Work Text:
So plunge the knife and sink the ship
And fill my heart with dread
Let me escape the modern world
To roam inside my head
To gasp in shock
And get strange looks
From people all about
And not to care at all because
The story rings so loud
For characters to turn from wisps
To people fully grown inside my brain
They talk and flirt and smirk - and die;
And I can feel their pain.
I yell at the page in impotent rage
When they talk past each other
If only they would - something!
And stop with all their blather
So I pace up and down and swear
Or sit and softly weep
At terrible moral dilemmas where
the choices are bad - or worse;
Of the true world beyond the Disneyfied pap
Where decisions can really hurt
Of the need to keep going
despite boredom and pain
because life is often not fair;
Or the strength required
to patiently wait because others
need your care.
Or the dreams delayed or
abolished at the hands of those
with power
Or the bitterness caused by
selfishness and the steady march
of hours.
Not all courage wears capes
Or comes in a rush of a night
But is built from years of endurance
And dedication to what is right.
So tell me of humility
Of years of beneath the yoke
Of compassion borne of understanding
- From being the village joke.
And tell me how they do it
Despite the lashings of pain
Of them keeping their eyes on the higher prize
And seeing the sun through the rain
For only compared to darkness
Can we appreciate light
And the range of amazing colours
that decorate our sight
So tell me in your story
How to scale the mountainside
Despite life’s disappointments
And the challenges we all find
For in my imagination
I am capable of so much more
Beyond being like Mr. Collins
And his capacity to bore
In my fever dreams
The years fall away
And I am born anew
Without regret for the people I hurt
Or the times when I wasn’t true
This version of me is one that stands tall
And I like it because in this frame of mind
On the best of myself I can call
I can be a better Darcy
I can learn to drop my pride
To do the right thing from the start
And to actively “noblesse oblige”
I can channel Lizzie’s fierceness
And refuse to bow to reprisals
Face into the wind of scandal
And thrill as my courage rises
I can be Jane and channel my love
Into calm and quiet reflection
Look for the good in everything
And work with quiet compassion
But for real depth and guts
I will channel Charlotte’s gritty
Instead of viewing her as a simple foil
And shaking my head with pity
For she knows herself - her best and her worst
And while she’s externally plain
She can read the room
In the blink of an eye
And understand who’s in pain
We assume her to be a woman of mouse
Who desperately lacks elan
But what I see in Charlotte
Hidden in plain sight
Is a lioness with a plan.
In another time and another place
She’s the power behind the throne
Or the vanishing spy
Who brings down the house
And sees tyrants overthrown.
For most of us are Charlottes
Not seen by the world as cool
Not flashy; not valued for much
By those who are born to rule.
When life is hard
And we struggle through the hours
We turn to fictional stories
- To our human superpower.
Since the Ice Ages cold
We have looked to the skies
And the stories we told
As we try to understand why.
And what did we think so much of
That we painted it on the walls of the caves?
It’s the best of human behaviour
Of love, sacrifice and the braving of danger
Of giving our lives so the tribe would survive
And of kindness well shown to a stranger.
So give me the stories of darkness
Let me ride the waves of emotion
Of those hard done by
Who don’t reach the sky
And who pass without knowing devotion.
Let the pain sear me now
From my ears to the tips of my toes
Let me sob uncomprehending
from my mouth and my nose
Let me weep till my eyes
Are red, itchy and tired
So that when I come out of my fictional trance
I will face life anew - and inspired.