a slaughtered animal?
I am a heart, and no one can silence the impending beat of my life.
I am a lover.
I embrace with all my soul, drawing into myself all the sorrows of the receiver.
With pleasure I pull unto myself the burdens of others, whisking them off like droplets of crystalline water sliding down a swan’s back.
No matter their circumstances,
No matter their shell,
All who present themselves before me will be wrapped up in my motherly blanket, pulled close like a chick under a hen’s wing.
Warmth, a soft voice, humming the tune you’ve known since birth.
Would you drag the child from her mother, tearing away her reason for living and causing her heart to harden, to become cold and brittle with grief?
I am a lover, and I will not allow my children to be taken from me.
I am a girl.
I live in my reflection, constantly striving for the heavens.
My fingers press against the glass, the cold, unforgiving surface that never lies but contains no truth.
Flaws, flaws, flaws grace my face, the paint against the clean white canvas.
It’s so important to make art,
A work for the masses that pleases all.
I must become Mona Lisa, the Girl with a Pearl earring.
I am a girl, and Atlas knows nothing of the pressure on my shoulders.
But wait.
Look deep into the glass.
Stare into your eyes, those brilliant irises.
Behold the fire that burns within them.
You are a landscape.
You are a heart.
You are a lover.
You are a girl, but that will never limit you.
Slam your fist against the glass, watch your flaws scatter and fly.
Become that Mona Lisa, with her sly, calculating smile.
Become the Girl with a Pearl earring, with her ethereal beauty.
Surpass Atlas.
Lift that terrible weight from your shoulders and cast it to the ground.
Stride into the free world, lift your shoulders high and your spirit higher.
Raise your arms to the sky and breathe for the first time in forever, the crisp air of the future.
We are powerful, and nothing in this earth will mark us, will stop us, will take from us.
Nothing will pressure us ever again.
