Hello

My name is… unimportant.

Like many, I am a liar.

Unlike most, I am a quite good one.

I had a lot of practice:

-          I lied when I pretended to be interested in some lessons.

-          I lied when I pretended I liked my job

-          I lied when I smiled to the teachers IO liked the least. (In fact, I usually was one of the favorite students of the teachers I disliked the most.) I smile when I want to bite and can’t.

-          I lie when I smile to a boring or pompous or condescending client.

-          I lied when I told I was fine (a straight lie), that my week was ‘as usual’. I omitted the end of my thoughts “as usual, I have a hard time each morning to find a reason to get up”.

-           I lie when one ask me how I find a dress: when I like it and they don’t, I give them their opinion, not mine, because otherwise they would buy it, and never wear it.

-          I lie when I pretend one’s words do not affect me, when it hurts so much I want to cuddle in the bottom of my bed like a turtle in its shell, or a winkle.

I am a good liar because I lie better with my face, my smiles than with words. I can look straight in your eyes and give you a lie without a flush or a blink, because that would not be a straight lie, just the bending of reality.

And I will only do that if I feel I have to protect or hide something.

I do not care lying because I do it only to people I don’t care about or for a precise and important reason. Important to me.

I would not blame myself for lying, for the reasons I already gave. But I would never forgive me when I hurt someone I care by sheer stubbornness, foolishness, weakness, naivety,…

Because I did not choose not to be enough: clever, daring, caring,… And my failures are, for me, unforgivable.

When I lie, I am prepared to face the consequences if the lie breaks. It will hurt, maybe. But I still won’t blame myself, because I had a reason to do so. And I stick by my choices, my convictions. Even when the common morality condemns them.

When I fail, I did something wishing well, but did it wrong and hurt my beloved not knowing I would. I hate it, not to be able to do the right thing.

There is just a way I would never lie: I have never been able to lie whilst writing.

N.

i watch my life unfold through a camera lens; 

it goes in and out of focus.

only inside of my mind do the albums exist,

filled with the snapshot memories of years past.

with each experience i want to cherish,

i reach for the shutter release,

(point and shoot)

but even those moments, frozen in time,

(click and reload)

are lost forever.

grandma means well, well-worn hands smoothing red  seams, a little red cape out of the blue

do i accept this, do i respect this elder because i am told to by someone old, who

made this cape so i will be a little-miss-hard-to-miss, little red dot in a big blue world

a big blue world that tells me how to dress how to be flawless how to be mindless

little-miss-mindless must stay where she can be seen, where wolves will whistle and howl, and how

how furious i am that i am told not to touch what tempts me and the wolves are told the same

yet because i am what tempts them, the temptress is at fault when the wolves break away

‘boys will be boys’, they say, and how dare i glance from beneath my hood, my shroud

of wanton mystery, mystery that was given to me, forced upon me, tied around my neck 

with loving hands, cinching the weight of both a simple cloak and a dangerous precedent,

a double-edged present meant to hide me and to disguise me while at the same time subjecting me

to be objected, and if i am found dead it will be with teeth marks in my throat, a thought to cry wolf--

damned if i do, damned if i don’t.

mummy gives the little girl a dagger despite stressing the security found in staying on the path

like maybe mummy herself has clutched a fistful of keys, frightened and faint, but following the path

so it’s mothering, not smothering when she says ‘wandering will worry me, wandering will wreck you’

but she presses a cutlass to my palm and i wonder, mummy dear, just how much damage i can do

(and it’s not that i’m silly or foolish—i won’t be made to feel shame, i will not take blame

when he hides himself, disguises himself as someone i trust, someone that’s supposed to be safe

i will not become bitter i will not become fearful i will not become malleable to whoever ‘knows best’

so fool them once, shame on them, but fool me once, i’ll carve the heart from your chest)

i did not ask to be devoured nor did i ask to be cut from the belly of a dog, punished for one and

pushed to reward for the other, the woodsman wipes his blade and suggests i help him polish it

but instead i will use my tongue to retaliate, to remind him that he’s had plenty practice in polishing

his blade, his wood, and surely i’d be no help, as he works his wood much better than i could

and better yet, as an alternate, erase the woodsman entirely, axe him from the arena

as we seem to forget, a brawl doesn’t need boys to win it and balls are not required for bravery, so

am i unsightly in my victory, having carved my own escape, having carved a grotesque rebirth, and

should i be concerned at your disconcertion, should i disarm myself at your alarm and should i admit

that i was wrong to rescue myself, wrong to wreck the wolf when he should’ve wrecked me

should’ve let the woodsmen brandish his wood and carry me home in blazing, bloody guts and glory?

i’d rather ask, who is grinning now, who made the wolf nothing more than a dead dog, a once wagging tongue now lolling in his skull, who, tell me, should i be afraid of, who should i be warned about when they should be warned about me, little bitty girl making a bit of a mess, surely to be chastised

surely to be patronized, surely to be told to clean up after herself, to drop to my hands and knees

roll up my sleeves and tie a cloth around my head, but i’ll simply smile and wipe the blade on my hip

blood doesn’t bother me—my cape’s already fucking red.