FestiBelt Adventures

Heart Like A Four Poster Bed

Leaving is not enough; you must stay gone. Train your heart like a dog. Change the locks even on the house he’s never visited. You lucky, lucky girl. You have an apartment just your size. A bathtub full of tea. A heart the size of Arizona, but not nearly so arid. Don’t wish away your cracked past, your crooked toes, your problems are papier mache puppets you made or bought because the vendor at the market was so compelling you just had to have them. You had to have him. And you did.

And now you pull down the bridge between your houses, you make him call before he visits, you take a lover for granted, you take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic. Make the first bottle you consume in this place a relic.

Place it on whatever altar you fashion with a knife and five cranberries. Don’t lose too much weight. Stupid girls are always trying to disappear as revenge. And you are not stupid. You loved a man with more hands than a parade of beggars, and here you stand. Heart like a four-poster bed. Heart like a canvas. Heart leaking something so strong they can smell it in the street.

 

Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell

A poet-friend posted this on her FB page a bit ago and while I have distinct memories of Frida’s unsettling paintings from high school, this poem made me think I could have been friends with her. It speaks of heartbreak, but not who was at fault…Because that doesn’t matter. They were together and it was beautiful. Then it didn’t work out and now it’s time to move forward.

I love the imagery of a bathtub full of tea. I love thinking of my heart as a sturdy, cozy refuge from the world. I am not a stupid girl. I am a girl who likes to have adventures. So off I go! Wish me luck!