“The Affliction of a Lady” - Morag Burn
I rub and chafe in this skin I’ve been put in. Scrubbing
my hands continuously, like stones clashed together under the tide I will grind
it down slowly. I shall be a new form. If only this skin would come off. For
all the layers I take off new dirt is built on, they will covet my bones. The
barnacles latch on to the meadows I have cleared, they know there is life in me
yet- more than this tempered realm. Give me the cleansing salt waters of my
earthy home and let the barnacles come and armour me. Starting with my hands.
They are the actors of my actions; they are the expressers of the urgency of my
mind. You hear that? My mind. These hands which are glued and weighted with
subservience, they were my attempt at my undoing. My clawing efforts to undo my
strings and be satisfied. It is clever how one now clamps my mouth and the
other hangs to my side. The fane of Fife had a wife where is she now? What’s
done cannot be undone.
You want my hysterical form. You long to see me in my
white gown of hysteria. My womanly garments or the shroud of my independent
being. All floating and liquid, an unhealthy excess of feeling. I am not the
incoherence of passion. Passion can be used and manipulated, disposed of with
the settling of the mind. You want uniformed responses; I shall give them the
marching orders of wails to come from my mouth and the rivers to come from my
eyes. I can perform the part of a barren woman, a construct especially for you.
I am emotionally childless.
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