The Confessor

Violette Taylor

Turning off the lights and pulling down the blinds of my mind, I grab an old-fashioned to ease my way to the staircase.

Adjusting candles with hidden wicks on crooked cabinets, I sing to the tune of the stair’s creaks down to my belly. Untied from my neck, the red cord falls on the floor in the shape of a confessor.

Once a room of judgement, my den now holds my favorite memories and the smell of patchouli. This golden retreat from the noise outside has kept me sane for twenty years and change. Save us, confessor.

From the powder room comes my favorite demon dressed in her petticoat dipped in honey. Not saying a word, she wraps her arms around me and shows me the absurd lightness of love waiting for us confessors.

Making amends with the ghosts of my past, we paint the baseboards a shade of violette so perfect that it unsettles us. My greatest fears gift me new opal legs for our old coffee table. The card is for a confessor.

In my bedchamber, the portrait of a dancer collects dust while the elegy of my oldest jester shines. Taking my finest cloth, I clean off years of mistrust and fury from her gilded frame. Now she too is a confessor.

Sharp pain on cold nights have always come from the green-eyes beasts in my eyelashes, but today I befriend them. Giving a say, but no power, to my apprehensions, I set us both free. We are confessors.

Pulling my deepest passion from my pocket, I swallow it whole and let it consume me.