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.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-17 07:46 am (UTC)It's okay. I thought I recognized this from before -- I think it came up with Dr. G previously. So I'm not taking it personally, just trying to pick through and analyze which points are legitimately liable to blow up in Heron's face later, which are Mallory being prickly, and where I may have phrased something poorly.
And yes, I get the fake choice shit all the time from medics. I resent it, and in that context, I sometimes jump to the conclusion on someone who's being honest, just because most of them aren't. *sigh* Nothing to be done but apologize to the guy who got blasted for other people's shitty behavior.
>> As for biting Heron's head off, probably more like flinching, hard, and avoiding until asked what the F was going on, though probably not in those terms given Heron! :) I generally really do like him. This is truly the first time he's crossed from amazingly unshakable to irritating, for me. It was totally the counselor thing. See also, mega issues. <<
Snappishness he tends to ignore politely, which is often a good way to avoid escalating it. But flinching will get his attention.
Shiv can snark all he wants and it'll roll right off, but if he's trying to stay 10 feet out of reach, Heron will notice that and park himself to avoid crowding Shiv. It is precisely Shiv's background with crappy therapists, foster parents, et al that makes him so inclined to answer so many questions with "fuck off." The Finns are trying to show him what a real choice even is and how to make one.
Mallory has a slightly different problem. She doesn't decide things. She either dithers or makes a knee-jerk reaction. This has unpleasant results much of the time. I don't think she has the same sharp reaction to "it's your chocie" because, as far as I know, her parents didn't care what she did. Any version of "do whatever you want" is normal to her ... but that doesn't make it a great idea, because not going through the decision process has crummy results. See the cascade of disasters that made her a supervillain in the first place. So, Mallory can either keep floundering through it the slow way or find some easier method of learning this skill.
Different experiences lead to a different pattern of damage.
>> I really, reeeeally envy T-America its assumption that even the able-bodied random people don't have a complete set of life skills when they hit the age of majority. So much envy. <<
Me too. The more I've seen of this, the more it intrigues me, so I've written about it in several different places. Most recently is a poem about a five young adults taking a class in life/family skills.
>> Also its people commonly *meaning* that someone has a choice when they say something is up to another person, no weight added. That is not my first, second or third read of an offer like the one you posited Heron making to Mallory, <<
I think it really is context-sensitive. If you're used to people lying it, you wind up like Shiv -- it's treated as an attack, because it has been. But if dealing with people who routinely overlook or stall on decisions, then it's pretty important to prompt them. If dealing with people who tend to do whatever you say, sometimes not mentioning quite relevant data that would change your mind, then it's essential to include some safety nets.
>> and I short-changed both you and Heron because of it. Of course he genuinely means it; he likely wouldn't have said it otherwise. And you're not in the business of turning genuine people into jerks. I'm all about the warranted apologies tonight.<<
It's okay. It's useful for me to see the range of responses, because that helps me refine the way I describe things. I'm starting to wonder if I need a warning for things like this, but 1) I'm not sure I'd catch it in advance, and 2) I'm not sure how to phrase it either.
>>Re: fault vs cause: Got me there. Again, I apologize, this time for the misread.<<
That one's always fraught because L-America so often conflates things that it's hard to talk about rape or unwise choices and not have it cross over that territory.
>> Oh, now I want to see Mallory let loose on a toweringly legitimate target. <<
Can do.
>>Maybe somebody's trying to advise, as in bother, more people than just her? The same person who's all over Mallory is also bugging the female/nonbinary couple, or the black mom whose other half happens to be in the bathroom so no, she is not a single mom, thanks, or the multiracial triad. And Mallory can only take so much before she lets fly. <<
Oh yeah, supervillains will haul off and flatten someone who attacked a totally different person. Fortressa's done it -- "Hey dickweed, the lady ordered a salad, not your opinion on her dietary choices. Now go get the fucking salad before I break your fingers."
>> I'm going to buzz off, now. *hugs* I truly am sorry for all the frakups and issues. You did not deserve the blowback from me getting nailed. <<
We're good. I'd rather know where the landmines are.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-18 12:08 pm (UTC)Re: supervillainy: Heh. I'd likely leave off the cussing and threats, but I won't deny I've given an earful to a random dude openly shaming the frak out of his friend in the middle of a public sidewalk. Well, sidewalk café, but it was right out on the street, so. I later encountered the guy who'd been getting brow-beaten, minus the amateur life coach, and he didn't seem to resent me, so whew.
Re: fake or weighted choices: Medics are some of the folks I *don't* get this from, and thank goodness for it and them. Counselors and family though, mostly family, yep.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-18 08:04 pm (UTC)*hugs offered*
>> Re: supervillainy: Heh. I'd likely leave off the cussing and threats, but I won't deny I've given an earful to a random dude openly shaming the frak out of his friend in the middle of a public sidewalk. Well, sidewalk café, but it was right out on the street, so. I later encountered the guy who'd been getting brow-beaten, minus the amateur life coach, and he didn't seem to resent me, so whew.<<
Good for you.
There's a delicate balance between respecting people's agency and privacy, thus letting them solve their own problems as they see fit; and ignoring a bully picking on someone in public space, which makes it your business.
>> Re: fake or weighted choices: Medics are some of the folks I *don't* get this from, and thank goodness for it and them. Counselors and family though, mostly family, yep. <<
You are so lucky to have medics who are honest about choices!
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-22 01:08 am (UTC)*hugs accepted, gladly*
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-22 06:32 am (UTC)The good ones are golden.
>> Re bullies: That's one sort I could never abide. Still can't. <<
Well, that's why I enjoy flogging them against the floor in my writing. Feel free to prompt for that any time you like; we have a supply of suitable targets.
>> *hugs accepted, gladly* <<
**HUGS**
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-19 01:02 am (UTC)I think it really is context-sensitive. If you're used to people lying it, you wind up like Shiv -- it's treated as an attack, because it has been. But if dealing with people who routinely overlook or stall on decisions, then it's pretty important to prompt them. If dealing with people who tend to do whatever you say, sometimes not mentioning quite relevant data that would change your mind, then it's essential to include some safety nets. <<
Agreed. And all of this is very relevant to me.
When picking something fun, I tend to offer two to three suggestions and add 'or what?' When trying to work with someone who is in a bad place, I struggle a lot more. My partner tends to freeze up when she's feeling overloaded or sad, and in that case my listing a menu of choices actually leads to more freezing unless there is implicitly plenty of time to think it over - so I ask/offer one suggestion at a time, or solicit her thoughts. But I'm still working on it, really.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-19 01:39 am (UTC)But we are not fumbling all the same things we started out with. At least we're making new and interesting mistakes as we go along.
I think that, five years down the road, Heron and Mallory will have figured out a lot of what they're floundering with now, and have a whole platter of fresh hell to freak out over.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-19 07:46 pm (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-19 08:01 pm (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-12-19 08:32 pm (UTC)