The Closed Doors

by Pauline Albanese

But it is poetry, you know —poetry comes from the guts and is spat out in a cry. PERSEPHONE Liar. Poetry is morning dew and wind between my knuckles. HADES No. It’s a kiss full of teeth, and a metallic taste on your tongue, the pain under the stomach, there, just there, where you hide your fear and your power.

I will give you my skeleton, and you will be empress.

Each one of my ribs—I will open each one of my ribs with fingertips, break each one of my ribs, and allow you to dive your hands into my chest so you can feel the beating of my heart. I will show you that life isn’t always warm, isn’t always veiled in dusk and emerald.

And I will spit between your ribs, and you will survive on my contempt.

I welcome them and let them cry for the life they endured on my shoulder. I teach them the beauty of Hell. I carry the evanescence of their fingers, the paleness of their gazes. I lighten their burden.

I chose you because you’re an orchard of ripe fruits, and I want to lay my sufferings in the shadows of your arms, of your belly. I chose you because your tears remind me of September rain. Because of the sun I see in your pupils. You cannot run now, can you? You have found your home. Do you feel the darkness in the hollow of your plexus? Don’t you understand? Your darkness was your secret, and she whispers to mine.

Do not worry. It isn’t Death. It is only metamorphosis.

The door isn’t even locked. It was never locked at all.

PERSEPHONE I will tell them I came for me and stayed for you.