Locked Inside a Forgetful Mind
KALI EGAN
You look at me,
as though I am a long lost friend
risen from a grassy grave.
Your eyes see mine as foreign.
The spill of wine on a countertop
would have reddened your face
to the same bloody shade,
instead you laugh drunkenly.
‘Do you see me?’
The waving of my hand
falls on blind eyes,
like I am the absent one.
In the sea of your memory
I have been buried and chained.
Am I an anchor clinging to the sand
or have I slipped down the drain?
Where did I go?
I used to exist in you.
A fragment that, I believed,
would outlive me.
I thought I would end
at seventeen,
with stone filled pockets,
yet I remain dry as you sink.
Your hands press against
the sharpened knife’s edge.
Your palm met the metal to press
and stain the carrot red.
Was it weak will
that had this prison built,
or just a parasitic ill?
Are there cracks in the walls?
I’ll say ‘I love you’ for
you are my past and my future.
Though I expect my heartfelt words
will be lost in your stupor…
but
this time you heard me
and my beating heart.
Your eyes see me lucidly,
‘Is that you, honey?’
A dry mouth, a hoarse cry,
a sob that soaked the scarf awry.
We watched pots and stewed fruits
smiling and laughing on warped time.
A glint of recognition,
a momentary relief.
This magic is as fleeting
as it is bittersweet.
Tomorrow you will wake,
leave your slippers out of place,
and marmalade’s nostalgic taste
will fade.
Eventually we will be
equal. For you are the host,
something evil lives inside.
Waiting while I bide my time.
This disease is an unholy entity.
From thick skin its poison seeps
as it hops from leaf to leaf; webbed feet
suctioning against our family tree.
Sometimes
I wish… I ended
at seventeen.
Taking this evil with me.
I would take slitting
over slipping. The edge
is so deceiving in caressing
my tired body.
You forget that you quit,
spilling vapour from your lips.
Calloused and dripping
with spit.
You pull at red nail beds
expose unused flesh
and atrophy, before my eyes.
I wait for you to die.
BUT I AM YOUR DAUGHTER!
I AM SICK OF YOUR SICKNESS!
AND I AM SO TIRED,
SCARED,
GRIEVING,
AND I AM
LOSING
MY
MIND!
I am so deep inside,
where there is no light.
So similar are your eyes,
my child.
An heirloom, a family curse.
I fulfill the prophecy,
as it is my duty,
infecting.
So there is a magic in the way
I am lost to you
and to myself;
just as I was to somebody else.
Kali Egan is a writer of short stories, poetry and songs. Her works traverse life's questions, of identity, aging and relationships, through a melancholic perspective in hopes of unearthing her own feelings and finding the truth within them.
