P O E T R Y
Adrita Zaima
O, sweet Catherine Sloper, yes — you with the dull, papery skin,
Basking in the omniscient flame of my subconscious sin.
I recall you ebbing through the lanes of my yesterday’s veins,
When the weight of your abandonment issues and father complex on my bosom were my sole reins.
Gossamer failed you, red satin with gold fringes did too,
I would have said, despair not my darling plain Jane, remember the thirty thousand pounds — that didn’t mitigate the possibility of you landing a beau.
Suave your suitor was, and attempting to tackle the callous logic of the father? Must have been brave.
Alas, that enigma just went right with you to the grave.
Yes, the Aunt’s romanticisation of your life was no less a tragedy, my humble apologies for being rude.
I agree, her smothering of your lover and of you was really a bit crude.
Throttled into a living dead in the shadow of your perfect father’s rose-tinted mural of your already perfect mother;
After all that, how did you cope with his idealistic this, that, and the other?
Nightly whispers of Aunt’s a goose, Father’s a tyrant, Lover’s a cad; and you dare love yourself enough to rest your heart and sleep.
You pitied yourself too much babe, I always sighed inwardly, you just needed to bear in mind: still waters run deep.
Now, admiration sounds like a long stretch, a silent clemency can be my only vow.
But I do admit that even you must see the supreme elegance of your last bow.
And with that final image of the crests of your pallid face and of the yarn clasped tightly in your not-quite-soft hands, I bid you,
Adieu.
Zaima is an anaerobically-respiring, bibliophilic bacterium who spends her free time weeping over bad author decisions in YA. Tell her shitty plots are okay at [email protected].