Maid of Glass

By Sasha Madsen

About the Book
After being in a car accident that killed her father—and almost killed her—Sasha Madsen began to suffer from PTSD. She ended a relationship she was in with her college sweetheart after seven years together, and she moved to a new state.
All of these events were individually shocking to her, and that made them all important, but they are so seldomly used in poetry or art to help oneself or others cope with them. Read her poetic collection, Maid of Glass, and you just might gain genuine support with those events in your life that may have affected you deeply.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: May 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798888127919

Book preview

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The contents of this work, including, but not limited to, the accuracy of events, people, and places depicted; opinions expressed; permission to use previously published materials included; and any advice given or actions advocated are solely the responsibility of the author, who assumes all liability for said work and indemnifies the publisher against any claims stemming from publication of the work.

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2023 by Sasha Madsen

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, downloaded, distributed, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Dedicated to Kathryn Lynch,

without whom I would not be sturdy.

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I am trying to tell you with my own words how trauma is being scripted, but I cannot truly read my own heart. I can’t stop wondering if I ever could.

I want to inhale some gorgeous, full fresh air and exhale words that paint my life dearly to explain me, even telling why my hands still tremble. But I can’t.

I want you to see the beauty of the courageous yard I miss as green as I still do. I’m afraid you won’t. And I can’t ever ride through that yard again. Certainly not to the tune of the same old grace.

How does this missing get fixed? This hole is taking away everything inside of me.

My heart beats are so loud and ugly everyone is cringing. I have tried to be, but I’ve never been good at tuning my own heart.

I’d paint it up with strokes of shimmering, speckled gloss, but it’s never been the same.

I have so many things to say that will never sell. So many beautiful people to brush by. I need to know before I go what makes me up.

If I leave it to myself I’ll never really know.

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I could vomit,

But I am supposed to be asking you how I can truly love you.

I really mean that question.

Never in your life has a woman blushed away from your face. It should not be the hard part.

It really is.

It’s the ice gathered on a driveway. It could be Christmas, and no one will find their way out of the house because they’re terrified of an accident. There are insurmountable things they could try to get their legs over. They could walk to other people’s houses or even a whole new town, and the night would still be shimmering. But they will not.

You don’t have to worry, though. That’s not what I’m here to say. I’ve found something new about you that nobody knows, and it’s even more exciting than your face.

You have the warmest body alive.

I wish I could say something more mystical, like your real father was a dragon. This does fill hearts, though, darling, I promise you.

When you tell me the world is all right, your warm puff of air lingers between us like a lantern and demands a whip of attention I have not had the courage to give anyone else. It says you will go without my real eyes. It says beauty is a treasure in some worlds, but still I will love you. And you will stay fascinated with her.

So how do I truly love you?

What do I say? What do I give?

What does it cost to be a part of you?

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I don’t know if it’s magic words that will heal the aching or food that will soothe the dramatic pulsing, but there is something out there that I need and cannot find.

Please, sir, I am begging you to tell me where to find it.

How could you not know?

Look at who you are and what you have.

You know things that some people will never know.

But if there isn’t an answer for you then what’s out there for me?

It’s a guide, isn’t it? Or a map?

I can’t find a place that feels rightfully mine, and I am terrified of losing all the others.

When I was young there wasn’t any money and our homes felt like new days, covered in cool blue light and kissing smooth white stones.

I think I may have grown to believe that it’s all meant to leave you, but that cannot really be true, can it?

I’m missing, but you know where it is, don’t you?

All I have to do is prove that I cost as much as the depths of liquid gold sizzling underneath us in your heart, and you will take me there.

You will give me something good to wear and take me where I belong.

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What can the sea tell me?

I can only bring myself to ask because there is something I’m desperate to know, though if I really am honest I’m not sure what that is.

My name means of the sea and you would think that would make me strong.

I am made of trembling bones that are always afraid of what I don’t know.

Water isn’t afraid to touch or hold anything to learn what it’s really made from. To carry things where it is found they were always meant to be. To fill things up as much as is needed. To spray stone restlessly with life and wonder.

It’s mystical. It’s gorgeous.

What I’m looking for is deeply and brutally human.

I am looking for a sweet-smelling balm to soothe my elderly fears.

Why am I meant to cry here? When will my knees stop buckling?

If I spent years toning a pretty ivory shell of grace what sharp strikes will I miss? Can you miss a bite that’s meant for you?

I am praying deeply for something I have not even found yet to wash over my skin and purify the crying lesions burying themselves into my muscles.

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Why, may I ask, is my hair made of stars?

Whenever a strand lays against my sensitive skin I am branded with a constellation.

My body was put together with elements that I’m sure were bred by someone cruel to scare me.

Good and helpful people have tried to tell me how to tame my hair, but what’s worth more hope than letting it all fly away from me?

When it’s unbound around me it’s all anyone can bear to look at. Everything else has such a muted pallor you will wince in front of my polite eyes.

Some people are afraid to offend a kind heart.

I feel so lost, but where else could I have come from?

What made this?

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Is there such a thing as a knight made out of burning stars? I am desperate to find him.

Someone to claim my attention through the dark and hold it, despite my fears of what seeks to tear at me from behind the naked, creeping trees.

Is he strong enough to stay in the sky if I should put him there? I know it’s not fair to put him in the sky, but that is what I dream of. Some would shake tragically and collapse, unable to stand the pressures of myth for so long. Some won’t be put anywhere.

What makes a knight a knight? A baker or a teacher could buy armor and shine it brilliantly when they wear it. They could sing poetry to me or show me a path towards fearlessness. What is it that makes a knight feel so different?

I’m hoping he’ll know the truth of the world.

That he will share it with me if he does. I hope he learned along the way to tame distress, and piece broken bonds back together.

I don’t want to ask too much of him, but I have found too much trouble, and prayed for the safety of a nebulous lavender melting against a navy café night sky. To belong there.

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Do you think it would be wise for me to take a nap beside the river running behind my house?

I get this feeling that because it’s so beautiful I will leave less weary.

But I suppose I have never seen beauty solve anything.

My thoughts are floating without a care from me and my mind like the whole thing is leaking from a murdered teacup.

That doesn’t sound so bad, but I promise it is.

What’s holding me here? I feel I could be lost at any minute, never to really speak again.

Insanity is so very tempting with its unfocused, dreamy state. I would love to never be clear and keep what I see to myself, and never worry about proper direction. To wear nothing that matches and only make friends with flowers.

I would never even have to say I’m insane.

Everyone would tell each other for me.

I still want to nap beside the river. I might still find something interesting there.

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My eyes are constantly open.

I can’t sleep, I can barely eat, and I don’t even bother to turn the TV on because it’s too noisy and I just like staring towards the wall at nothing, anyways.

Maybe you can help me.

Everyone who cares asks me how I’m doing and if I’m okay. You’ve read the simplest parts of it and yet you might not know how the hell I’m supposed to answer that, either.

I can barely stand to talk some days because my chest is seizing up like it’s made of old, decaying bricks.

How am I doing?

I’m in raging agony one way or another because either I’m seeing my smile that is ignoring my pain or that you’re not buying the one I’m wearing.

Am I okay?

No. I am not okay. I’m vacant, and I’m fading. I don’t even feel real. I must be in a dream because nothing I touch is solid. Surfaces are made of shells and my body is made of smoke. I’m waiting to dissolve, like a scrap of paper lying on the water. I don’t know why I was born or what for, but it wasn’t this. This is not the wide world we were given.

I’m searching?

Looking desperately for what I used to be. For a reality. Even just for a better story.

Please, come and find me if you can.

I have seen what I am in you and I don’t want to be alone.

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How can I tell you that I cannot possibly stand you? How do I tell you that the idea of being trapped in a car with you makes me