Davina Moss
The Scarlet Tanager
You were beautiful. Every crimson in your cheek, every blush spreading over your lips, every shade in your hair -- you were beautiful. Every angle and every curve, you were beautiful. Every perfect line, of your chin to your collarbone, of your shoulders, of your bosom, you were beautiful. Every graceful move of your arm, every flutter of your fingers, every angel-footed step, you were beautiful. Every moment of every day, you were beautiful.
You were noticed; people noticed you, stopped in the street to stare at you. You'd be walking; a laugh in each step and a smile in each swing of the hips and people would look at you. Their eyes would slide towards you, their gaze descend to you. They'd watch you; examine how every slight change in posture moved fluidly, like water. You'd feel their gaze on you, you'd love it. You weren't just anyone to them, you were everyone. They were drawn to you. Like a moth to a flame, people noticed you.
Then, one day, he noticed you.
His name was Jesse, and he fell into your life like a meteorite. He stopped in the street and in a single moment he showed you a world that you had never imagined, a world of fantasies, a world where you were his fairy princess. He turned you around, tied you down and let you free. He was exciting and foreign, he was unusual and unfamiliar. He was a breath of fresh air, he was an artist.
Come and sit for me, he told you, come and be my painting. Come and make history with me. And he took you by the hand and led you onto the canvas, froze you in time forever: a half-smile on your lips and an elegant curve of the neck. He placed you on the canvas, alone in the dark, your heart quickening and your skin shining: walked away and left you there for eternity, lingering in oil, enduring forever.
And then he put down the paintbrush.
You were alone. Your heart within the canvas, your shell without it -- a shadow of who you had been. He took your very soul and left you broken in every way, that was what you told the world. You were a victim. You came home that night and cried yourself to sleep -- everyone could hear you. You sobbed; wretched girl that you were, left by a man, doomed to lifelong spinsterhood and damnation. No matter that we lived in the twenty-first century, no matter that a million women like you were rejected every day, no matter that you were beautiful and flawless and eminently desirable. That night you were alone, and no one was ever as alone as you were.
You were beautiful when you cried; each tear reflected your russet eyes and a pink glow developed under your skin.
To touch your face, to stroke your cheeks and trace your lips, feel the porcelain skin as the salt water trickled down it -- it wasn't reality. You never looked real – you were a china doll who might break if you were to touch her too harshly. You were a doll, a baby doll, nothing more than a doll, but to him you were a plaything.
A doll, a plaything, beautiful, noticed and alone: you were my sister.
I noticed you too. I noticed how you were loved. I noticed how you grew up and began to become yourself. I noticed how we spent less and less time talking and more and more time apart. I noticed that you grew more beautiful and more independent. I noticed that I became superfluous. You didn't need me to introduce you to the world, the world came and introduced itself to you and as it spoke to you, it gently put its hand on your arm and stroked your hair and coyly asked for your phone number. I stayed in my corner and you stayed in yours. It had never been like that before.
It had never been like that when we were four and played together at being mummies and daddies.
It had never been like that when we were six and played together at being husband and wife.
It had never been like that when we were ten and laughed together about boys and girls.
It had never been like that when we were twelve and pecked one another's lips.
It had never been like that when we were teenagers and practised for when we got our first real kisses.
But no, now that we were adults and you were beautiful and I was 'just my twin brother'. Now you had other fathers and husbands and boys to play with. Now you were a catch and a model and muse. And yet I was still under your spell, still caught in your trap. I had dreams where I sat in a Perspex box and on all sides were your eyes: the dark cinnamon brown, the specks of yellow, like dust, the thick curtains of eyelashes that you peered through. Other times all I could see from the box was the back of your head, a very long way away.
It's an odd thing, love. It creeps up on you slowly, edging its way through, conquering opponents and overcoming obstacles,
and it is never to be underestimated. It twists you, turns you, scorns you, spurns you. It uses and abuses you, breaks down
your boundaries and crushes your soul. I loved you with an all-consuming passion -- a fire that burned with the forbidden love --
a fire that is dependant on the wrong, the immoral, the evil, twisted, painful deception. A deception only found at the edges, on the blurred line between legal love and illegal love. The difference between brother and lover, games and reality, a sister and you.
That night I sat up with you, handed you tissues like I was one of your girlfriends. We talked like we were ten years old again;
we swapped secrets and shared smiles -- twins again. And you captured me again, tightened the lock on that cage, left me in your grip. Gripped, like the talons of a bird of prey, digging into my brotherly shoulders: it hurt. You told me about him, told me about how he devoured you, body and soul, about how he encapsulated everything you wanted, and how his rejection and disappointment had tainted the dream. You told me about sitting for him, told me, tentatively, about the painting. Twins again. Mine again.
You refused to go and see that painting: for all your pride you couldn't bear to walk into that room and face him. I went alone,
watched you sitting on the wall. Two-dimensional, flat, a blank canvas as a background and a face. You wore a white gown -- purity you could not claim, innocence you could not feign. A wedding dress, perhaps. A picture in my head and the world fell down.
You cupped a bird in your graceful hands. A tanager, you had told me.
You smiled down at it benevolently, like a mother comforting her child. You held it in and kept it, you laughed at it. You kept it in a cage, in a trap, tightly gripped, caught in love. It can see freedom, taste it on the air, and it can feel captivity, sense it in your hands.
I heard a breathy whisper to my side. Beautiful.
Yeah, I replied implicitly before turning slightly and realizing that I wasn't simply hearing myself in my ears. A woman stood there, shorter than you and not in the least bit as breathtaking. Red hair, blue eyes, a crooked smile. Standing before the painting of you she looked like an elf at the feet of a wood nymph. We shared a conspiratorial smile, and I turned to leave.
You were in my dreams that night, again. I watched the picture for so long, before I noticed your skirts began to rustle and all at once you had climbed out of your frame and you took my hands and we danced, alone in the dark, all night long. As morning began to break you put your hand on my cheek and leant in to me. My mind froze on the bird in your hands and I awoke.
A week or so later, I returned -- another masochistic hour or so staring into your averted eyes. She was there again, the woman, looking back around the exhibition. She came back and stood at my side, drinking you in in the same greedy manner that I was. I turned to her for a moment and she smiled her crooked, white smile and stuck out her hand. Sarah, she announced and I smiled and stated my name too. And I turned to leave.
You were in my dreams again, but then again so was she. She was in the picture and you were admiring it with me. Suddenly you turned to me
and asked if I thought her hair clashed with the bird. It did, I replied, it did clash, but I liked it. Your face softened, but your eyes narrowed and
suddenly I was lying on the floor and your face was swimming before my eyes and you were whispering in my ear. It's an odd thing, love.
Twist you, turn you, scorn you, spurn you. A doll, a plaything. Jesse, his name was Jesse.
I love you, I love you, I love you. And your face was angry and happy all at once. And my mind froze on the bird in her hands, and I woke up.
I went back the next day. I watched you watch the bird. I loved you, hated you, drank in your beauty, was captivated by you. I was held in your trap, I remained still, under your spell. I allowed my gaze to linger on you, on your cheek, on your lips, on your hair, on each angle and curve, on each line of you. I allowed you to flow through my veins, allowed your fingers to keep my captive. I was mesmerized, you were beautiful; every moment lingered.
I turned to my side and, just as I had known she would be, she was there. I looked into her eyes and inclined my head towards the door. She smiled, a crooked smile, and nodded slowly. I turned to leave.
I looked back at you. You lifted your hand and the tanager took off, a tiny scarlet heart launching itself into the world.
©2007 by Davina Moss
