Candice Louisa Daquin
Isolation in the Time of Covid-19
if the act is on, full wattage
everyone sees a together girl, straight backed by taut strings
oh the puppet master pulls
them tightly in compensation for internal sag
they see a girl who has checked all the boxes;
education, polish, spit and shine, big smile, combed hair, thighs together
they see what they want to see
just as we read the truth and speak a lie
who wants to know the inside? The fight beneath?
Maybe at 18. When we still have patience, and time, and youth and romance
thinking it lovely to talk of emotions and breakage and pain
the beauty of those things when safe from death
edging closer, every year, less tolerance
until even your therapist has a break-down and can’t listen anymore
Covid-19 keep your distance? Aren’t we already alienated and disregarded?
She wants someone to listen, she wants someone, she wants to stop
this hole within her from growing out of control and taking her over
she wants to speak her truth to someone who gives a damn
it’s almost like wishing to have perky tits again and a hymen
it’s almost like hoping at the dinner table for love instead of silence.
She used to fake it really well, used to know all the ways of getting clean and squeaky
People are kind to children and pretty youth
Unkind to those who are mentally ill and grow old in their despair
old before your time, before you stopped wanting to be wooed and still wanting to wear
tight clothes and push up bras, just because you can.
Now she understands why middle aged women read romance novels
or hate and never do
the combat of wanting to be desired and knowing it’s not going to
ever again, they only like those little girls in tiny clothes
whose bodies are barely formed
are you bitter? Are you scorned? The world belongs to men
because they stop loving at a certain age and women
hate each other especially the peachy ones, who remind them of
what they’ll never get back.
The fight beneath, the bitchy office manager who used to tut beneath her breath
every time she walked past in her best blue heals
she had a good heart then and it hurt to be treated so
now she knows the meaning of
the loss in their eyes
but she still wants to be desired
is she going to turn into one of those sad ole gals who keeps wearing too tight jeans
hanging out at less and less popular places in hope?
Or will her heart shrivel and dry like a match burning its sulfur
hardly holds its original form
just the dark wood left, stained by flame
never to be struck
again.
She would like to think someone would
love her at any time, for more than whether she has loosening skin or
sagging bits, she has heard this is something men point out unkindly in bed
she’d probably sock them if they did, and bite something off
who the fuck has the right?
It fills her with a fresh hell to imagine
how they think they’re entitled
but her young self will remind her; it’s we who let this happen
dear wolf
we lay ourselves down when they tell us we’re not worthy
and we either let ourselves vanish
or we stop believing we can be
desired for more than the price of our skin
imagine us hanging like pieces of meat
dear wolf
waiting for the flies to obviate our claim
to be equal or good enough
whilst they, rotund, graying, flacid
rule the world or pretend to
we give life, we carry the future
are we going to let this be or
become wild, something untamed and furious
with the thirst of a girl wanting to give her entire heart
and throw it into the furnace
watch it burn with all that you want
this love, this need, this impossible desire
even as your body dries and says; I am done
you’re never done, you bring life, you bring longing
within you is a timeless heart.
She wants you to know
she may seem withered to you or not
as once she was, but she needs as much as ever
that desire, so much so she may climb out of
of her falling skin and become
a butterfly in reverse, going underground
where in darkness nobody can tell
then it’s all about the beat of life
that eternal drum
and anyone can play
as long as they join
beating their need against stretched leather
in the ancient way before we invented
exclusion and condemnation
when those wisest and most sought
were not children
but their bright eyed elders
still with the pulse
of hunger inside them.
Candice Louisa Daquin is the author of the poetry collections A jar for the jarring (lulu.com, 2016), The bright day is gone child and you are in for the dark (lulu.com, 2016), Illusions of existing (The Feathered Sleep Press, 2016), Sit in fever (lulu.com, 2016), and Pinch the Lock (Finishing Line Press, 2017). With Christine E. Ray, Kindra M. Austin, and Rachel Finch, she co-edited We Will Not Be Silenced (Indie Blu(e) Publishing, 2018), an anthology of poetry inspired by #MeToo. She also edited, with Hallelujah R. Huston, the anthology SMITTEN: This Is What Love Looks Like (Indie Blu(e) Publishing, 2019). Having immigrated to America two months after 9/11, she has lived in the Southwest ever since. Online at www.thefeatheredsleep.com
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