Madwoman in the Attic (A Poem)

 

   Madwoman in the Attic 

I believe in one's own retirement in the shadows 

The things a woman keeps to herself

Every woman leads a double life

And I do too, quite intensely 

Millions of people believe 

That a cheap veil 

And a plain boring featureless garb

Made in the least fashionable manner

Is best to suit me, a woman 

They all agree I should cover-up

From nose to toes

I would have said they’re jealous

If it weren’t them, men

I would have said they

Hated the looks of me

But that’s not true

Jealousy or hate

It’s crazy how

Few words someone once said

Can haunt my fate

And defeat it.

How powerful are the words

How time proof

In the end language outgrows us

Like an expert, once an apprentice

Like a tyrant once a big-eyed child 

As if it functions in a realm of its own

But here I am a pimp to words

And I think of the word as a woman 

Was it a woman who fancied it?

Scripturizing the concealing of me?

Those apparitions I see

Of a woman at odds with herself

Makes more sense,

And I think I know the why. 

God is the greatest…victim

Closer to a scapegoat than a divinity

We figured ourselves a way out, 

For Everyone needs a margin 

The one that’s full of fuzzy question marks

And side curses for the poor author

We treat life like we treat tough books

It’s funny how anything divine can easily be

 littled  to some common image, Taken

back to plain normality.

There are those who live in denial

There are those who think

And we live by the rules of the former

Do you know How twisted this is?

Do you get it?

Assume God is there

True We do that every day

Some just assume more than others.

It takes anything but sanity

To live with his immorality!

God, let’s face it

You’re a horrible lover

The manipulative, narcissistic kind

You can’t go on telling me I am pretty

You're a delicate, a queen, a beauty

And then throw the stench fabric over me 

As If I am a failure of a painting 

reminding its artist of his amateurity

Is it fear? 

An incapability to sit down with your insecurity?

It doesn't add up.

For years, years, years

I was left with nothing but that

But it can't be true,

I can’t put it all on you .

Men in their bizarre uncanny ways

Had their share of this body of mine

With their rough ways in life

Similarly bad at love just like you

Wherever there is a he 

There is a lie, and a knot, and a tie

For them, admiration is a mean to an end

And their flattery, how void! 

Funny how the smart ones are

Their way with words, their verbal love

Words words words up to the ceiling 

Pumping them like a clown does balloons

They fall  on me like weightless feathers 

Those were the men I knew.

How useless is the phenomenon of being a woman?

Favorable to everyone but not herself.

Can’t this body know its real lover?

Why am I a trespasser in my own haven?

An entity pushed aside

Never have I ever met me

Only reflections of her

Or opinions I take from the mouths of men

Those who are allowed in 

And those who gave them permission

I am merely the silent observer between the bars

Never do i intervene nor given the ticket to pass

alienated with no right to will

I am a foreigner to a city I never left

But Where is the mirror?

And where is the door?

Shall I close the curtains?

Or dim the lights?

And where to anchor those sorrows? 

I need a corner

The imaginary one won’t do

And Shall I wait for it to get warmer?

I will bring sheets to the attic just in case.

But the horror, the horror

That fear of getting caught being her realest self 

You want someone to validate you

But who? But Who?