in the dream i'm sitting on the
back porch at Revello Drive.
Joyce comes to the door, a
teatowel on her
shoulder, and
invites me in. i tell her that my
mother's name was Anne
and i was William once.
she says, 'but you are
more than that these days.'
i brought you flowers,
i tell her, and she cries.
'i know you did.' and
then i'm crying too.

my mother's name was
Anne. she always
loved me. no matter what
i did or didn't do, she
looked at me and
saw me better than i am.
Joyce did the same,
and she knew what i was.
it was a gift she made me in her
kitchen i was cared for,
what she gave me was
belonging, she made me a
place beside her, i was
home.

i hoped she'd tell me i'd die
fighting at her side to
guard her back, that's
all i ever wanted from her,
all i ever hoped for. but
instead she told me it was
down to me to keep them
safe. but what did i in all these
lifetimes know of safety, for
myself, from everything i ever
was or ever knew? and so i made her
promises i could not keep,
about a world i could no longer
understand. first thing i did, i
got her killed, i didn't know, i
couldn't help, but i had
promised, and i tried to keep my
promises, and what that led to
was, the demon wasn't safe at
all, i thought i could, but then i
failed her, and i hurt them, and i
hurt the girl, and then i had to
change myself, to make them safe from
me, i wanted only what she
wanted, and to give them what they
thought they had in me was not
enough, but i did love them,
family i knew i could not
keep.

Dawn looks me in the
eye, straight like her
sis, and asks me where i've
been. i can't remember.
i look down at my
hands, and there's
blood everywhere, the
demon on my face, the
smell is too familiar.
she isn't going to
stake me though she
should, she takes my
hand, and says we'll
figure something out,
still looking at me
head on like those
Summers women
always do in life
and Dawn just doesn't
smell of blood to me,
not ever, she just
always smells of
home.

i come in through the
backdoor to the
Magic Shoppe,
and all i smell is
blood but i don't
want that any more, i
want to keep them whole
and safe from me.
Willow and Tara
lie in each other's arms.
Xander and Giles and
Anya, gone to glory. what is
glory worth to them or
now to me? is this what i have
done, what i have made
myself? i am too late, all wrong,
and  they were always
brave and all too often
kind. i couldn't keep them
safe, so fragile, all of
them so carefully outside
me and yet gentle they
became another charge i never
promised but that fell to
me because of what they
shared with me and what i
could not ever share with
them, the demon that they
needed and they could not
trust, and still, though
knowing what they
knew, they chose to
shelter me.

i have built this season out of the fire.
i gave myself, and knew myself, and
burned, and made them safe at
last. i stood beside her, valued,
and went down to death to
save them, all the ones who gave me
shelter as a demon and forgave me
all my sins and expectations, all my
virtues fluttering, because i
wanted them to have a world
that they could bear to live in, all those
little girls, the boy, all mortal,
went down naked and defenceless
stood against that dark i knew so
well to fight that final battle,
never was a moment when they
wavered, and that moment when i
knew myself, she knew me, full of
light and changed at last beyond all
measure from whatever i had
been, when she believed in me
then i became more than i
could be and she knew me,
at the end, that i was
clean.

but wasn't i made, truly, all that
time i took to change, becoming
more to give them shelter, and to
die so they might live and go with
safety into one another's
arms? as i have also rested
in her arms. and didn't she
know i meant to keep those
promises i did not make?
just like they knew, both
Joyce and Dawn, first
day she handed them to
me, and gave me thus a
family, mine to protect,
unsouled, but trusted with their
safety and her heart.

down in the down
below, at the mouth of
hell, disintegrating,
still i can keep my
self intact. nobody ever
asked me, even
her, to change. but
that was what i chose,
to be reborn, and all that
pain i felt in the
cave, in the womb,
and coming down that
birth canal to be delivered
once more, this time knowing,
into that cold world in which i had
no place, no pulse, no
purpose, and no time.
dead men as a rule don't
generate much heat. still,
there i was, beset and
set upon, helpless and new,
alive in a different way,
burnt clean, remade.

so now i tend this admirable garden.
but my hyacinth girl is gone.
she wearied of forever and i
gave her back her day to live out,
clean. and clear of me.
still she was beautiful in
battle, spinning.
i did so
want to
see her,
from me,
     open into
     herself
     all golden,
     alive in
     sunlight,
absolutely
free.
 

macha
macha@ntl.sympatico.ca
1st draft: june 2003
2nd draft: 28-29 aug 2003
made for, and first posted at, Tea at the Ford with macha

for Diane, who asked for it in the first place,
and also for Christine and Laurel, as an illustration of the virtues of catharsis