Vachon Imagined

Fear had become her dream,
her image,
her landscape—
given to her by others,
now living through her,
through her skin.

She was not allowed
to live in it herself,
because it was too scary,
too loud,
too daunting.

A bed of thorns
laced by a trundel bed
her mother bought her
to give her room dimension,
to give her room fancy—
showing her only daughter
how much she loved her
through painstaking hours
wallpapering her nightmares.

Unbeknownst to her,
that wallpaper wouldn’t just display lavender roses
or the trundel bed—
it would be the figurine
for darker things to come;
for morbidity to settle in her bones,
for fear to root in her mind
as she knew what awaited her
when the lights went out,
when the lavender disappeared.

Phone calls put on silence
by a mother busy with her job,
busy with her demands.

This little girl fought them off
as best she could,
through tears that went unnoticed,
through betrayals left unguarded.

Phone wires cut,
receivers left off the hook,
so she couldn’t get out,
couldn’t get help.

This fear,
no longer outside of her
in his thick skin,
his dungeon of dreams,
now lived within her—
as him,
as the lavender on the wall,
as the plaster behind the wallpaper.

The world saw only the outside,
the trundel,
the face,
the presentation—
while inside,
fear had made its home.

And now—
it crawled through her,
slithering under her skin,
curling in her bones,
dripping into her marrow,
pressing against her thoughts,
whispering,
breathing,
becoming her.

She was no longer just afraid.
She was the fear—
every pulse,
every breath,
every shadow
inside and outside herself,
a landscape of terror
that no one could enter,
no one could leave.