Hag

The muse as witness. The muse as warning.

the performance of not performing
perhaps the most exhausting artform
women ever invented

my muse arrives wearing adornments of age
like ceremonial armour

hot flushes blazing around her head
like biblical fire

she is not young enough
to mistake attention
for transformation anymore

somewhere along the line
we confused exhibition
with liberation

as though being consumed publicly
was the same thing
as being free

I watch women call this power

while constructing softness
with forensic precision

the carefully accidental photograph
shirt slipping off one shoulder
eyes turned away from camera
as though interrupted mid-thought

as though no woman in history
has ever understood angles

my muse adjusts her shroud.

she has seen a thousand years
of this posture
and she is bored of the tilt.

she turns her face toward me—

a sun-damaged mirror—

and waits.

I know her.

my muse does not look away.

she stands in the corner,
a pillar of salt and heat,

watching

the strategic self-deprecation,
the calibrated chaos,
the nipple joke
tossed like raw meat
into the centre of the room.

my muse steps over it.

she is looking for the bone.

she wants the part of me
that hasn’t been tenderized
by the need for a laugh.

we called it confidence.

I know her because

once

I was so hungry to be chosen

I could have swallowed
the whole fucking table

An offering for Day #13 of The Halls of Pandemonium writing challenge. Today, we were asked to face our muse.