The Awakening

     Edna walked away on down to the beach rather mechanically, not noticing anything special except that the sun was hot. She was not dwelling upon any particular train of thought. She had done all the thinking which was necessary after Robert went away, when she lay awake upon the sofa till morning.
     She had said over and over to herself: "To-day it is Arobin; to-morrow it will be some one else. It makes no difference to me, it doesn't matter about Leonce Pontellier--but Raoul and Etienne!" She understood now clearly what she had meant long ago when she said to Adele Ratignolle that she would give up the unessential, but she would never sacrifice herself for her children.
     Despondency had come upon her there in the wakeful night, and had never lifted.  There was no one thing in the world that she desired. There was no human being whom she wanted near her except Robert; and she even realized that the day would come when he, too, and the thought of him would melt out of her existence, leaving her alone. The children appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag into the soul's slavery for the rest of her days. But she knew a way to elude them. She was not thinking of these things when she walked down to the beach.
     The water of the Gulf stretched out before her, gleaming with the million lights of the sun. The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude. All along the white beach, up and down, there was no living thing in sight. A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water.
     Edna had found her old bathing suit still hanging, faded, upon its accustomed peg.
     She put it on, leaving her clothing in the bath-house. But when she was there beside the sea, absolutely alone, she cast the unpleasant, pricking garments form her, and for the first time in her life she stood naked in the open air, at the mercy of the sun, the breeze that beat upon her, and the waves that invited her.
     How strange and awful it seemed to stand naked under the sky! how delicious ! She felt like some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never known.
     The foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents about her ankles. She walked out. The water was chill, but she walked on. The water was deep, but she lifted her white body and reached out with a long, sweeping stroke. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.
     She went on and on. She remembered the night she swam far out, and recalled the terror that seized her at the fear of being unable to regain the shore. She did not look back now, but went on and on, thinking of the blue-grass meadow that she had traversed when a little child, believing that it had no beginning and no end.
     Her arms and legs were growing tired.
     She thought of Leonce and the children. They were a part of her life. But they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul. How Mademoiselle Reisz would have laughed, perhaps sneered, if she knew! "And you call yourself an artist! What pretensions, Madame! The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies."
     Exhaustion was pressing upon and overpowering her.
     "Good-by--because, I love you." He did not know; he did not understand. He would never understand. Perhaps Doctor Mandelet would have understood if she had seen him--but it was too late; the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone.
     She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father's voice and her sister Margaret's. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.

--Kate Chopin--

I feel my skin drip off of me with every step until there is nothing left but bare bones. My skeleton shivers and trudges on.

Murder of One

I dreamt I saw you walking up a hillside in the snow Casting shadows on the winter sky as you stood there counting crows One for sorrow Two for joy Three for girls and four for boys Five for silver Six for gold and Seven for a secret never to be told There's a bird that nests inside you Sleeping underneath your skin When you open up your wings to speak I wish you'd let me in All your life is such a shame All your love is just a dream Open up your eyes You can see the flames of your wasted life You should be ashamed

Wild Horses

I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie I've got my freedom but I don't have much time A faith has been broken, tears must be cried Let's do some livin', after love has died

-The Rolling Stones-

but I'm not a situation that has a solution. i have no definitions. there's just me. and maybe at the end of years you may still feel like you don't exactly know me. but baby you're just wrong. maybe you can't look into my eyes and read my thoughts as plainly as i read yours. maybe i still do things that completely throw you. maybe when you hold me you still feel my body tense in fight or flight. but you know my sleepy eyes. and you know i love jazz when it rains and when it snows. and you feel my body search for yours before it's really awake. and you know that you've crawled and nestled your way into the innermost of my heart and if i attempted to rip you out you would carry a large portion of the mass in your grasping "little" hands. so why, why is this not enough of me for you?

Sappho

as the sweetapple reddens on a high branch high on the highest branch and the applepickers forgot-- no, not forgot: were unable to reach

The inward fire eats the soft marrow away, And the internal wound bleeds on in silence. Unlucky Dido, burning, in her madness Roamed through all the city, like a doe Hit by an arrow shot from far away By a shepherd hunting in the Cretan woods-- Hit by surprise, nor could the hunter see His flying steel had fixed itself in her; But though she runs for life through copse and glade The fatal shaft clings to her side. The Aeneid