Britney

We are reading Hamlet now. Ophelia has gone from being the Eve to my Lilith to the idle girl who says, “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance,” of her dead father, “And there is pansies; that’s for thoughts,” of her former love. I understand.

I buy a nightgown because it reminds me of a past life (the past life?) and spend the weekend reading in it, feeling at home in myself and feeling the same fear that being in this dress must have brought me then. Some mementos of what we really are are best left behind, underneath the dirt where no one ever thought to look. The duality informs me.

I say the same things a lot, like a wooden wheel. Everyone has a weakness for rustic appeal. I don’t do it purposely, I don’t think anyone does. I keep track of who clings to the spokes, and who has run, and who is trampled upon my release. Categorization has become easier with the years, people even more so than trinkets and fetishes. I think about how I will grow out of this thought. I think about working to keep it. I wonder how close or far I am to peak rationality because of this and decide not to look up too far—for now, this is the safest place on the alp. ♦