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My mother kept my secret well. No one but she and I ever knew about Mari. My father was oblivious until I was six and, sobbing hysterically, I swore that I hadn’t taken his hunting knife and cut an X in my forehead ~ Mari had done it accidentally. He yelled at my mother all the way to the emergency room for not telling him years before about my imaginary friend. My mother quieted him by saying most children had them, and the best way to deal with the situation was to ignore it. My father never mentioned Mari again. She was furious and wouldn’t stop whining the next day “Why did your father keep saying I’m imaginary? I’m real, Anne! I’m real!” I finally consoled her by saying that, from now on, I would let her sleep with me instead of on the trundle bed. {With the one condition that she would never cut my bangs again.} By the time I was 11, I got the irony of my mother being a child psychologist when I saw her best-selling book “The Magic of Reality” in the front window of our my favorite bookstore. Now I wonder if I was ever anything more to her than a case study.
As I got older, I began to want to have time to be alone. Mari’s response to my request was always “We’ll be together ’til the end.” She’d shrug if I would ask when “the end” might be. I escaped into my own world by painting. My mother said I was “gifted” and, when I was 15, she sent us me off to the Académie in Paris, one of the best schools of art, painting and sculpture. Mother arranged for us me to stay in a large attic room. Perfect for a studio as well as bedroom, it had a multi-paned window covering the northern wall and extending up into the roof. It was in an expensive women-only hostelry which my mother equated with supervised. La Matrone was not only drunk on her arse most of the time, she was the one who supplied me with wine at every meal and an extra bottle every evening. The wine did more for my painting than the school ever did. I became known for haunting portraits of a girl who seemed ready to jump off the canvas and into the room. To men she was a Lolita; to women, a child who needed their protection. No matter what her pose, the background was always dried-blood red ~ the exact shade of the wine I drank.
Then came the night it all seemed to fall apart. Mari had been trying to reassure me that the painting was going well, but I would have none of it. Screaming “You don’t understand!” I threw the half-full bottle of wine into the corner of the room, then threw myself down onto the mattress, burying my face in the pillows. I could hear her pick the bottle up off the floor; set it on the table. She turned off the lights and lay down next to me. As she wrapped her arms around me tenderly, she whispered “Don’t worry, Anne. It will all come together in the morning.” And with that, we drifted off to sleep.
The sky was a lovely clear blue when I awoke. The studio was filled with a wonderful light. I looked at the painting across the room and knew exactly what needed to be done. Just a few strokes of the brush completed it and I signed the bottom corner….. Marianne
∙ Ꮠ ∙ Ᏹ ∙ Ꮠ ∙
too many years apart
souls merged again ~ coming home
no longer broken
∙ Ꮠ ∙ Ᏹ ∙ Ꮠ ∙
∙ Ᏹ ∙
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“Me And My Imaginary Friend” Colin Hay
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originally posted 24 October 2011
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this story was written in a true collaboration between Ainsley Allmark and myself. you may have seen our previously posted poetry duet or partnerships in rounds 11 through 16 at SPARK. i began the story then we exchanged emails with our ideas until we arrived at the above final version. even some sentences were written in part by each of us, though full credit is due Ainsley for the haiku and the concept of how to merge the two characters at the end. i have never worked with another writer this way before and it was a genuine pleasure. { thank you for all you contributed, Ainsley. } you can find his stunning poetry and photographs at any of the Dolphin links in the blogrolls at the bottom of the page. three of his most popular blogs are Dolphin Ainsley, Dolphin Muse and Dolphin Visions.
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Haibun (Japanese: 俳文 haikai writings) is a literary composition that combines prose and haikū. The range of haibun is broad and includes, but is not limited to, the following forms of prose: autobiography, biography, diary, essay, history, prose poem, short story and travel literature…..
A haibun may record a scene, or a special moment, in a highly descriptive and objective manner or may occupy a wholly fictional or dream-like space. The accompanying haikū may have a direct or subtle relationship with the prose and encompass or hint at the gist of what is recorded in the prose sections…..
Contemporary practice of haibun composition in English is evolving rapidly. Generally, a haibun consists of one or more paragraphs of prose written in a concise, imagistic haikai style, and one or more haiku…..Read More
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image credit goes to Dave/swineandroses at deviantArt
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my heart's love songs 