The Beginning

Well, it's finally here! The day Dray goes public. For years now, people have been telling me that I should write a blog. "Everybody has a blog," they would say. And that was my fear. I didn't want my blog to be just like everybody else's. But I was more so afraid that I wouldn't have anything to say which, for those who know me, seems rather unlikely. Of course, as I sit here before a blank screen, I am suddenly overcome with stage fright. Not even public yet and I am fearing the scrutiny of the followers I have yet to gain.

So my first post will be rather simple, it is the poem that inspired the name and title art of this blog, the poem called Glass Houses. Written back in 2001-ish, this poem was the first of my poems to ever be read in public and has become a staple at most of my readings. The reason I return to it so often is that I did not know then how eerily prophetic the piece actually was. In the years after writing it, I was to have several falls and broken bones, including a fractured pelvis and a compound fracture which did actually pierce my skin.  Self-fulfilling prophecy or some strange psychic phenomenon? All depends on your side of the coin, I guess. So here it is, my very first public poem to go with my very first public post. Enjoy.

Glass Houses

My bones are papier-mâché creations

Vulnerable to the devastation

Of this tissue-papered reality

I could crumble under the weight of your gaze

Hobbling on pins and needles and platform shoes

Fissures grow deeper

And splinter my foundation

Shattering your image of me in the process

Time is limited

My femurs fracture

And this delicate, brittle porcelain womb cannot hold you for long

Not long enough for either of us

Trembling,    I fear the day

When I am finally in pieces

And shards of jagged bone

Pierce through my skin

Spikes and rods replacing the foundation

That collapsed once the winds came.

Copyright (c) 2001 Deserae Constantineau