Half Past Four by Adora Williams

Do not even

It is best to be the odd one out

Choose not to join

But do not allow anyone to put you in dusted 

Boxes

4:31 pm

J.P: She’s in love

A:

Been there 

I’ve never been a damsel

But I try not to lose my maiden head and the freedom

It provides me

4:32

I didn’t want to over complicate 

Or to over analyse 

But it’s in times like this

When the poem becomes a mirror 

When the kiss becomes a mirror  

When everything becomes a mirror  

The maiden head is lost 

After it’s gone, after the mirror is broken, 

Empty bed — thoughts of death

I left my ballet flats in the lake, so I need to go back get them

4:33

And she’s losing herself in him 

I’ve been there 

I did that too 

Because it felt safer

Than being on my own 

It felt safer than my own exhausting company 

I felt better than the over complication before

4:34

Love wasn’t supposed to be analysed 

But this isn’t real at all 

We’re just copies of ourselves 

4:35

Everything becomes a mirror, shell to shell 

We never see beyond the shell 

The passing of time is needed for so 

And time stopped the first time

I allowed myself to fall in love 

His armed body and mind, an invasion 

He used fire and violet existence to lure me. 

4:36

To not complicate anything I had been complicating since the first aeon 

To surrender to the mirroring act 

(pause) 

4:38

So the poem becomes a mirror

So the kiss becomes a mirror 

It all becomes a mirror 

And reality feels real 

Reality feels complete 

J.P: Are you writing this now?

A: Yes. I don’t know. It was probably the medicine. I remembered I wrote “maiden head” in a post it and stuck it on the wall when I found “maidenhead” on a translation of Sappho. And I chose to interpret it as the mind of a woman off of any man’s domain, rather than anything to do with hymens. 

(pause to ponder about people in magnetic self-destructive love)

Linear time only exists before I drop the clock in the drawer to hush up the noise.

4:43

J.P:

Wish I could do something

I can’t

Timelines gotta align themselves

I’d better do nothing

A:

You’re right 

In the end, we need to live it 

The only good part of a man is semen

And the entanglement 

As a distraction to my hurting feet

4:45

Remember when you said you’ve never told me, but my relationship with him had an expiration date? 

J.P: Yes. I knew your maiden head would be priority in the end, and you did the right thing. 

4:46

A: In times like those you need to leave experience speak for itself

4:47

J.P: Indeed. 

Extrapolating the metaphor before us:

Shadow projections are acknowledged as goggles 

And love goggles and lust goggles, both destroy it all

We’re just here stuck in between potential and existence

A: 

That’s how the hologram and image can afford to have their offspring — us.

We need the mirror to make sense of ourselves

When the maiden head is lost

> Use suitable words to complete the sentences:

______ ______ only exists before I drop the clock in the drawer to hush up the noise.

The only good part of a man is _________. And the _________ as a distraction to my hurting feet. 

I left my ballet flats in the lake, so I need to go back get them. Empty bed, thoughts of ______. 

His armed body and mind, an ________. He used fire and ________ ________ to lure me. 

I’ve never been a damsel. But I try not to lose my _______ _______ and the ________ it provides me.

Do not ______. Choose not to join. It is best to be the ______ one out. But do not allow anyone to put you in dusted _______es.