KATHERINE
Inspired by Shakespeare's, "The Taming of the Shrew."
Bianca, Bianca, Bianca! That wretched creature,
steals the hearth from every room leaving nothing
but cold and ash -
I will be intolerable. If I am to marry before she may
I will make sure Bianca does not on any day!
If I am to be set in front of her
as a lame horse to her prize mare,
I will cast a shadow so large no one will fall in its shade
for fear of the wild animal
who lay in its eddies... no one would dare.
I will be this thing, I will entreat... for one so fair...
watch me, here no peace will I bring -
No suitor for either will our doorbell ring!
Oh, how he does dote, our father on her;
Bianca, Bianca—so sickeningly sweet
I hate the sound of her name
and the flocks of suitors who,
at my front door ask it her face to greet.
Do they think I don’t know
what they say about me;
Vixen, hellcat, she-devil, harpy...
heinous bitch... shrew...
my discontent will be her discontent, too.
So, I will don this mask and pretend
it to be the me the world sees me to be.
No longer will I despair these
wretched feelings made to bear
second-fiddle, unfit, unlovable, and terse,
this I shall be until I am wed first.
... Now, who is this brutish boar
(this handsome fellow) to my chamber door,
what means to have his way with me...
Woo me, the curst Katherine, will he? Fie!
I would here and sooner die than be used
as marriage fodder for my father’s youngest daughter, nigh!
So, crude his affect and language be:
Betrothed to a ruffian such as he?
Katherine curst?
Not I, that man’s the worst!
But still, his eyes, those lips, that voice...
He cannot look behind this mask
unless he sees the gentle me, as chaffed
and thrown away before, now
to hide myself behind this door, naked,
and then to see me here exposed
without the mask I wear; too bold!
Vulnerable to his lusty gaze -
Still, I know not how to separate
myself from this disguise
it has become my means,
now are my ways -
so, besot will he not be,
I dare not change for shame his eyes
will not like the me they see.
This mask has been my prison now
for years so long I know
only what’s been taken, never given.
Could he love such as me wretched and forsaken,
or could I be mistaken?
Leave the mask on and save my self the reveal, the pain,
or take it off and a husband, gain?
