Oh Marilyn with your sweet stare so sad
Oh how you put on a show for us all
Your lips were the color of
Red twisted licorice
Your skin so soft
Like silk
As you lay stretched across the flip page
of a centerfold
Your body
Your breast
Your hips so curvy
Your legs dressed with stretched diamond
netting
You were every man’s perfect obsession
But it was your eyes that told your true
story
The gaze of the lonely never lies
You knew, your bargaining chips of beauty
would fade with time
Old age slips into our lives like a thief
Steals what once was
The fear that comes from not being loved
To becoming the most loved
Then knowing old age would eventually take
it away
Had to be a burden to carry
A weight, unbearable to lift
For rejection is a demon that haunts with
great regularity
Spreading his fear in your mind like a
wildfire spreads through the forest
Engulfing all of your thoughts if you’re
not careful
So you fought these feelings of fear
The pills and smooth swigs of whiskey work
well at first
Like candy they comfort
With their sweet outer shell they slide
down with ease
They made your worries slip away for a
moment
But the pressures of the past always come
back
Abandonment is a scar that runs deep
After your mother left for the asylum
Life was never the same
Walking out of your world
Your mother would eventually walk the
streets of my home town
Walking the streets of Gainesville
Listening to the voices in her head
Oh Marilyn, I understand your frustration
My sister and grandmother heard the same
voices
Maybe there’s more voices to hear in this
town
Or maybe some are chosen to hear the ones
no one has time for
Oh Marilyn, with your sweet smile and
beauty
I can see why it was easier to be numb to
the demands of the world
Numb to your past
Living life in the flash of a camera could
not have been easy
Trading one lonely world for another
It all takes a toll in the end
A pill to wake up, a pill to fall asleep
A pill for the everyday demands
If two pills fix what’s wrong on Monday
Three surely will fix Tuesday’s problems
This thinking catches even the beautiful
Oh Marilyn, at least you’ll never grow old
And have to listen to the voices of the
city
You’ll live on, young, in still photos
With a smile and loneliness clouding your
eyes
Eloquent, insightful lament for Marilyn, Jason. Thanks for fascinating Gainesville, Florida, connection, which I didn't know until you told me that day in Jonesville. You're so correct, Jason, regarding Monroe's horror of age. My author, the actress Shelley Winters, who was Marilyn's roommate, said Marilyn told her,"They want me now, but what about when I turn 40?" How sad that I, too, didn't know in youth that life gets better as a senior citizen. Freed from the pressures of ambition, work, and family, the spirit blossoms the nearer we come to God, and at last we become the person we were always intended to be: happy. The throne of age is a magnificent place from which to view life.
ReplyDeleteI remember you telling me Shelley Winters was Marilyn's roommate. Boy to be a fly on the wall in that place… lol Yes, I’ve thought for a long time Marilyn had a lot of fear hanging over her. Old age and the fear that one day she may end up like her mother had to play a part in some of her self-destructive ways. Both of her grandparents died in asylums. It is not easy living with loved ones that are mentally ill “schizophrenic,” because as a kid you are told that they once were normal and suddenly started to change in their twenties. So you spend your first twenty years thinking, “Will I end up like them? It runs in families.” It is a real fear that I can relate to. All in all Marilyn was one hell of a lady…
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