Transformation in Six Acts
By Jasmine Young
• • •
I
My descent is punctuated by vivid dreams.
At first they scare me–women without eyes
and birds with uncanny intellect. Everything
becomes routine with time and resignation.
The loss of color has little effect. In my home,
in my small box, I haven’t the need. I keep
on, the sky dull but the crows saying more
every day. My husband still kisses me.
My descent is punctuated by vivid dreams.
At first they scare me–women without eyes
and birds with uncanny intellect. Everything
becomes routine with time and resignation.
The loss of color has little effect. In my home,
in my small box, I haven’t the need. I keep
on, the sky dull but the crows saying more
every day. My husband still kisses me.
II
It’s when I begin to feel the itch that my
concern grows. Like spiders just beneath
my membrane–rising when it’s hot, burrowing
in the cold. The scratching leaves marks, then
takes skin with it. The kisses disappear around
this time, but the color returns just in time to
see that I’ve been heaving blood. It swirls in
the bowl. I begin to wonder if its evacuation
means I am an unfit host. I feel my own soul
would flee this body if given the chance.
III
He worries so I wear bright lipstick and
invite girls over, even the one I want dead.
The blood dabbed on my cheeks makes me
look lively if a compliment is to be trusted.
Lately I’ve felt drawn to the far side of town
where the graveyard sits. At night, I walk to
see the luminescent white markers standing
corpse-stiff in the dark. Frigid air calms my
nerves. At home I watch the eggs I cooked
go cold and the sun rise.
IV
My husband smells wrong when he returns.
Perhaps heightened senses can be counted
among my changes. I close all the shutters and
open all the doors. I think everything might be
okay if it were to rain. The larks sing all night
and all day, a hymn I knew as a child. Our
harmony ends when my throat goes dry.
V
There are splinters in me, I know, but when I
dig for them only red comes out. All of me
wants out. The dreams blend into daytime.
Women stalk me everywhere, screaming like
foxes. I haven’t cried for years but, when I see
him and the dress-wearing devil under my
moon-stained stones, I do.
There are splinters in me, I know, but when I
dig for them only red comes out. All of me
wants out. The dreams blend into daytime.
Women stalk me everywhere, screaming like
foxes. I haven’t cried for years but, when I see
him and the dress-wearing devil under my
moon-stained stones, I do.
VI
The dark has invaded my every corner and
it is almost complete. Shaking, I consult a house
sparrow. The grass grows in my kitchen now,
and the creatures tense inside me. I leave him
a cake. Lemon, iced by hands that tremored
with new. It looks sad somehow.
• • •
Jasmine Young is a poet and creative writer from the Green Mountains of Vermont. If something is weird, she likes it, and she won't write it unless it is. She’s appeared in publications such as fifth wheel press, Mulberry Literary, and Gypsophilia Zine. If she could, she would spend every moment napping with her black cat, Oliver. You can find her on Instagram @nyctxnthus.
