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14 Nov: "Unconditional Day" by Julie Lechevsky

At 13 they brought me on television
to tell of my first love
under the bleachers.
I thought it was the real thing.
And the country shared it the way
they share candy on Halloween,
when I could dress up in anything as anyone,
and strangers would open their doors,
bending kindly to ask, Who are you?

Sometimes I'd say,
I am a Dallas Cheerleader!
or The Wicked Witch of the West!
I was myself one evening every year
from six to eight o'clock,
as the orange lanterns gleamed
on my claws, my beak, my fangs,
or my star, my wand, my slippers.

Halloween was the perfect holiday.
No songs about snow and families,
no creamed onions or long, fantastic graces,
no football games I had to watch in the yard,
just a night of flowing capes and almond eye slits,
of makeup without quarrels,
and sheets without memories.
Mother would slave over my costume
as though I was a turkey dinner for my uncles.
After a while, only my dog could recognize me.

Even now, nineteen, I go out,
gaudy with ugliness and streaming with beauty.
the doors are opened and I feel
I could not have turned out better.

4 comments:

  1. Comparisons to Thanksgiving and Christmas...where she had to be her selves and do traditions she didn't enjoy. Halloween she could be anything she wanted..."unconditional" no judgement.

    I like the idea of dressing up to be yourself. A paradox...

    I don't understand the tv reference in the first line...and her sharing her story reminding her of the other holidays. She makes the comment of Halloweeen being "sheets without memories". Perhaps the tv reference was to a rape that occurred on one of the other holidays that included holidays..."being a turkey dinner for her uncles".
    I sure hope not.

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  2. It sounded like sexual assault on my first reading. The narrator is probably living with her mother and some other non biological adult (20 times greater risk of sexual assault). http://cachouston.org/child-sexual-abuse-facts/

    It is a really sad poem. Only being able to be yourself two hours a year, that's 1/4380 % of your life. "Gaudy with ugliness and steaming with beauty... I feel I could have turned out better." She like Halloween for all the reasons it is the opposite of Xmas or Thanksgiving. People are not all together pretending to be happy.

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  3. In your teaching career, do you often see signs of sexual assault in adolescents?
    In personal training I often try to help the other- increased sexual performance.
    Kraukaers latest book, Missoula, really brought to light the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses, but knowing and changing are two very different things.
    I wish there was a way to shelter all children from everything that is bad in this way....

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  4. You hear things from the boys that sound like men who could end up raping someone someday. But no, I haven't yet.

    I have had students share things with me

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