Lover of Ash

I guess it all comes down to the fact that I have always had a secret life.

Once, I was my father's whole world. He took me to the hospital with him to make rounds on patients. Pride oozed from him when I charmed nurses and entertained patients. He would leave me in rooms with the likes of old Mrs. Callahan to play Go Fish or Rummy while he checked on the more delicate or infirmed.

At 2 or 4 years old, I was as he saw me – easy going, generous of spirit with others, enamoring even. Yet I was also already someone else – someone he didn't see – or maybe he did see – maybe he did see something witchy and divine deep within – something that scared him or at the very least, allowed him to set me on his shelf like a memento or an emblem.

He gazed upon me at one time but then, I disappeared.

Perhaps my mother saw me and still does. I threw her by the throat against a slated closet door once and told her to back off my sister. She comprehended most of me that day. She didn't put me on the shelf; instead, she entered my truth as best as she could.

The difference between the two of my parents is what I am asking for. I am not the doll or an emblem of an angel you thought you knew. Nor am I a monster to be feared. What if people could see all of me and still find life or be warmed by my fire?

It could be true I married a man who put me on the shelf. Or it could also be true that I married a man who has been shoved too hard yet opts to stay. Either way, I do not have a lot of confidence that my totality is palatable to any one consumer.

And yes, I was made to both consume and be consumed; which is the lover of ashes?