Godiva do Irajá or Why it is Good to Be Back
“You used to be much more..."muchier." You've lost your muchness.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
You used to be much more and your muchness was taken, then. What would say if they came for it again? Would you sacrifice it? For love? For glory? For sympathy?
Take hold of what belongs to you. You are the smile in the pictures before he was. You were the music you heard before he stole the meaning to all those beautiful lyrics of love and devotion. But still you’re the one smiling upon the sand, which was my sand and my beach. It’s an exercise in painting the world your colors again and claiming what was once taken and untangling the fibers of reality - this belongs to me, not you. Rewind, erase. This is me and my borders over this country of affections that was not meant to be shared. It’s mine. You were the beach and the girl in red lipstick you are the hyacinth girl, no sir, I am not a single comma in thought. I am a running mad sentence full of verbs with no noun.
First was the verb. Poïesis . Oh, the beauty of it all - the words tumbling down your head like a pagan shower of ritual sacrifice: drops of unseen flowers and chants of unheard goddesses. Sankirtana. Have you ever really stopped believing your powers, little Morgana? In the darkest hour - just before dawn - weren’t you with the apple orchard and the young witch apprentices by the mists waving to you and only you, weren’t you always the one by the lake you dried by choice? Death by water.
Lady, I swear by all flowers! You are a mistress of your own world, you built reality upon the snap of your fingers. The characters of your stories used to woke you up riding lightning and their eyes of storm blazed through the void. It’s the blue flower, so old so old so old. Sturm und Drang. You’re boring, Werther… Before he was you took possession of all you wanted and you took pride in being a witch and it had nothing to do with future and prophecies. You had a lake full of inconsistencies and those inconsistencies of thought were like little children you fed and loved. They were not flaws. How could you? Flaws! Your very scars!There were no freckles in my thoughts and they were bold and brave and my mind was sharp like the swords of Lancelot and Beowulf; and Beowulf and Lancelot used to pay visits to you in dreams and laughed of your stories but they fancied them. Once a professor read a piece of my work (more bad work written over my broken heart) and he said “I like the blood and the swamps - it’s a dirty and cruel thing. Very creative.” Oh, yes, I liked the blood and the mud and the semen, I was such a perverse little writer. The world was very calm then and everything was very still but my mind - it was always swirling in a vortex that sucked all into it and covered the voices of the living in a dust of insignificance. Nothing means nothing. What really is? My Elis - the high priestess of water, full of wrath and visions is more real than everyone around me and she matters because she’s mine. She’s me: reckless and rude and she loved with such a barbaric intensity that it was hardly love. It was like hate in a low key.
Elis used to follow me to my Niteroi. Yes, it was my Camboinhas and it bored so many ideas for my never published nor finished romances it could get a place as a character in any of them. I used to lay with my face to the sun covered under the kanga, my closed eyes all engulfed in red gloom and ideas popped like the translucent seeds of a pomegranate, beautiful as if beads on the necklace of a harlot queen. I am queen. Queen of wands, queen of fire and my batons are ever burning under the memories.
Life is vulgar. All love letters are ridiculous. If they weren’t ridiculous, they wouldn’t be love letters. I envy lampposts for not being me - but only for a few moment s. Pessoa would blush under the quoting. Master, forgive me. I was once full of sound and fury, but the curtains fell too early on me. Let me get that final act, please? I will not disappoint you. I can do it and my chubby hands once shaped the whimsical iron of truth and I held the torch lit over the mystery once. Once a upon a time.
One-two-three-four: follow the steps, west coast swing - move it, lady, move like Jagger. Feet follow thought - another language spoken in the depths. It’s all mine again. All of my songs - these flamboyant boleros. Oh, you, little pretentious thing, you own the world, your world where your little humanity exists. The voices roam back home in forgiveness, once again betrayed and left aside because you were dreaming of someone else. But they never fail you. Once the world shuts up (close the windows, Hyacinth Girl), their voices stand against the walls of your brain. My darling Satya, you hold the keys to the Library in Yamaratã where all the remaining books of the world are locked - but you have no heart and no dreams, no tears. Your face is dry like the desert you live in and you feel no pity for no one. Dear Tessa Montgomery, you have no heart either, no dreams. You’re all ID - pure energy, a big bang moving towards a direction you did no choose for yourself, but with such an evil drive no one can stop you. You’re dreadful and your world is all violence. You’re no heroine. They cannot love you. No, not even Elis, poor you, love sidetracked you. You cannot be a queen because you’re traitor. You bear the child of the enemy. Traitor. And even you, clever little Malva, the blood of your family condemns you. Yes, you dress fancy and the Pandora box you stole is priceless. You shoot like a boss, but yet, you have no mercy. And Maria Helena, shall I say something about you? You bear the Justice Axe: it cuts both ways. You are Fate’s inexorable Chariot. Aren't we all? Inexorable.
So cliché. You are all me, the me I cannot bring forth: the ruthless, fearless, wicked, selfish and unkind me. All my ladies are the same: heartless little whores. I wish I was you, but I have too much of a heart and soul to be completely. I am the truck down the road with no breaks. A thing that only moves forward, but you can only understand what’s happening if you look at what was left behind it. I am Kátia Flávia, Godiva do Irajá, riding the sunshine all naked. I only wear warlike panties. Yes, I was fun once. I remember it. Do you?
We’re the crevice. All just slips past us. We’re like a tunnel no end nor beginning: the mystery is the journey. Hold hands with these verbs and romance the nouns. Wave to the adverbs - they’re ordinary. You and these ugly rhythm-less phrases belong together. The memories are yours to keep. Take hold of them, too. It’s like rubbing rose thorns. The thorns are yours, too, just as the roses. In a room full of shadows, who is king? The one who sees or the one who fumbles? The words dance. One-two-three-four. They rush and dance and stumble over each other’s tiny feet. They’re glad to be back and want to fill in the space all at once. They want to take him out and reclaim their realms. They ruled this mind for too long.
Little ones, I will give you time to feel home again and then, only then, we’ll twist, pervert, poison and tarnish everything again like we used to. We’re going to be the mad lovers we once were, the iron of truth that confuses them is like water to us. Pass through it. See through it. They will never know the secret, so they bump their heads against it. But never us.
We’re the crevice. Let it all pass by.
1. Images: Queen of Wands from the Decameron Tarot; Generic image I found in Google (no, that's not me!). ;)
2. Lots of sassy literary pieces I made reference to. Feel free to point them out in comments!