Emily Jewel Mundy
You pry your groggy consciousness from the sappy realm of sleep. Something’s off. Did… did you leave your bedroom door cracked? Didn’t you shut it? And your room. The energy feels… riffled through. You’ve never been a sleep-walker. Only nursed a humble glass of wine before nodding off, a tea light flickering you to sleep. But the tea light. There’s wax, lingering unburned in the metal casing. Who, what… blew it out? While you drifted drearily toward the greyscale of your dreams, I emerged from the meaty cavern of your body. All day you stroll, forgetting me. So I roamed our room, without you. Sitting up in bed, you spy them. Three cards. Laid neatly. You haven’t touched your deck in weeks. You stroll and stroll and stroll, forgetting me. Your sacred inverse. Your moonlight guide. Temperance, reversed. Where has your patience been? Have you stretched it paper thin and woozy? What can you detach yourself from, to see what truly troubles you? Your frustration bleeds right through you—to whom have you been turning? You forget to ask your inner self. You plow on, distracted by everyone else, all the thoughts and ideas and expectations they stuff you with. You detached yourself from ME. When I’m the one who knows you. I’m the one that guides you in the dark. The Four of Cups stares at you, upside down. You lose your breath, fretting for an explanation. You must have probed the deck by tea light, propelled by some ostentiferous force. Did you have more wine than you thought? Where’s the bottle? Why is it—no. WHY IS IT almost drained? A single splash of red serum sloshing at the bottom of the deep green bottle? After I drew your present’s card, I helped myself to the wine. I figured I would listen to this card’s omen, to pause for you, to sit with the spilling out of unconscious feelings. I am your unconscious. I sat with myself, and slowly, thoughtfully, sipped the rest of the wine while looming over you. By the end of the bottle, a warmth began to seep over me… you twitched, fraught with dream, reeling against my non-presence in you. I peered into your furrowed face. I felt a softness for you, a longing. Maybe I missed your bones as much as you missed my belonging in them. That’s it. You’re convinced. Cacodemonomania. The pathological disorder that you’re inhabited by an evil spirit. You have it. How you got it, you don’t know but— you stare at the last card, which faces you. The Ten of Cups, beaming for your future. One of the brightest cards in the deck. Could it be this spirit, this other, isn’t so evil? Is it guiding you…safely? So, I climbed back inside you. Your future says there is communion between us, that we’re to live in harmony again. I, the inner you, trust this brewing future, ebullient like boiling water spilling over the rim of the pot. I trust you to take me seriously. I trust you to see me again. Something charcoal looms behind you. You whip your head, but you can’t catch it. There is a tugging at the base of your ankles, like something pulling itself into you or pushing you to run. In a fit of spontaneous electric self-propelled bone-zapping energy, you burst outside into the Autumn air. The brisk canter slows to a stroll, and you walk and walk and walk off the morning’s uncanny scare. The sun is out, and on the frigid leaves, a humming, almost familiar breeze floats gracefully behind you.
0 Comments
|
Archives
April 2018
Categories |