Carnivalesque

by Marisca Pichette

Stage direction: curtain up, out of reach.

Soliloquy (first, at the end):

You told me not to hide my face like the other girls do. You wanted me to keep it clean so you could kiss it without breaking up the image I cast for hours in the kiln, still hot and cooling at your touch. You live in fear of getting plaster flakes on your lips, ugly and revealing as chapped skin.

I never tried to cover what I was. I never wanted to hide from you. But sometimes? I dream of Illyria.

Her gardens and columns are lush, pure, untouched by winter’s ready bruise. Her courtyards are thriving, not empty and cold as this stage yawning all our secrets to the crowd. Sometimes, between acts—I sway like dandelions, comb my mane free of tangles and sweep under arches in a dress of pure emerald. At dawn, I take up my mask and go looking for my Benedict.

After intermission I walk our narrow stage to find just one lover, one opposing player. Are you him, costumed in seductive elegance? Doubt grows, scenes piling up to tell me your words are too blunt, your wit not mine—mutilated by a language we never shared.

With only air between us, I don’t know how to see through the semblance when our friends are setting us up.

Stage direction: actors face one another, address the audience.

I thought you were my Benedict, but I approached the wrong mask and this isn’t Illyria. The walls are grey as ashes, the windows glassless (all in you, my body sculpted to brittle perfection, reflected in your smooth face: as beautifully false as an echo).

Babe, I think we picked the wrong play. My Claudio is chasing a pale imitation of the Hero he mistook.

And he runs, and runs, and never leaves the stage.

Every day we linger here, I’m nudged a little closer to the curtain. Its folds are soft, giving more than you ever did.

So, no. I never painted like the other girls. I always sculpted my reactions and knew well to keep my mask tucked tight away. I thought my ceramic creations were enough, but it turns out it was charity. I was waiting all along for them to crack and break when you were around.

Stage direction: see the fourth wall? It’s filled with doors.

This garden withered around us. We can’t dance anymore, hemmed in by a nest of bare thorns. Staring at you across tiles we cracked in pacing, I think: I cannot read you. I don’t want to lose you.

But babe, your face is blown glass and my lips are steel nails.

Stage direction: exit, pursued by fear.

Soliloquy (final):

Bite back your direction. I refuse this time.

Maybe another will walk here after me. Maybe her face will blossom, soften at your touch instead of freezing. Maybe she won’t care, won’t mind patching fractures in the afternoon. But I know, watching from backstage.

I’ll never be the one who spends the rest of my days picking your bloody shards out of my soul.