The Wedding

Maude, it is my wedding day. There are church bells. Sickly beams of light dancing on stained glass. A frosted cake lays waiting to smother me somewhere beyond the churchyard. I dig my heels into the ground, swallow down the nausea that threatens to engulf me, and step into the church. Let it happen. Let me burst into flames. 

This place is so fucking bright. I am frozen in time with the weight of this god-awful dress, unsoiled, beautiful. There is no desire here, no lust, no cobwebs. No skeletons in the closet. We will perform the horrid dancing ritual, imprison ourselves with the cage of these gold bands, and I suppose tomorrow they will hang out my bedsheets in the misty morning, to prove I earned my white dress after all. Rubies on snow. Raspberry jam on cream. There is no metaphor for what he will do to me. I can’t make that beautiful. 

There he is. This man. This man is glittering, and he belongs to me, like a promise at the end of the aisle, the longest journey I have ever had to make. His scent of white roses flares up my irritation. Much too clean, much too luminous among the oak of the pews. A god amongst the townspeople. Old money. A man of business. Clean shaven. 

I am dreaming. Tomorrow I will wake up early and there will be rain singing through the breeze. The room will be sweet and dark with pleasure, sweating under the sanctity of spoiled pillow cases and sheets damp with perspiration. Blackbirds wail the morning song somewhere outside the lace curtains. Let me be tragic and unilluminated in this underwater coven with you. Maude. 

Maude, you are in the front pew of the church and when the priest asks if anyone objects to this union, I want you to lift your dark curls and cry out. Instead, you watch on silently as my life ends in the watercolour light of the chapel on this Thursday morning. Maude, believe I never wanted to marry him. Maude, look at me. Take me underground, to dirt and demons and catastrophe. Inky eyeliner rubbed in sleep, pomegranate hearts, twilight shade and candle light. This delicate game of revenge and ruin. They can’t take it from us. 

Twenty minutes later and I am married. I have the tear-stained face to prove it. I have the family pride to prove it. I have the promised lifetime of a full, round belly to prove it. Cold, muscular morning light. Eyes sore with the weight of a crescent moon. 

I am in love. I have the bruises to prove it. I have the spit and the fire and the heat to prove it. I have the promised lifetime of our cove of chaos to prove it. Slick, humid afternoon light. Eyes wide with desire.