Calamity, Melody Knight Leary, photo by Alana Borges Gordon
Sometimes I wonder if I am a calamity.
I was once a colorful figure,
But then . . . things changed.
I was plagued by a disease that consumed me,
Smothering my beautiful hues in that gray pestilence.
That hatred.
And so I mask that disease,
Staying close to friends,
But also enemies.
And so, I befriend you.
Prying as many secrets as I can from your tongue.
Not only to get closer,
But so that one day, should you betray me,
I can hurt you in ways you’d never known,
Without ever laying my hands on you.
I’ll grab you by your neck,
And force you to look at my plagued face,
Causing you to remember what you did to me.
And as the disease spreads,
Turning you into a ticking time bomb,
You’ll realize forgiveness was never an option.
You will join the corpses you created,
While I make another mask
To hide this disease creeping across my face,
Clouding my vision,
Twisting my tongue.
I wonder if you were surprised at what I am.
I think you should’ve expected it.
Since you were the one to give me this disease.
Leary’s original artwork was inspired by a line in a letter from Samuel Clemens to his wife Olivia on August 16, 1896: “The calamity that comes is never the one we had prepared ourselves for.”