Visibility

“What is your greatest fear?” P asks after a regular round of apples and oranges and a round of thinking up each other’s’ epitaphs.

M fears insanity or being too bipolar to help herself but being aware of her condition.

K fears being misunderstood by his loved ones.

N fears physical handicap.

Which leads the group into many a morbid discussion of tribulations undergone by friends.

P fears abandonment or neglect from loved ones.

J, well, J fears being SEEN. Not being visible in the everyday sense, which they are anyway, but REALLY being visible to anyone. There is an image, a façade, layers, and layers of masks, which keep J functioning.

The mother, for example, is a soul deep part of the person and the persona. Warmth, wholesomeness, support, love, strength.

Fire is the element and only J knows how the internal hearth banks the flames. Exudes warmth, showcases strength, while the destructive power of the flame, the incineration, the brimstone, is directed inwards.      

Cubs get the best of it, so do other loved ones. The burn, the ruin, the complete negative, is saved for the innermost self.

That she-wolf, that monster, that bitch, that horrible, loathed, cursed inner being that J is ashamed of meeting in the mirror. That entity, that baying at the moon  were-creature, that pagan entity, that wiccan spirit that will, if seen, negate all love, destroy all affection, drive away all caring.

She exists

“” your eyes are not

The windows to your soul.

Green, blue, golden brown,

Indeterminate is the word…

In the depth of which,

Many have professed to drown!

You know, only you, how few

Can actually read

What the eyes say.

A few there are who can…

Better than you can disguise!

These are the ones you fear

They see too deep, and know

Too much of what you wish to hide

The communion – a tide

Resisting all attempts to stem

These are the ones you fear most,

More so than life itself.

Picking bare the deepest self,

That loath-ed inner being that stays

Under layers of polite niceness

And matronly warmth.

That she-demon who actually rules

Your desires, loves, hates

The one you would gladly kill,

If only you could.

She is you, and she is despised

She is why you hide

You cringe at the thought

Of a day alone with this

Seek to calm ever-present panic

Finding reason for a crowd

Playacting to the end of capacity

And SHE is the one they see

Those rare and so-precious people,

And you can only think of it as

A MATTER OF TIME

Before they leave!””