Resurrection
by Maryse Vrambout

To fill a gap

                             Insert the thing that caused it—

Block it up

                                             With other—and ‘twill yawn the more—

                            You cannot solder an Abyss

With Air.

-- Emily Dickinson (546)

Nothing can be as astounding as life except writing.

-- Ohran Pamuk The Last of The Istanbul Chronicles

Writing like coming to shore, like moving in and out of consciousness, when the words penetrate deeper inside to open the door I shut so many years ago, to myself and to others. Writing like a redemption, a purification, a coming out of the purgatory. Writing on my knees, bleeding, loving the unlovable. Writing the unhealed wounds that were close shut by too many years of solitude, too many unwritten touches, too many unsaid kisses, too few lovable caresses. Writing too close to my rawness, too luminous to keep its darkness. Writing my body. Writing my life. Writing my love. Writing my sinnfulness. Writing after my words died. Writing like coming out of the insufferable to walk in the light of love, writing in pain more than in joy, when the sun is down, when everything else has failed me, when I peel my life, when I unwrap my soul, when my words are hemorrhaging. Writing in agony, writing in ecstasy, but always, always in crucifixion.

Once upon a time in a land an ocean away I was born free and happy, until the fortress of love that was supposed to shelter me collapsed under the weight of too many expectations, too few words of love, too many recreational touches. The little girl who lived an unhappy childhood in the house that love did not build found herself alone, unloved, un-caressed, so she reinvented herself, she built a castle of words where she locked herself up, she rearranged her dress to be the perfect little girl my mother wanted me to be, but Cinderella’s gown was always messed-up, wrinkly, soiled, her hair untidy, her shoes dusty. Writing became my castle, where I lived, inhabiting each room I colored in words of love that were my own, words I made up, words I collected from the books I read, from people I loved, from speeches I heard, from teachers, from friends, words I laid in thick leather bound journals. The little girl I was collected words like her friends collected butterflies, they were my treasure of life, my lush island of happiness, their smells so potent, their color so vibrant they made my days pulsate, their warmth feeding me, their truth touching me, their mouths feeding me, their lips swollen by too many embraces, kissing me. Writing was my refuge and my sanctity, making-up stories was my way of escaping the non-being my mother wanted me to be. I survived on bread and words, I kept insanity at bay, while as a young girl I stood in the dark in the middle of the night uniting my breathing with my father’s until I could feel the heat of words he didn’t say on my skin. In the enchanted forest of my writing words ruled my world, but the dictatorship of my mother silenced my language killing the little girl I once was; she murdered my future children, she dislocated my body, she hollowed my nights out, my body, my soul aching for words I went from mouth to mouth searching for the sweet and salty comfort of tender syllables whispered in my ears in the dark, while good girls were sleeping alone with their own words; she sent me wandering in search of my lost words in bars and hotels, in somebody’s arms, soft hands caressing, wild mouths sucking, their owner’s words trickling down my throat, my mouth opening to receive them, their arms holding me for a few hours, for a few days, making me forget at 4 am, cradled in the vapors of alcohol, that I had lost the laughter of days spent with my father when the two of us bent over an iron tray we composed the words of lead that would become the books I loved, their ink flowing in the sentences of my life.

Writing, my words crucified to thee, their razor sharp teeth sunk in the innocence of my flesh. Writing to the mourning of my stolen purity, to my childhood lost, to words of lust murmured too early to a child in school uniform, words that make my skin shudder, their sultry taste wetting me, words of reincarnation whose rhythm duplicate the instant, words penetrating me, my tongue painting their labyrinthine curves. I am finding the smell of long abandoned words inside my memory, their undertow taking me within the depth of my childhood. Words, fragments of desire offering their ripeness to my mouth, I bite their juice of life and they resurrect me. Words whose voice I hold in my mouth before releasing them, their power cleansing me.

Buried words of pain, I call your name, come to me, enlighten me. I surrender.

Maryse Vrambout writes, “After moving to the United States seventeen years ago I lived from coast to coast searching for myself until at Fairhaven College the words that had abandoned me as a child found a new voice. I've been writing ever since.”