The Volumetric Flask

There is silence in the crux of the grey sun. Perhaps it is the natural greyness of morning in a room sans light that propels the feeling of asphyxiation. My too young to be old fossil mind writhes in Hades. I am a grape devitalizing in the sweltering sun. I am a pomegranate with the granate ripped out. I must not think like this. I am inwardly amused at my three coffee cups lined up like soldiers raring for battle. The steel colored kettle sings for me, promising resurrection. I was not tired. I did not sleep. I am tired. I fantasize about an IV full of caffeine, but these three cups will do just fine. You gape at me in horror. I will not drink them all now, you know, just one or two if I am still malfunctioning. The third cup is special. It is my lifeboat should I founder during the day. You tell me I could always make a fresh cup. Poor pragmatic, spoiled fool. There is nothing so wonderfully pathetic and charming as a cold, few hours old coffee. It is brilliantly depressing. You are remarkably respectable but your skeleton is made of collagen and logic. Blast logic. Don’t tell me I can’t change the world. This world is mine, born out of my mind. You go play with your equations and leave me to my mad scribbles.

                Clocks- I cannot abide by clocks. Time is a useless invention. It binds me to itself with a contract I never signed. It keeps me away from my dear one’s arms. The clocks bellow at me, pushing me out the door. These thoughts of mine are dying stars crumbling in my shattering mind. You distract me, Dark Eyes. This love story has stretched itself for centuries. My heart has lain in a musty dowry chest for ages. It is ancient. I no longer feel pain or sorrow when history repeats itself. I am frostbitten. I am numb. I am aware that I should shed a tear. I should rage or writhe in pain. I cannot. It is too much. I shall continue on with you until my numbness exhausts itself. I am not a quitter, whoever thought that it could be a tragic fault. Mayhap I cling to you because you are like the father I did not have but yearned for. It is twisted. Still you are my Rama and I am your Sita, though we are not gods. My hair no longer hangs down my back in earthen curls. I was both Samson and Delilah. I demanded change.  I had misplaced my beauty and lost my page. Loss and I often have tea together. It is a tradition that may not be violated. What was her middle name again?

                I am trapped in a volumetric flask. I cannot climb out. My father, he filled it with 10 M Hydrochloric Acid and stoppered it shut. My mother cannot help herself. She is a vision in ethanol. I am a little girl again, trembling, and afraid. I am a little girl who cannot understand. Father, oh father, explain to me your need to use your hands and make mother bleed. I have read about princes, father, where is your chivalry, where is your steed? My mother cannot bear this life. Father, oh father, if you were kind, mother might don that lovely dress, wear a crown, and smile and laugh. I desired to love you. Sorrow was mine. I am six again, my brother whines from hunger, and my mother is unconscious. I am a six year old mother to a child of two. The soup tastes of dishwashing liquid, milk and a slice of cheese it is. I put him to bed, my baby brother with tear-filled forget-me-not blue eyes. Sorrow is mine. Purr, the charcoal grey kitten and I sob in my room. Father, why must you try to kill that which I love? Drunken arguments are my lullaby. I pretend to be afraid of darkness and leave on the light so that I can read my books into the night. My books take me thousands of miles away. I dance with Prince Charming in the most beautiful dress, fight dragons with Saint George, and ride horses across Iceland. I grew serious and old.

                Father, you did not change. You felt no remorse. You gave yourself permission to enter and exit my world as it was convenient for you. You wrote letters filled with lies. I grew tired. I chased you off. Mother surrounds herself with alcohol and in her eyes I am a w***e. I should not be loved. I am hideous. I am without worth. But I have heard this all before. I no longer yell. I must be calm. I am an oasis of peace. That is my mantra. I call my brother who is out with his friends. Dinner is regrettably served. My mother will want some tea, hopefully, she has fallen asleep. I fall into bed and cuddle with God. I sigh against His strong chest and tell Him of my day. He looks at me with His boundless eyes and reassures me that He will hold me through the night. I am light, He says, I will keep you from the darkness. Darling, you will always survive. You try so desperately to forgive, my child. Yes, Father, dearest, I think I can sleep now.

                Every so often my mind leads me down this path back into the volumetric flask. Where was I? Coffee and love and clocks, you say. The universe doesn’t care for time. It does not stop for time. God is eternal with no beginning and no end. There is no time. There is only love that is worth stopping for. That is the one reality in our sea of delusions. Let us all sing poems of love. I am kissed by the yellow sunlight. I melt under its heat. I am made dizzy by the gems of light centrifuged through the linden tree’s heart shaped leaves. I smile sweetly to myself. It is but July yet there displayed for the keen eye among a sea of green dangles a completely yellow leaf. Thus ends my morning reverie, and reader, I drank that third cup of coffee.

Reviews

[Larry Dyson]

you my dear are the fair flower of the garden...although the rain has pummeled your fair petals ..the sun shines radiantly once more ..you shaking your head and spreading those delicates to astound Us all..the beauty of a rose by any other name....Laury

[Ed Hart]

you have well painted a dark universe...it doesn't have to crush

[A.A.Romanczuk]

it loves to collapse, but life must go on