Fairy of Disenchantment – Candice Louisa Daquin

Diane Nyad said women are erased 
we should purpose the skies with our retaliation
become dragons, warriors, remind ourselves if some turn away
others listen.
I wake bilious and grey, my shoulder aches, my skin is dry
the moisture of me seems missing
I recall swimming in the sea as a child, how nothing and nobody
stopped me going too far out, until the land was a distant thing
and fear grew in my stomach where I feared dying
and embraced it simultaneously.
This is the arc of life, its great mouth stretching over us
children, parents, lovers, racing through time, losing distinction
all coming down to that day when we end, slipping away
with grief, fear, or some kind of mad wonderment.
I’m stuck this morning staring at myself in smudged glass
wondering how I ended up here; without passion, flabby
in places I remember were firm, vain and discombobulated
resentful, unfashionable and bored.
I hear the sound of the sea, far from this place I call home
that is no home to me, no respite nor succor
and yet I am so lucky and I know it
even as my stomach roils and I cannot eat breakfast
even as the day is interminable and feels like a series of pinches
even as I wish for a glass of wine and fret about cancer, former smoker
lack of libido, thin nails, lost hair, sagging muscles, waning eyesight.
All the specters of anxiety and still
there is that remaining girl inside; stubborn, willful, luminous
the fairy of disenchantment
who laughs at my foibles and doesn’t take me very seriously.

Today she’s wearing a dragon suit, with extra-long tail
she has a parrot on her shoulder and a patch over one eye
she was called ‘the kind kid who never treated others badly’
at ten, which is the year that matters the most for ever more.
And O how she loved her grandmother, her soft, wet eyed grandmother
who died too young because the world hurt her with every step
and O how alike they were, when they buried the bruised baby bird
beneath the fig tree and wept together wordlessly
her grandmother who was fierce when called to be, who taught her
a love of politics, bad seventies music and pancakes on Tuesday’s.

I wake to another day; it can feel like a bad sci-fi movie or
I can open my hands and see the lotus 
smell its perfect bloom
notice its reddened edges
how it floats seemingly anchorless
on the still glass surface
and I remember floating in the swimming pool 
my grandmother’s arms outstretched
the timber of her voice letting me know I can do it
it doesn’t matter then, if the world deems me ‘over’ 
I am as firmly placed on this earth as I’ve ever been
far more than in those days of wolf whistles and unwanted attention
now I can run down the road in my dragon suit 
grey hair trailing, dry skin and creased eyes
and I don’t give a good damn what anyone thinks
because magic is real
and I am a lotus dragon. 

Born in Europe, Candice Louisa Daquin is of Sephardi French/ Egyptian descent. Daquin was the Publishing Director at the U.S. Embassy (London) before becoming a Psychotherapist. Daquin is Senior Editor at Indie Blu(e) Publishing, a feminist micro-press and Editorial Partner with Raw Earth Ink. She’s also Writer-in-Residence for Borderless Journal, Editor of Poetry & Art for The Pine Cone Review and Poetry Editor for Parcham Literary Magazine. Daquin’s own poetic work takes its form from the confessional women poets of the 20th century as well as queer authors writing from the 1950’s onward. Her career(s) teaching critical thinking and practicing as a psychotherapist have heavily influenced her writing. As a queer woman of mixed ethnicity and passionate feminist beliefs concerning equality, Daquin’s poetry is her body of evidence.