Alice Hoffman
i just wanted to be in the presence of a man it was impossible to kill
the Goose girl asking for mercy
I was in Florida. I remembered it would never snow there
I couldn’t begin anything that resembled a life until I understood death
just beautiful, filled with ashes, shutting the door in my face. Only that
they thought they knew who I was because of my red dress
was there a part of my brain that could still sense red, just as it sensed desire?
I suppose there might be toddlers who continued to have nightmares from my time in command of story hour
if I spoke, anything at all might drop from my lips: blood, frogs, death, wishes, desire
the logic of fairy tales is that there is no logic
what is the difference between love and obsession? Wasn’t every man in love a fool and every woman a slave?
that was my nature, to take something bad and make it worse
I was comfortable only speaking to people who’d experienced disaster
rats, cats bats, any of them might find their way up the path
unable to see stars or teeth, it assumes what is safe one day will be safe again the next
fire had a sound, like a gasp, a sigh, something alive
the possibility of being blown out like a match made us burn
the elements most drawn to each other are the ones that destroy each other
want was a county of its own. Everything else drops off the map: oceans, continents, friends, family, the Before, the After
I treated her like an equal. My murderess. My pet, my dear. I was getting attached to her
I knew a book could make something real
A Hundred Ways To Die – self help, that’s the section where it belonged
stomp your feet, little girl. Hack off your hair for spite
hot, night, fuck, kiss, skin, muscles, heat
she’s wandering around in the night, searching for ways to die
I’m not hungry’, I said, the way a starving woman might, so as not to give herself away
fair creature who cannot see or hear or want or need
if he came to me as a bear or a deer, I would still know him. If I were blind, if a hundred years had passed, I’d still know
one bloody random cell utterly defined everything
his heartbeat was less than ten beats a minute, slower than a bear in hibernation
“Am I supposed to apologize for dying?”
“Yes apologise. How fucking dare you?”
I felt a twinge of something sad. As if everything that was happening now had already happened, only to someone else
the night smelled like poison
“the thousands of monarch butterflies. In migration. The thousands of changes. All chaos. All one moment. That’s what I’ve always wanted to see. I want to see that.”
Big Sur, where the Monarchs spend the winter
it may have been easier to blame myself than to think she would have left us that way..
She probably didn’t even consider the way we would miss her. Each and every moment of each and every day
when she saw the ice she probably felt she was lucky.
hexafu 