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.



Just f-- breathtaking. Floored. floored. floored. I don't even know how to breath anymore.
Whoa. Brilliance!