The Tutelage

In my fifteenth year,
I was but an Athena,
armed with a shield...
cracked under conformity
and arrows...
dipped in the pestilential wells of pubescent grief.

For years the scribe had been in the periphery of our vision,
A congenial academic, a rarity that earned him notice,
but no particular praise.

But in my fifteenth year, something was changing, and rapidly.
And under my gaze, the scribe transformed with equal rapidity.

My sisters,
now nubile nymphs,
by day, began to perfect the art of coquetry,
with downcast eyes or fluttered lashes.
By night,
he navigated the terrain of our softening forms
and the blossoming of our sexual desires.


If this new warmth be inflamed by the warrior's scars
an Achilles the scribe became.
Should a sister's crush metastasize into madness
So too, did the scribe become tormented,.
A Hamlet for my sister's Ophelia...
Or
The Duke of Marlborough,
for the eldest
as my sisters and I were made ladies in waiting
as soon as we were denied our mother's breast.



But for me,
He was Abelard,
And I soon retreated
farther and farther into the abyss of my self-loathing
Immobile without his praise...
Yet still
stagnant in it.
For the winds of my fear consumed the harbor of his praise,
And no peace could be found in the fear of falling from his grace.


A year later, I emerged from Hades


A year later,
And I was born.
With wings unbound, I would wake to arc along Apollo's dawn
And soar,
in vibrant streaming colors to rival St. Elmo's fire,
throughout the possibilities of the present.

In my flights,
mortality became little else than a boundary to test crossing.
Until, Persephone in her descent,
was granted the comforting song of a siren



In my selfish fears the scribe reminded me of my youth
And so began the correspondence.

The form afforded me a jezebel mask,
and the invocation of Lolita.
I chose to be deaf to Cymene's insidious whispers...
For with each swift signature
Heloise's prayer clasped hands,
pried open a bit more.

His words became my daily bread...
Hors D'oeuvres garnished with nostalgia
and salads dressed in coquetry.

Sorbet cleansed my palate of propriety
.
Though the meals were spiced with witty barbs,
and self deprecating humor,
to distill the pungent aroma of lingering doubts,
confessions were imbibed with proper solemnity.


By my twenty-fifth year I could will my inner Aphrodite,
and made peace with my Athenian past.

As such,
the letters no longer required antiquated pleasantry.
In its absence, was an invitation.
In response, I played the fool,
never refusing,
yet never extending my hand to be led unto the dance floor.

And now?
I fret over divine remonstration,
Or an awakening
from a Puckish dream.

Above all, I fear the inevitable...
The night I will give my hand in acceptance
And let the dance begin, with a nod to Cassandra...
and a determination to fight for the purity of the presence.


For no pleasure so great can be granted without pain,
and in the harsh light of reality
A mid-summer's night dream
is not just that.