Always the Writer of Poetry, Never the Object of a Poem

by Aubrey Clover

(a five-leaflet clover, not lucky like a four-leaf, just different)

I wish I could run far enough into the woods that Edward Scissorhands’ castle would appear.   He’s alone and so am I, like the last survivors on Earth, and I’d like to live with him.  He could make ice sculptures and I’ll write stories about them.  Just like in the movie, I’ll twirl in a shower of ice crystals like being inside a snow globe.  Like being inside a poem.  Beautiful, a mystery, a treasure one keeps.  Our castle will smell of winter and cinnamon hot chocolate and marshmallows and our pet hound dog and cobblestones.  Christmas mixed with Halloween.  We’ll have a frozen pond for ice skating, shiny icy mornings, and we’ll keep a fireplace too with Edward’s paper cutouts, a row of hearts, on the mantel.  Of course, there will be zombies outside trying to torch us down, but the castle’s stone fence will be both fireproof and zombieproof.  When Edward and I dance, our waltz framed by a gothic window, moonlit blue, a film score will play.  Haunting and lovely.  Sweepy dancing of ladies in long dresses and men in top hats.  We’ll reflect in the silver bulbs of a Christmas tree and glass angel.  Twirling, shimmering, poetry.  Dancing in a magical snow globe castle.

But I never can find Edward’s castle.  I’m almost thirteen and I’ve still never found it.  I always search for it, hoping it’s real.  Hoping it will appear from a dream, the way sweat appears from a dream or a blush or a fast heartbeat or a twitch.  I guess those things are real, but I’m not sure why, and probably no one knows why.  We’ve just always been told what things are real.  Toast is real.  Parents.  Sidewalks.  But not imaginary friends or a daydream that bursts your heart into snowflakes.  But those things are more real to me than toast or sidewalks.  Parents and sidewalks have never made me feel. 

The philosopher Chuang Tzu once had a dream about being a butterfly.  When he woke up he didn’t know if he was a man who had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was a man.  What was real, what was a dream?  I don’t know if I’m a girl dreaming about being a monster or a monster dreaming about being a girl.  I’m so blurry.  Maybe Edward’s castle is really somewhere.  I just haven’t searched the right places, but I’ll keep searching.

(Copyright © 2008 XT, Mulberry Bark Publishing.  2nd edition reissue copyright © 2010 XT.  All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.)

(The film Edward Scissorhands and the character Edward Scissorhands are copyright © Twentieth Century Fox and are used with permission.)

~"The Mask of Aubrey Clover" can be purchased at Barnes & Noble and all fine book retailers~