Rachael Parker shares three of her poems with The Yorker
The Yorker talks to three student playwrights premiering their work in the Drama Barn next term.
A poem by J Cridford exploring the imagination and quest for belonging
Photosoc's theme for this fortnight's competition was 'Christmas'. Its winner, Oliver Wood, discusses his work.
She noticed every line on her face, every mark that highlighted an event in her life, the stress she had been caused by the last three months had definitely taken its toll. She looked around her old family home in the Cevennes – the one piece of property she got to keep after the trial – at the masses of dead or dying vines on the terraces, the ruin of the house, the parched, dry land that reminded her of her face, and she began to cry.
The tinkling of the chandelier gave intimations of the fragile and brittle nature of her heart. It was clinging to the ceiling on a thin piece of wire that was liable to break at any moment, and she had always believed it impossible to feel empathy for something inanimate. They had a lot in common, as it turned out. Both had been shunned by their respective societies, both were hanging on to their foundations for grim death, although they were likely to fall into the abyss in a mess on the floor at the slightest breeze that happened to blow through the unshuttered window, and the ways of escape were closed to them. They could not get away. They were tied to what was, to what came before them until the last bond was severed, and then they fell.
How she wished at this moment that she had allowed him to kiss her one last time – to be controlled by her desires as she once was, only ever by him. This pain didn’t only last once, and the shame she felt would last forever.
While she always believed that regret was an essential component of happiness, it now seemed clear to her that it was happiness that was necessary for there to be regret. Remembering what used to be – her great triumphs, her plans to dominate the opposite sex and avenge her own – gave her momentary pleasure. Though illusions, of course, are by their nature sweet.
It was unlike her to passively accept life for what it was, so she decided at this moment to do something about it. Walking through the wreckage she waded across the yard and to the small shed on the far side of the vine terraces, and trudged all the way back, heavily laden with her load. Perspiring, she came back into the salon and, wiping her brow, set the ladders in the centre of the room. Reaching over to the draw in the chest by the side of the crudely-fashioned mirror, she began to climb – the ascent into madness. The scissors firmly gripped between her teeth, her hair began to fall out of its once-perfect coif, and she had the look of it about her. The twitch of the eye, the hunched figure, the sadness, the regret, and the shame. She reached the top of the ladder and cut the cord that held the chandelier so precariously to its fixed place, and it fell. The sound of glass shattering rang out through the empty house, and she laughed.
She too had fallen, but this was a long time ago, when she allowed her life to be ruled by others. This was the one part left to her own strength of will. Lying on the ground, surrounded by the fallen ladder, the broken glass, and an ever-increasing pool of blood, she remembered him one last time, before she uttered that word, the one that had ended it all.
War.
You must log in to submit a comment.
