Poem: "The Most Room in Your Heart"
Dec. 16th, 2017 03:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis poem is spillover from the December 5, 2017 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from technoshaman, alexseanchai, and janetmiles. It also fills the "guardian angel" square of my 12-3-17 card for the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
genprompt_bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by technoshaman. It belongs to the Damask thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.
"The Most Room in Your Heart"
There are two locks on the door
of the bedroom that once belonged
to Maisie and now belongs to
both Mallory and Dairinne.
One is a simple sliding latch,
high up toward eye level, and
the other one is the key lock in
the metal plate under the knob.
Mallory likes locks.
They are simple and
easy to understand.
They make boundaries
both clear and secure.
After all the time that
she spent sleeping on
the futon on the landing,
Mallory revels in having
a door that she can lock.
The problem is that
locks and babies
don't really mix.
Heron has impressed
on her that it's not safe
to hand over the baby,
lock her door, and then
fall asleep where nobody
could reach her in a crisis.
Nor is it particularly safe
for Mallory and Dairinne
to fall asleep together in
a locked room, just in case
something should go wrong.
And locking Dairinne in is
apparently right out, even though
it'd keep people from waking her up.
That leaves Mallory with a room
that can't (shouldn't) be locked,
and of course, in a house full of
college students, it means that
people barge in at awkward times.
After the time that Paige walks in
on them both completely starkers
because Dairinne had barfed on
Mallory and it was easier just
to shower off together and
Mallory hadn't gotten clothes
back on them yet, she's had it.
"I can't stand this," Mallory says
to Heron, waving her hands. "I don't
want to live in a house where I
can't lock my frigging door!"
"It's not the door, Mallory,
it's the baby," Heron says.
"I know, I know," she says,
"but if this happens again,
I swear to fuck I will start
boobytrapping my door.
There will be buckets."
"Mmm, let's see if we can
find a better solution than
that one," Heron says.
"Knock yourself out,"
Mallory mutters.
She wants to slam
the door in his face, but
that would definitely
wake up the baby.
How is this her life?
She used to be Farce,
a scary supervillain,
the terror of Urbanburg.
Now she's afraid
to slam her own door.
"You seem pretty upset,"
Heron says. "Do you want
to talk about it while I search?"
"It's just, there's so much more
that I have to do now," Mallory says.
"I don't mean just the practical stuff
like feeding and diapering. It's that
everyone wants me to talk about
the baby and give me advice
and it's all so exhausting."
"Emotional labor often is,"
Heron says. "Some of it
is necessary to maintain
relationships ... but you
should think about which
ones you truly care about."
"Not many," Mallory grumbles.
"You. Our housemates. I guess
your family doesn't totally suck."
"Thank you for that," he says,
and one corner of his mouth
curls into a faint smile.
"I just hope that you can
come up with something
to fix the door issue before
I snap," Mallory says.
"How about this?"
Heron asks, showing
her a product page on
his tablet computer.
It's one of those silly signs
like they have in hotels to
hang on your doorknob.
One side is pink and white
with a sleeping baby and it says,
Please do not disturb. The other
is blank whiteboard with a pen
clipped along one side of it.
"Really?" Mallory says,
raising her eyebrows.
"You think that'll work?"
"It will if I explain the situation
to our housemates," Heron says.
"It's better than a bucket of water
over the head, and they know it.
They'll treat 'Do not disturb' like
a lock except in an emergency."
Mallory snorts. "You're like
my own personal guardian angel,
or would be if I believed
in that sort of stuff."
"Well, you learned
to believe in me,"
Heron says. "That's
good enough for me."
"I need to have something
to hold onto, or I will go nuts,"
Mallory says. "I have baby things
spilling everywhere. How can someone
so tiny take up so much of my space?"
"I know new babies always require
some adjustment, but I'm still sorry
that you're having such a bad time
with this," Heron says, wrapping
his warm arms around her.
"It's not bad, it's just weird,"
Mallory says. "I feel like she's
taken over my whole life. It
drives me totally crazy, and
yet I love her so much, too.
Heron hugs her tight and says,
"Sometimes, the smallest things
take up the most room in your heart."
* * *
Notes:
"Sometimes, the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."
-- Winnie The Pooh, A.A. Milne
The master bedroom is the one with the ensuite. It originally belonged to Maisie, who gave way to Damask, who passed it along to Mallory and Dairinne since a new baby has much need of a bathroom.
Door etiquette can get complicated, especially in a house shared with several housemates and a baby.
Door booby traps have their own trope, named for the bucket version. These instructions detail several methods. Watch videos for a tub of flour and funnel of water.
See Mallory's door sign. The front side is pink on top and bottom, white in the middle with a baby's face, and blue text says, "Please do not disturb." The back side is all blank whiteboard with a dry-erase pen clipped on one side to write messages.
technoshaman, alexseanchai, and janetmiles. It also fills the "guardian angel" square of my 12-3-17 card for the genprompt_bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by technoshaman. It belongs to the Damask thread of the Polychrome Heroics series."The Most Room in Your Heart"
There are two locks on the door
of the bedroom that once belonged
to Maisie and now belongs to
both Mallory and Dairinne.
One is a simple sliding latch,
high up toward eye level, and
the other one is the key lock in
the metal plate under the knob.
Mallory likes locks.
They are simple and
easy to understand.
They make boundaries
both clear and secure.
After all the time that
she spent sleeping on
the futon on the landing,
Mallory revels in having
a door that she can lock.
The problem is that
locks and babies
don't really mix.
Heron has impressed
on her that it's not safe
to hand over the baby,
lock her door, and then
fall asleep where nobody
could reach her in a crisis.
Nor is it particularly safe
for Mallory and Dairinne
to fall asleep together in
a locked room, just in case
something should go wrong.
And locking Dairinne in is
apparently right out, even though
it'd keep people from waking her up.
That leaves Mallory with a room
that can't (shouldn't) be locked,
and of course, in a house full of
college students, it means that
people barge in at awkward times.
After the time that Paige walks in
on them both completely starkers
because Dairinne had barfed on
Mallory and it was easier just
to shower off together and
Mallory hadn't gotten clothes
back on them yet, she's had it.
"I can't stand this," Mallory says
to Heron, waving her hands. "I don't
want to live in a house where I
can't lock my frigging door!"
"It's not the door, Mallory,
it's the baby," Heron says.
"I know, I know," she says,
"but if this happens again,
I swear to fuck I will start
boobytrapping my door.
There will be buckets."
"Mmm, let's see if we can
find a better solution than
that one," Heron says.
"Knock yourself out,"
Mallory mutters.
She wants to slam
the door in his face, but
that would definitely
wake up the baby.
How is this her life?
She used to be Farce,
a scary supervillain,
the terror of Urbanburg.
Now she's afraid
to slam her own door.
"You seem pretty upset,"
Heron says. "Do you want
to talk about it while I search?"
"It's just, there's so much more
that I have to do now," Mallory says.
"I don't mean just the practical stuff
like feeding and diapering. It's that
everyone wants me to talk about
the baby and give me advice
and it's all so exhausting."
"Emotional labor often is,"
Heron says. "Some of it
is necessary to maintain
relationships ... but you
should think about which
ones you truly care about."
"Not many," Mallory grumbles.
"You. Our housemates. I guess
your family doesn't totally suck."
"Thank you for that," he says,
and one corner of his mouth
curls into a faint smile.
"I just hope that you can
come up with something
to fix the door issue before
I snap," Mallory says.
"How about this?"
Heron asks, showing
her a product page on
his tablet computer.
It's one of those silly signs
like they have in hotels to
hang on your doorknob.
One side is pink and white
with a sleeping baby and it says,
Please do not disturb. The other
is blank whiteboard with a pen
clipped along one side of it.
"Really?" Mallory says,
raising her eyebrows.
"You think that'll work?"
"It will if I explain the situation
to our housemates," Heron says.
"It's better than a bucket of water
over the head, and they know it.
They'll treat 'Do not disturb' like
a lock except in an emergency."
Mallory snorts. "You're like
my own personal guardian angel,
or would be if I believed
in that sort of stuff."
"Well, you learned
to believe in me,"
Heron says. "That's
good enough for me."
"I need to have something
to hold onto, or I will go nuts,"
Mallory says. "I have baby things
spilling everywhere. How can someone
so tiny take up so much of my space?"
"I know new babies always require
some adjustment, but I'm still sorry
that you're having such a bad time
with this," Heron says, wrapping
his warm arms around her.
"It's not bad, it's just weird,"
Mallory says. "I feel like she's
taken over my whole life. It
drives me totally crazy, and
yet I love her so much, too.
Heron hugs her tight and says,
"Sometimes, the smallest things
take up the most room in your heart."
* * *
Notes:
"Sometimes, the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."
-- Winnie The Pooh, A.A. Milne
The master bedroom is the one with the ensuite. It originally belonged to Maisie, who gave way to Damask, who passed it along to Mallory and Dairinne since a new baby has much need of a bathroom.
Door etiquette can get complicated, especially in a house shared with several housemates and a baby.
Door booby traps have their own trope, named for the bucket version. These instructions detail several methods. Watch videos for a tub of flour and funnel of water.
See Mallory's door sign. The front side is pink on top and bottom, white in the middle with a baby's face, and blue text says, "Please do not disturb." The back side is all blank whiteboard with a dry-erase pen clipped on one side to write messages.
Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-16 06:21 pm (UTC)They're good people. It just takes practice to adapt to changes in a household. They all get along well enough that people have been pretty casual about doors, and only locked them when they really wanted privacy. Especially that one, which used to be Maisie's, and as the landlord's daughter she tried to stay accessible most of the time. But that's the room with the ensuite, so they sensibly shuffled around to give that one to the new mom and baby, who need a bathroom most often.
>> that door tag... I'd trust velcro more than a clip... less pointy bits, holds better. But hey. Use what you got. <<
Depends on the construction. A shoddy version of both will fail, a decent version of both tends to work.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-16 06:30 pm (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-16 07:19 pm (UTC)Some people attach their pens with string. Currently the whiteboard on our fridge has a pen with a magnet that just sticks on the door beside it.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-16 10:29 pm (UTC)'nother idea: One of those coil-tether stickers, only for a marker rather than a regular pen.
https://www.candybuffetscoops.com/products/dry-erase-marker-tethers
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-17 03:35 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-17 04:57 am (UTC)Oh, here's something wild: WetErase ink. It writes on any non-pourous surface, and once dry, won't be disturbed by your basic dry-erase eraser... hit it with a damp paper towel, though, and it's gone. Gripping hand? On regular (porous) cellulose paper? It's *permanent*. Comes with a Platinum Preppy sign pen specially modified (with silicone grease and an o-ring) so that you can fill the entire *barrel* with ink, some 3-4ml... although personally I prefer putting a converter in it and drawing the ink up through the tip. For one thing, less leak-prone; for two, it means the marker starts instantly since the tip is wet before you even start drawing the ink back through the feeds and into the converter.
This is useful when there's something you want on the board semi-permanently (like, say, a calendar outline or a regular message), in addition to the ephemeral messages you make with regular dry-erase markers.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-17 05:38 am (UTC)Interesting.
>>Oh, here's something wild: WetErase ink. It writes on any non-pourous surface, and once dry, won't be disturbed by your basic dry-erase eraser... hit it with a damp paper towel, though, and it's gone. <<
Used to be, you could get those in ordinary markers, and if you bought a pack of markers there would be one black wet-erase and several colored dry-erase ones. But the last time I looked, I couldn't find any. :(
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-17 05:56 am (UTC)But the Noodler's does come in black too...
That big damn bottle of ink will probably outlast the marker. :)
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-18 11:38 pm (UTC)Tip: DO NOT try to use the wet erase with small kids. They WILL smear
OTOH, I do NOT miss the super-smelly whiteboard markers that were everywhere when I was in high school. They still exist, but low-odor is seemingly the norm for whiteboards now.
Wonder if when Dairinne's a bit older they'll give her a chalkboard wall ...
Ooooohhhh...I bet T-America has paint markers containing *chalk paint* so you can chalk-write in liquid instead of dry and avoid the sound and the dust... it'd basically be chalk and color and water with something to make it dissolve faster and something to *keep* it in suspension, I think, and I bet the reason we don't have them here (besides our art supplies being less cool) is probably the tendency for chalk particles to separate out and clog things, which would be solvable for a gizmologist. I bet their instant blackboard tape, paint, paper, etc actually work, too.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-29 10:16 pm (UTC)So noted on wet-erase and kidlets.
A chalkboard wall would be COOL for someone big enough to start scribbling... use the big fat chalk-sticks at first to avoid possible choking hazards... or, yeah, the gizmo-markers... you're right, a little button cell in the end of it could easily power the gizmo for a few months at least... and if they're smart, which, this being T-America, I can't imagine them not being, they'd have a recycling facility where you could send your old ones and get new ones at a discount... you could even subscribe, and put the old ones back in the shipping container for the new ones and have .... Ysabet, what's the Amazon-analog in T-America? pick'em up.... like they do toner cartridges now.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-30 11:16 am (UTC)Thank you so much for asking that. Now that I have stopped laughing my ass off allow me to introduce:
Mapuche Mail is a corporation similar to Amazon.com. It was launched out of AraucanÃa, which lies between North Chile, South Chile, and Argentina. What began as a fair trade initiative to give local crafters wider reach has grown into a global sales and shipping business.
Locally, AraucanÃa is a region inside Chile. But in Terramagne, it's a roughly triangular nation of its own.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-30 03:42 pm (UTC)and I just love that its Terremange replacement is Fair Trade (and probably features organic, planet-friendly, etc...)
I wonder. There's almost gotta be something on the Rock... I was just noting yesterday elsebook that the only Starbucks on the WHOLE ISLAND was just down from the only Mickey Dee's... right outside the Navy base. (Ditto Mall*Wart...) Outside of the base area, the rest of the island is pretty much Hippie Central... :)