By Elaine Server
It’s my first semester
and the local community college has all the gallantry and grace
of a cigarette at a gas pump.
I try my best to hide away—
The library basement is dim and dark
and perfect for going unnoticed.
(I’m down there Tuesdays and Thursdays nursing
the pit in my stomach that forms every time
I see my best friend with her boyfriend
even as I just left mine.)
The basement—yes—
They keep the unorganized stacks
of the last letters of the alphabet down there.
Hiding turns to one-room-wandering
and eventually I thumb through Wilde
and pick up The Picture of Dorian Gray.
I spend hours heckling with Henry,
trying to twist Basil towards vice,
seducing Sibyl till sorrow and beyond—
in every page a Victorian scandal
that makes my sheltered ears burn hot.
Witty and lush,
I am unbound in its binding.
It’s nothing, it’s everything.
My breath shudders as the final drops of understanding
trickle in till the dam breaks.
(Jealousy and love are fickle things;
they both have my best friend’s face.)
The week after I finish the novel I lose my virginity
to a girl who moved like smoke
through most of the very few friends I claim.
(It doesn’t make me forget my best friend but it’s a close, close thing.)
I am still no Dorian,
the aesthetics of Wilde are a far cry
from my modest thinning closet,
but I keep a copy on my nightstand
for when doubts slip in,
for when lovers slip out.
I tattoo the epitaph
“Outcasts Always Mourn” on my thigh in memory
of who I became that year in that ugly little basement,
better than ever before.
Now I smile at my pristine painted portrait on the wall,
at my lovely aged face in the mirror,
and know there’s no limit to my pleasure—
however or with whomever I feel it.
Eternally thankful old Oscar died for the purest of my sins.
(Time and time again
I think of him,
as I take in new lovers
to push out old friends,
because some things never change
and I am nothing if not a creature of habit.
Time and time again.)
Elaine Server is an ever-changing artist and poet on the West Coast of the U.S. looking to bring long-time private works into the public sphere.