Ode to Glass

A piece I wrote when my mom passed. We have these colored glass bottles on our windowsill. I kept staring at them. I got violently sick with the flu at the time. I felt abandoned by people. But not upset at them. I included a pic of those bottles on my windowsill. And including a link to a video I made for my mom. She was a brilliant amazing chick. We did have a lot of conflict. But she was a home builder here. Unfortunately the market crashed in Texas and she went bankrupt. I honestly think that's what did it to her. Just the foreclosure on our house she built... She grew up poor and craved to be comfortable. She later was working towards her doctorate in counseling and taught school. Her students liked her a lot. I'm still grappling with the foreclosure and bills but never giving up hope on my dreams for stability and happiness. I think everyone has it rough right now financially. One of the lines in the poem is a reference to when I fainted during my first embalming at the funeral home. It's funny... I don't remember fainting. Just waking up, and seeing my lipstick on the floor. I know this is a heavy piece, but it healed when I wrote it. Sorry for lengthy commentary. Thanks.

I. 

Terrible, sinuous bottles. Terrible, vibrant 
colors. Such shimmering, pretty lies. 
Each one signifying something that will never be. 
The only beauty, the sound of your name, 
which would shatter and die. 

II. 

My sculptured, silver throat. 
Or at least, crystalline gate when flooded, 
threaded shards pressed inward, 
hungry, their sweet, delicate teeth. 
My body under blankets, Venetian, 
red and purple like a baby, fevered and heaving. 

They always associated you with cold. 
I wanted to make you warm but it was 
breathing life into the dead. Still didn’t we always, 
deep inside, want to be one with that purity, 
frozen in sinlessness to nothing that will answer, 
bodies grown acclimated to the most beautiful cruelties. 

Inside a transparent coffin, the princess sleeps. 

III. 

I forgot I died once before and I discovered 
there was nothing to look forward to, 
the road diverged but two paths led straight back 
to Hades, the pain of slow afternoon light 
and a frilly womb scented by lavender and stillness. 

Or rather, a stopping and a starting 
with no memory
and nothing in between. 

IV. 

If I looked into you I would see what I know, 
the blotched skin, mismatched eyes, 
face of an ogress. 
Her heavy body that was also my body, the dancing hernia, 
the word shock repeated over and over, another lovely word, 
soft staccato rolling from my tongue.

I now huddle in a house deplete of the world. 
She has won in the end, even after the end, 
fearful tyrant, beloved foe, I yearned 
for her love like dew on apples. 
Now fading, losing volume. Not quite a pinprick, no. 
I know the treachery of the living, 
I writhe with it. Loved ones unrecognizable now. 
My feet cold and numb and clear as hers. 

I speak into the silence. Nothing answers.

There is no love. There is only need. 
There is no safety. 
There is no point. There is only pointlessness.