The Kept Woman And The Harlot Poem by Linda Marie Van Tassell

We grew up under the same roof. When it burned down, I reached for the stars. She chose to stay among the ruins.

My father lay in his unmarked grave
as mother turned in her sinful bed
yearning for something she never gave
neither from her heart nor in her head.
The vines grew dead a long time ago,
wrapped around memories of the past;
and the buds of life no longer grow
from the flower that has breathed its last.

She feasted on sin and bore a child
with the man who called my father friend,
and she made her bed while running wild
with the one who ran against the wind.
She stained the sky with enraptured red
for such are the strokes of vanity;
and as my father lay quiet, dead,
she proclaimed her love-child, Stephanie.

The stormy world goes circling round.
On barbs of light, lucid raindrops shine;
and a heart could die without a sound
like the fading light of day’s decline.
We grew in a garden of disdain
haunted by secrets of flesh and bone –
one sculpted with fire, the other rain,
one seeking flames, the other alone.

She loses herself in a man’s bed,
in arms of an intimate stranger,
and lies to herself, her heart, her head.
She loves the open arms of danger.
I fell in love, forever, for life.
Butterflies were pressed into my skin.
I will never be another’s wife.
I love him now as I loved him then.

She pressed her body into the night
and slipped between sheets of blood-red stain
and fell from grace under heaven’s height,
crushing her wings on the burning plain.
I pressed my heart into evergreen,
into the poetry of his smile,
and counted fireflies and sealed the scene
to carry it with me all the while.

She always wants what cannot be
by looking without instead of within
and holds her breath like wind on a tree
painting her life with shadow and sin.
I love beyond my power to hold,
washing my hands in a bowl of tears,
and count my blessings as strands of gold
that link the present to bygone years.

To every man, her lies impart
a truth that never rises to be;
and like a dagger, it pierced my heart
when I learned her lies were about me.
In her selfish shroud, she spun her lace.
Her web of woe was woven with tears;
and like a Judas of wilting grace,
her words were as sharp as Roman spears.

Words drain into the cracks of my heart
and splinter me deeply to the core.
Two sisters that live in worlds apart
remain two sisters forevermore.
No matter the lies, one truth remains:
I did not fall into the midnight sun;
and I did not, could not, sleep with stains
of bedding her husband, never, none!

She tried to seduce the man I love,
pitching me face first into the dirt.
No matter the steel or strength thereof,
I cannot pretend it does not hurt.
My love for him springs from holy ground.
From day to night, its glory is spread;
and like a halo, it circles round
and will come full circle when I’m dead.

The echoes of silence lay like stone
upon the words that I wrote her last;
but as she withers and cries alone
and men are just a part of her past,
like her mother, she will mourn her loss.
She will know the truth, beyond, above.
Narcissism is a heavy cross
that leads to self-hatred, never love.

I am proud as springtime’s tulip cup
that flames of glory and gathers round
and joyously lifts her petals up
across this wide swath of sacred ground.
For though I stand with rain in my eye,
my stem is strengthened for all to see;
and the breeze is God’s most wistful sigh.
His sweetest whispers are just for me.