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Jupiter’s Lament

~ Liza Fernandez ~ 6 Comments

She lifted her head at the sound of his voice. It had been years since she had heard that sound, but she recognized it instantly. It was the voice she had carried around inside her head when she was a child, before things had changed, back when she was still happy.

His voice was clear and shrill and earnest and as lovely as it had been to her young ears. She looked around for its source, hoping to see the face that had accompanied his voice and had crowded her mind all those years ago. Her small brown eyes searched for his bright blue ones. She couldn’t find them.

But his voice kept coming. She wished she could stretch open her ears and cram them full to the brim until every intonation, every note, every whisper and every yell spilled over to drip down her neck and cover her skin. She used to swim inside his voice as a child and now, 15 years later, she still wanted to sink down deep and lie at its very bottom.

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Man-Made

~ Liza Fernandez ~ 4 Comments

I don’t know
How this is where I came to be.
They said, “Stay away,” and now this is where I’ll linger.

I came, searching, because you would not show me plainly.
I came, hardly aware, of how bright the sky could be,
Of how solid death could be,
Of how dim and weak my life has been.

They said, “Don’t! Because…what if?” And now the what-if’s are all I see;
They’re shroud in gold, and freedom, and peace.
All the what-ifs I was made to fear
Now walk besides me hand-in-hand
Afraid of me.

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Gutless

~ Liza Fernandez ~ 3 Comments

There is nothing left to say
And I am blank.

The words had spilled out so freely,
Tumbling forward together,
Racing and shoving to form a thought.
There had been so many thoughts, for so many years,
Now all dried up in months.

She had sat for endless nights
Through endless notebooks
And endless made-up lives.
She had burned,
And singed and bled,
And had had the happiest nights of her life.

But now the words were silent
And her mind only echoed voices from the past.

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Portrait

~ Liza Fernandez ~ Leave a comment
Francis Bacon - Self-portrait_ 1972 i
“Self-Portrait,” Francis Bacon, 1972

There was nothing else she could do, here among the ashes. The fire had come suddenly, out of nowhere in the middle of a quiet night, and now everything had been charred through, disintegrated down into gray dust.

The gray dust lay everywhere, in heaps here and there among the property, in a thick layer over the car parked on the street, blanketing her skin as though it were makeup powder she had applied carefully in the morning to cover her blemishes.

She sat on the curb, her back facing the remains of what had been her home for almost all her life. She had come to this house as a young child — before she could even remember — and had grown and stayed in it throughout the years, even when the rest of her family had chosen to go elsewhere, to more comfortable and modern places.

But she had always stayed. This was where she had come to know herself as herself. This was where she had lived her happiest memories and had mourned her greatest sorrows. This was where she had met her God, and had left him, and had found him again. Now with the fire, it seemed he had been the one to leave.

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Let’s Go Free

~ Liza Fernandez ~ 7 Comments

I thrust out my hand,
Hold it over a flame.
You scoff,
As though it were a bad thing
To prefer fire
Over numbing ice.

I walk forward
Into an unknown,
Braving for once
To take a chance.
You smirk,
As though maturity meant
Being willing to stay
So unsatisfied.

I come to the shore,
Fling away my clothes,
And walk unhindered into the waving waves.

I delve into the water,
For once fully alive:
Light entwined with darkness,
Life a play thing with death.
You sit dry on the shore
And wonder at my wanting to be cleansed of your
Dirt.

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A Cave Called “Hope”

~ Liza Fernandez ~ 2 Comments

She sat alone in her cave, her back against the curved wall.

She had been living out among the surrounding woods for years and years, playing amongst the trees, being friends with the small animals that shared her space, drinking from the clean rain that fell. She had been at peace in the woods that towered protection over her and gave her what she needed to live. She had never feared its shadows or howling animal calls. She knew these woods loved her and kept her safe.

But now she sat in the damp cave, away from the woods, her dress in tatters and her provisions in a dwindling pile besides her. Hard rain fell outside. She watched the water stream down the stone walls to form muddy puddles on the ground at the cave’s entrance. This was her home now.

She sat silent and unmoving, thinking back to the day she had been drawn out from the woods.

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Wrong

~ Liza Fernandez ~ 5 Comments

“There is nothing else,”
So I turn away
From colors, from sounds, from eyes that see
To grayness and a blank
Placed for those who are not sated.

“You were wrong,”
I know
(And you’ll never let me forget it),
So I draw out the blade
Over the last of untouched skin.
“You were wrong,” you repeat,
“To offer any sacrifice.”

No sacrifice,
No sincerely-I-do love,
No level of child’s understanding,
No effort
To counter your “This is all there is.”

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