My Beautiful Twodiful Wounds
This spring, I’m gaining in altitude by humbling myself before brocades of seaweed, breathing in the glow echoed in broken seashells and by glorifying the tree rings inside me. I want to write sap. I want to write purple prose, embellish an altogether elegant alphabet. Pristine light stalks me. Clouds are full of rosy, soul stuffing.
Last weekend, a Biblical deluge. It lasted three days long. I waited for the dove to return with the olive sprig in its beak while the floodgates of heaven fully opened. I was mesmerized by the rain, listened to its rhythmic pounding on my red roof, watched it streak its pure juices down my dormer windows and best of all, I walked in it before a wildly, outrageously bewitching sea, leaned into the mean and wicked winds and I absolutely loved it.
Why does this spring seem so singular for me? The answer is simple. It is because all my other springs, so many floundering springs, false springs, stillborn springs always reminded me of Sexton’s killing rains in killing springs. A year ago, I attempted suicide,
downed med after med while drinking wine, woke up in the ICU. And the spring before that I landed, once again, in the psych ward because for hours the only word I could utter was die, die, die.
How did I shift from walking numbly in Sexton’s killing rains into dancing in a Biblical deluge? Why does every minute in this spring feel like a tiny triumph over darkness? For years I lived in icy isolation, voiced my nearly voiceless voice in a void, a vast vat of a void, traumatized by dramatic demons which were the only creatures in my field of vision. These demons erupted in moments of madness so excruciatingly painful, I would bite my own hand, really hard, in order to stop screaming, bang my head against the wall, go into a fetal ball and mirror, exactly so, the little girl I once was, a child who was tortured by demonic parents, tormented nearly to death, repeatedly so.
The demons are gone and right now the only creatures that are in the field of my vision are the song sparrows nesting in my ornate bird box. My demons have been demolished. I took them on and killed them, one by one, by re-living my horrific childhood, blow by blow and violation after extremely violent violation. I then became the only one who could heal that child by loving her lavishly so and letting me, not her, be crucified by her wounds.
Now comes the resurrection. Scars once pregnant with pain have become the achingly gorgeous wounds in trees so old they rustle with the spirits of ancient mystics. I venerate these wounds, they are grottos to which I pay homage and I honor their timeless beauty. Out of these wounds come poems. Out of these wounds comes a woman I can love because she loved that child christened only by pain till she could run out into the sun to play.
Which she does. She also weaves daisy chains, skips down by the sea, pulls the dog’s tail who, in return, licks her back. I treat her the way I treated my son when he was a child and she is alive and well as he is alive and well. This spring, our singular spring, I am getting her a kitty that we will name Twodiful because wonderful times two is Twodiful. Dog number one is wonderful as the kitty will also be wonderful, hence Twodiful.
In the end, I married my wounds. I was and am true to those beautiful, twodiful wounds. They are my wellspring, the genesis of whatever genius I might generate because I was re-created by them. I don’t stand by a man, I stand by a woman who stands by a child who was nearly killed more than once. She is what gets me out of bed in the morning. She is the one who puts my pen in my hand to write that sap, sweet, sweet sap and passionately purple prose while embellishing an altogether elegant alphabet.
I was made vulnerable, voluminously so, by her stellar wounds, sterling wounds, her very beautiful twodiful wounds. That very vulnerability is what makes me capable of championing words turned into verse and it is those words that truly resurrect us, connect us and binds us, not only to each other, but to life itself which is lengthening its luxurious minutes in radiant, lifelong light.
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