Pearl Necklace

Ella Samson

Notes on Pearls and Pearl Related Incidents

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A pearl is conceived when the flesh of a mollusk is disturbed by a foreign entity. The site of the trauma is coated in protective layers of nacre that eventually form the body of the pearl.

1

Bedroom

This is how I stay calm nowadays, sitting on my bed alone, looking up at the white expanse of my ceiling so that I don’t see all of it. I watch the light filtered by wavering tree leaves scurry above me. When I am ready to wallow again, I let my eyes fall back down to the floor. I can’t actually see the floor, at this point. I’ve let it get that bad. Instead of wood or carpet, I see a coating of debris: clothes filthy from being worn for days, bald plates, dusty bottles of pills, unfinished journals, a rainbow of trash, empty boxes, tiny things that I don't have the energy to examine, a poster from that horrible movie I saw with you. I kneel down on a pile of shirts and towels, and I know why you aren’t here; there simply isn’t enough space. Even in the open gaps between piles and shelves, the air is heavy. It would weigh you down. And yet, there is one spot left for you: your stretch of the bed. If you would only try to squeeze past all this shit. We could lay side by side tracing the crack in the ceiling —the white sky, again— and again with our brown eyes. 

2

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Notes on Pearls and Pearl Related Incidents

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She tied the plastic pearl, affixed to its string, just a little too tightly around my throat. I coughed feeling the cool, solid shape of it pressing into my windpipe. That feeling followed me the entire night; through the stiff, semi-synchronized shifting of my limbs, small reliefs as I left the dance floor for yet another cup of water, and interludes of loneliness when she would go talk to him. I really hated when she would leave like that, I would get so lost in the crowd like a moon without a sun to make it shine amongst the stars. 

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Natural pearls are valuable due to their rarity and beauty.

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Poem for a Friend

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lying there, my egg-head nestled in the basket of your chest,
your breath falls down to my face, 
rank like something spoiled by the sun.
for a moment, i think to hold my nose,
but i remember it is you, someone i can breathe in as easily as i do 
the crisp winter’s wind on a star strewn night, 
when you tell me that i am special.

last winter, we were constantly running. 
goosebumps brushing against our schoolgirl skirts, we hopped
from one heated sanctuary of a building, to the next.
i used to run behind you with a pain in my chest
from struggling to keep up.
you used to run from your suffering,
and still do.

besides, what is your stale breath to me, the girl who would betray
her horde of stinking secrets to you,
and the one who promises to stomach yours gladly?
i hold you, and you are the small part i know
in an unfamiliar world.
i hold you closer because this will be my solace,
and i will need to keep it near me.

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Notes on Pearls and Pearl Related Incidents

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They looked like little pearls resting in the bowl of my red palm, white and clean as my naivety, or the sheets I was laid out on. I shoved them down my throat. I did not know why I did such a silly thing when I woke up.

5

A Vicious Ritual and the Resulting Dream 

When night falls, I take my place beside the mirror. 
By the light of a single yellow bulb,
my clumsy fingers pinch and prod, 
deliberately scarring my body. 
What are they looking for? 
No treasure lies beneath that skin, only pestilence, blood. 
No healing lies within this process, only the breach, mutilation,
 a head bang on the wall behind me.

I lie down in bed, close my eyes, 
and see a little weed growing itself into the shadows, 
ducking its fluffy yellow head 
under the thick, broad leaf of the flower beside it. 
I watch as the yellow falls from its face, 
and is replaced by a color like dust. 
I think, “What a silly weed, a drunken weed maybe. 
Someone should tell that weed to look up.”

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Notes on Pearls and Pearl Related Incidents

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Pearl is the birthstone for the month of June.

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My mother had a pearl for a face, but I, a drop of amber rolling around in her lap, more resembled my father. He is a bird-legged boy in his picture, with gray-stained knees, and a bulbous head. She says I was the difficult baby. I can vaguely remember the times, when I was a kid, that a hand out of reach, or head lacking its kiss, something terrible would swell, and overwhelm the inside of me, start to spew out of me. In this way I resemble her.

7

After "Shirim" by Melody’s Echo Chamber

Today I forgot how to dance, it seems like.
I can’t remember the rhythm of bone beating bone,
and, to look back on those June afternoons feels like
searching through silt-choked water. Now summer's gone.

That fresh-eyed girl I knew seems like
she is leaving this town. Now, almost gone.
And I am not quite so free, feels like 
I forgot how to choose heart over thoughts. Over thoughts. 

I smother myself with my thoughts.
I am just trying to get close. Get close
to the bright-eyed girl you know. 

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Notes on Pearls and Pearl Related Incidents

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Southsea pearls are the most valuable pearls of all because of their size and difficult nature.

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