Beata Beatrix

Obsession made beautiful.

Letting Myself Go There

I used to walk by a small bridal shop on my way to weekly therapist visits. With skateboard in hand, I’d stare through the window at the custom pieces. A sight of renewed purity flowed down in off-white silks and satins. Beads of ivory instead of sweat. Lines of embroidered passion instead of permanent slits.

I’d imagine the clientele; ecstatic at the feelings they’d get on their final fitting day—an image of redemptive beauty reflecting back from all angles. She'd close her eyes and see the imperfect Prince Charming riding toward his bride, steel armor replaced by scarred arms, sword and shield by pen and paper.

Then; trust-falls back into a recoiled reality as she draws back the eyelid curtains and reaccepts objective truth. He is nowhere, she is non-existent; the shorelines dissolve back into the ash that rises up through the atmosphere like burned pieces of grey confetti. The best men all gather around the groom—anxious to see the ball and chain locked up from their front row seats. I’ve pretended to get down on one knee too many times throughout my life—nobody’s ever taken me seriously, not even myself.

Storybook Sadness

I got up one morning as I sat on the edge of my bed, nearly shivering with nervous sweat. I began thinking about the dream I’d just woken up from of an image that’s haunted me ever since;

A beautiful wedding in a broken-down chapel; rays of sunlight still shining through its cracks in the rooftop, impaling the dense air with translucent touches of promised hope that pierce the fog in permanent halves. Beacons from high above all beaming prisms of rich colour through the stained glass windows and onto walls half-sprawled with the bright vines of deep green emeralds.

She stands center-stage; framed perfection. A magnum opus wrapped in white threads of pure redemption. Untouched skin; restored to life and ever-pampered by real Seraphim who flew down from His side and saved the star-crossed lovers from their eventual suburban fate of celestial disappointment. I’d found true happiness at last through her eternal smile.

“Does anyone have any reason...,” the preacher utters the words I’d been dreading to hear as she peers through her peripheral in my general direction. My entire body freezes shut—disabled by well-deserved humility and a forced life of self-imposed silence. Through the veil’s intricate lace; a microscopic image of our entire universe and its timeline starts taking shape as it simultaneously begins unravelling at both ends, gaining exponential purpose within the glistening liquid of reflective teardrops being formed real time inside the bride’s outlined-eyes.

Then I wake up.

Dreamy Frequencies

The haze brings about bits and pieces of memories that don’t make sense. Chopped up frames of film I don’t remember shooting. Anger works in ways that’s hard to take into account. It threads itself into my daily existence with such a delicate touch that by the time its coursing through my body, I’m already breathing fire. I used to try meditation until I realized that it required active focusing upon nothingness. I used to be able to pray with so much more ease a long time ago too, but lately I feel like I’ve been picking apart my end of the line. The emotions used to drip out through my fingertips and onto the canvas below, smearing technicolor truths through optic brushes—a filmed masterpiece from beginning to end to new beginning.

Constant turmoil and persistent guilt comes barreling toward me at light-speed. A ball of havoc in attempting to purge so many of the things that’ve haunted my life follows suit. The off-color marks still on my wrists, the emptied fifths still stashed away in closets, the pictures of a once-romanticized era realized through saddened expressions and regretful moments. The hospitals, the medicines, exile, disease—it all interweaves itself into a mess of misery in an attempt to find and rid myself of all the darkness that’s held such a permanent hold on my heart.

Beatrice Portinari, 1977

After the storm, a period of personal restoration is required. In order to beautify a place that’s been held under such a previous oppression, one must first create their own space of individualized-peace. Symbols of hope eventually come through the images of potential happiness countering my puke stains and pill bottles. Everything surrounded by a brilliant swirl of sleeplessness cast upon the outside world with zero concern and even less caution.

An immediate shift within the earth’s core; flipping the switch on polar opposite poles when she appears in my dreams as someone I have yet to meet, taking center-stage; both brims ink-filled while adorned in Vivianne Westwood accessories with added revolver clip as liquified rose petals drip down halls of scarlet throughout a timelessly-armored heart. Her attitude; priceless—the posture; prayer, as her poet approaches his muse from beyond the background’s shadows.