Through Rolling Landscapes
By Fenna Capelle
Through rolling landscapes I found a path I needed to pursue
It reached out as far as my mind could bear to let it free
Like a doubtful sceptic who, in dreaming, knew not where to turn to
And I followed it to the last caress of its sheer certainty
Yet the dreamer lost his dreams; the sceptic forgot his playful irony
And I, in dreaming, lost the path and wandered off into shame
For, what’s the goodness in a leader that finds a way to conjure me
And yet can play the boundless tyrant to the very same?
I wandered off, and found an ocean; some fair, illusionistic place
That seemed sheer miracle to all I hoped my dreams would bring
But the sea now, in her appetite, has devoured all the days
And conjured all I was, my hopes and pride and my imagining
The horizon now has caught my dreams
The old road my footsteps; the tyrant’s stroke lies buried in the sea
And in every convulsion of that road lies a truth, or so it seems
That all we are is what we owe to what we one day wished to be
Acquaintances IV- Tippi Hedren:
By Lua Valino de Jong
Lingering on the grassy ground, the girl wishes to outgrow the body of a child. She yearns for a face not covered in pimples. Haven’t you seen the ads lately? You are only allowed to speak your mind if you have a beautiful face. She wishes her boobs would grow out. Isn’t that why her classmates always hold a smile when she takes her shirt off in the PE dressing room? Sighing, she spreads her arm up and holds a book in her hand.
Reading through the book, her eyes nervously sink from one page into another. Her fingers cut over paper blades, as the shadows of trees around become stark and strange. A chill runs through her, she can feel the stares, looking down at her. Ink is no shelter for skin, so she attempts to get up and walk out of it. However, she fails as, whilst laying down there, her limbs have grown out too much. The vultures fall down from where they are perched, a flock of beaks and entitlement. She frantically tries to stop them, but they relentlessly peck at her. Desperate, she embraces the gaze and falls through the ground, from the grass to a welcome bed.
Stuck in the feeling of falling, she lifts her blankets and gasps over her mattress, ‘Breath in, breath out’. The clock on her bed stand marks 5 am and, goddamn, it is too early for a nightmare. Trying to go back to sleep is useless, so she slips out of bed and sits down by her window frame, to listen to some music there. Vinyl in place, she can finally breathe again.
Eventually, ‘Even If It Hurts’ by Blood Orange sounds on the record player, so she softly laughs at the coincidence. However, her chuckle turns into choking as the record player emits a quivering crowing sound and the beaks are back. The girl, horrified, throws herself against the record player, which crashes through the window. With a screeching sound, the glass breaks apart and cuts into her face and hands. At that moment, she sees them -and they see her: they are perched on the gutter, on the window frame. Have they been there all along? She can’t tell. But, now, they finally have an open entrance and flapper in. However, the girl does not wait for the arrival of the birds. She flies away through the door and runs down a block and then two, three, ten. Finally, she finds a clearing from all the buildings: a park with some trees where she can finally rest.
Returning to her dream of soft green floors, the girl is terrified by the image of a woman -by the image of her. She despises her limbs, too long for her body. She carries the painful awareness that her feet are too big for her hands. They call it ‘elegance’, she calls it ‘growing up’. They gaze at her, she looks away. Keen eyes, entitled, on their high tree. It is an unwelcome stare, but it is there to stay. They will not leave the sight of her, every inch, under scrutiny. The peckers fall down from their tree, she attempts to push them away, they ruthlessly peck at her… She has rejected the gaze and will fall through again -from grass to bed.
Image Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/NRQV-hBF10M
