TATWIEL || four

dear woman 4,

words shape you into something, and i don't want to see your face, so i will keep this brief.

i remember when you first appeared, gliding across the white floor. it's a visceral memory, fight flight or freeze.  i will never say your name aloud. i will never conjure you, though maybe i should. maybe i can. maybe i have.

i know what you sound like, and i know your dress. the  buttons down your back, round and black. the lace along your edges. the bun atop your head. i know the shatter that reverberates before you. i know your name. you whispered it to me the first time. i will never speak it.
 
i don't know your face. you are a skulking entity without features, something rubbed out; smudged by the squishy palm of a third-grader, the meaty part of a hand writing the next line of a story. you're black and white and lead all over. garishly grey. illogical and inevitable. more than i want you to be. stay where you are. i hope you will stay where you are.

stay in the hospital room, and in the gorge.
stay on the train tracks.
somewhere in the sky during the blackout of 2003.
stay in the nightmare, at your canvas.
continue painting something mundane.
a jar of honey, a bowl of fruit.
keep your back to me.
stay at the top of the stairs; the edge of the cliff before you push.
stay in the  before and after.
stay sharply featureless, peripherally centred.
stay away.
but please don't leave. 

love,
n

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