Frida on Courage

Courage is seen as saying yes to intimidating or dangerous circumstances when courage is not confronting danger. Having the character to walk away from what is not meant for you, or that which is morally deficient, is courage. Saying no when everyone else is participating is the courage to stand alone. To slay the dragon in order to play the hero is to show bravery. But braver still is the one who turns their back and walks away from the dragon when everyone else is bowing down. These, the individuals, the solo, the alone who blaze their own trail are the definition of courage. 

This is because peer pressure is a very real threat to your opinion. It is an evolutionary response to stay with the crowd because there is safety in numbers. But there is also conformity in numbers. Show me a solitary soul who has gone its own way, who is not afraid to be alone, who will face whatever inconveniences and threats that may come, and there is strength. They may be quiet, they may be unassuming, but they likely have a keen inner moral compass. For them to capitulate to a corrupt and unjust system is worse than death. Their allegiance is not to a country or ideology like capitalism, but rather to right and wrong. For them doing good is right and no mercy is wrong. They refuse to compromise their morality for it is the final humanizing element. They who have lost a sense of justice have strayed into the hands of the deepest darkness. But for the courageous, their moral compass is keen, always pointing the way. You can judge your level of courage by this yardstick: do you follow what is kind, or do you side with the selfish?

Democracy was the popular ideal in my lifetime. It was the political flagship that nations compared themselves to. However, I and my college contemporaries saw beyond democracy to a system which did not elevate the individual, but society as a whole. Rather than lifting up the rights of every person as democracy did, Communism elevated socialistic ideals of a government fairly providing for all. It was a romanticized vision of a society which could depend on its government to equally distribute the fruits of its citizen's labors. If you have lived in poverty, scratching out a meager living, you know the futility one feels. Mexicans were starving and living in primitive conditions, and this was never far from my mind. It grieved me to see my countrymen going without while the Americans had so much. When I heard the ideals of Communism, it seemed to me the solution. But that dream faded once I realized there was not any politician who would not steal from the people. And the politicians hated and persecuted Communist supporters because it threatened their middle-of-the-road democracy. They could sell democracy to the people, this idea of the average man making their own wealth. But Communism demanded that the government answer to the people, and that they definitely did not want. So, the capitalists called us a threat to government when really what we were was a threat to their dishonesty and greed. You can plainly see that the ideal of capitalism, though a high-sounding ideal, did not amount to justice for all. Nor has it amounted to riches for all. It has produced a deeply stratified economic class system of rich and poor. The courageous soul does not buy in to any particular system or ideology over and above the compass of their own heart. Their sense of right and wrong is the only elevated value and what guides their decisions and behavior. 

I was called courageous in my day because I persevered through my pain, and I spoke out in favor of Communism in the face of persecution. But these were not what created a hero's heart in me. It was the willingness to be vulnerable. My art reflected my innermost struggles and torments, and these I shared with the world. This is another level of courage: the courage to be transparent. Showing others your soft inner workings is the most frightening sort of courage, for what if they do not find my secrets worthy of admiration? What if they make fun of my deepest feelings? Some did call my art names, and some passed judgment. But these I was unconcerned with because they were critics who had not created anything as daring, so they were hypocritical. No, it was the average person who I cared about and wanted to reach. Had they said, "We cannot relate to this," I would have given up. But they said the opposite. They said: "I can relate to the pain I see here." That validation was the highest veneration. I hardly cared what my famous contemporary artists said as much as I wanted to know how I made the average person feel. Did my statement reach their heart? I am now of the opinion that the greatest courage is to be vulnerable. And so, you must create something that reflects your inner landscape to such an extent that it reaches the hearts of every man. 

Frida on Humility by Devi Nina Bingham

Being ill will humble you faster than anything. There is no self-importance when you are unable to get out of bed. When you are forced to rely on others for basic human needs you realize how breakable and vulnerable you really are. So, the best thing that ever happened to me was my inability to help myself, though at the time I could not see it that way. The accident that caused my disability was dreadful, and the polio took its toll on my child body. These misfortunates very nearly killed me. But the human spirit knows when it must go on, and if it must, it will quickly heal. 

As an adult I experienced debilitating pain. Many times, I was tempted to give up; to refuse surgery and to live in a wheelchair. But I was jolted back to reality each time by my art. It had a life of its own. There was always something to say. Had I been the sort of person without a definite opinion, I might have resigned myself to the fate of an invalid. I thought often of that word as meaning "not valid," as having no meaning, no weight or effect, and wasting this life was not an option. I instinctively knew that life was precious-it was worth something, and I could not be wasting my precious time.

I wished to bring a child into the world because it would be another way, other than my art, of leaving my signature. Children are our immortality. But it was not destined to be, and each miscarriage carried away a piece of my heart. Then I would throw myself into my art as if each piece were my gift to the world, a colorful and daring child that bore my name alone. It was as if each time we tried to create a little "us" God said, "No." I could not comprehend why I was being denied the most fundamental function of womanhood, which is to bear a child. I did not understand why I had suffered the polio that withered my leg, and why the accident had pierced my uterus. My life was plagued with questions of why. But "why" is the only dumb question, dumb because God never answers "why" with any response other than, "Because I said so." God is omniscient and can see the entire timeline. God sees our destinies from beginning to end, yet God does not owe us any explanation. We shake our fist at God when we suffer, but it is allowed no matter how horrific. And I came to believe that only souls who needed to evolve quickly would be born on this planet of unspeakable beauty and incomprehensible pain. It is not God's punishment or wrath which chastises us. It is our own soul's desire for growth. And while growth is the evidence of progress, it can be a struggle, and heartbreaking to grow.

Strangely, my biggest pain was not the illness which restricted me. You can suffer a physical malady while still finding the good in living. But when you suffer mentally, when you are crushed like a flower psychologically, these stripes make a powerful and permanent imprint. The words spoken in haste or misdeeds done may fade with time, but like a scar you forever carry the mark. And when you touch it, though the trauma has long passed, the pain is newly awakened. It is said that there is no worse pain than a broken heart, and I found this to be true. I would have rather died a hundred physical deaths than to walk about aching on the inside because it infects your mood, your productivity, and your zest for living. Shakespeare was correct to write Romeo and Juliette as a tragedy, for true love torn asunder can make the lovers despondent unto death. They would rather die together than be separated. More than a romantic notion, it was a reality of my life.

For those struggling with a broken heart, I offer only this: you must come to care about yourself again. When you love someone or something completely, you put them first, and yourself last. You will deny yourself happiness, sleep, proper nourishment, and even hope. You will punish yourself in these ways because grief always punishes us, it never rewards. Thought I, a hunger strike will hurt only myself. When I became emaciated, a doctor friend stepped in and had a nurse force-feed me a liquid diet. I was so despondent that I would rather die, and to die by starvation, a long, torturous death. But nobody would allow me to die. Death could not kill me, nor did heartbreak. I thought of myself as an invincible woman not because I chose it, but it was forced upon me. And in time I felt that I had meaning and purpose again, that my happiness was not dependent on anyone, not even God. God and I became partners; we each did our part. I prayed and had faith, even if it was a private and silent faith, and God kept my broken heart beating. 

Until the pain reduced me to a wheelchair and then bound me to the bed. I painted a final portrait of brightly colored watermelons, so unlike the serious abstracts I had become known for. I wanted to leave the world a reflection of simplicity and purity, and what could be more wholesome than Mexican watermelons? I left a spot of joy behind, an oasis of fruit. Then the pneumonia worsened and because I was bed-bound there was no escaping it. It gobbled me up just as the pain medication did. My story, my talent, my broken body and my marred heart was swallowed up before I could turn fifty. Being broken my entire life was not my choice but a consequence of coming into this world where dreams are shattered so that we might learn humility. And Frida did. 

Army of the Unthinking by Devi Nina Bingham

Every single ideology believes it is correct.

Every single politician believes their party is correct.

Every single religion believes its God is the correct God.

Every single clergy believes their way of worshiping is the correct way.

Every single parent believes they know what is best for their child.

Every single teacher believes education to be the panacea.

Every single uneducated worker believes hard work to be the way to prosperity.

If every single person cannot be corrected, believing their way is the best and only way,

what hope is there for people to work as a united team?

And this is what the elite, the rich and greedy, are counting on.

Set the commoners at odds, then sit back and watch them duke it out.

Let them give each other black eyes instead of throwing their anger where it really belongs-at us.

Instead, let them defend us, saying we are championing their cause.

As we are paid to protect their tax money,

we will really be spending it obscenely and irresponsibly for our own enrichment.

Let them defend us while we secretly break their backs, 

after all, we are the cream of the crop, and God's very chosen.

We will put slogans into their mouths, what they will repeat like mindless, lost zombies:

"Stop the steal!" while we rob them blind.

They will pay to wear our products with our slogans as they elevate us to royalty.

In every way we will psychologically addict them so when it comes time,

we have an army of unthinking and addicted consumers.

We will become so powerful that we will be able to turn brother against brother.

And all the while we will toast to their demise.

And the captains of industry will lead the Army of the Unthinking. 

 

Communism by Devi Nina Bingham

It is not progressive to be wasteful, nor is it conservative to be cruel.

This is where labels get humanity into trouble.

One calls himself a liberal, and the next, a nationalist.

Labels are simply calling yourself a name and the other a name until both choose sides against each other so they refuse to compromise and cannot agree on anything.

Communism was a politically naive ideal.

To believe one human would care about all the others, enough to share,

was only a dream. When put to the test, it faltered due to greedy leaders.

It is still used as a hammer with which to verbally bash another: "They are a Communist!"

It has devolved into an insult meaning: enemy of the state.

Originally Communism was a high ideal before it was spoiled,

which is why I was a young and enthusiastic supporter.

The harm which labels can inflict has cost innocent people

their very lives, and wrongfully imprisoned others.

It has torn families apart, it has divided once peace-loving, sane people

and turned them into monsters who followed leaders

until grave harm was done to so many guiltless people

that the gravity of their cruelty could not be denied anymore.

When you see a country, a society squaring off into us vs. them

and using labels to divide, be certain that what the future holds

is not freedom or justice, for those happen when groups become people again.

When each man, woman, and child is respected, freedom and justice will return.

Until that golden age, if division is emphasized and if differences are not tolerated,

violence will be used liberally and without conscience.

And that society will not hang together but will be fragmented into pieces.

Such a republic shall not stand.

In the final summation, we are all simple, erroneous people

made of the same frail flesh and blood.

Until we see past the labels to see the real person, we are not seeing reality.

We are caught in erroneous ideas of right vs. wrong.

Only ask yourself, am I willing to drop my political sword if peace will come by it?

Peace begins with you.

Shriveled Souls by Devi Nina Bingham

To defy convention

is not a small feat

when everyone expects you to be a certain way.

Maybe your heritage expects you 

to wear certain clothes

and because of your gender,

have certain attitudes.

What if your soul,

the bright, shiny knowledge

hidden within 

knows a secret that wants to get out?

Do you squash the real you

into the wrong clothes

the wrong hairstyle

the wrong expression

to make someone else

more comfortable?

And why are they uncomfortable

with the real you?

They had defined you without asking.

They never asked: do you like yourself,

because they did not care.

They only cared what they thought,

what they could grasp

even if embarrassingly little.

They never inquired; how does it feel to be you? 

For if they had asked, they would have had to listen

to a perspective very different from the one

they had experienced.

Not being large enough to care,

their souls shriveled up.

Once a soul has shriveled

it usually does not recover.

And shriveled souls are everywhere.

You will know by their callousness and intolerance

to whatever is foreign to their itty, bitty, teeny, tiny

soul. 

And this, their pure bombastic ignorance

is what they are most proud of. 

Do not trouble your head about intolerant people.

They are nothing-they are so nothing.

And nothing will ever rule the world.

Their dated ideas may live as a misfit in time,

but never has a single teeny, tiny soul

wrapped in obscene intolerance survived for long.

It is never as smart as it judges itself to be,

nor does it comprehend that inclusion is a force for good,

and destined to win. 

Art is Heroic by Devi Nina Bingham

One person is daring and bold,

the other lives in the shadow of convention.

Is it temperament that makes a legend?

Have you thought of yourself as  

the hero of your own play?

To survive is heroic-

to face the heartbreaks,

to brave the disappointments,

isn't this the hero's journey?

You may not see yourself that way,

but to live an earthly life

is either heroic or mad.

Every artist sees in an unconventional way

and is seen as irregular 

to those who long to say to hell with the world,

but don't.

Besides a difference in temperament,

the artist is rebellious.

They cannot see the benefit of superficiality

and do not need society prescribing

how life should be lived.

Art by definition is interpreting the world

in a unique way.

The more solitary and clear your voice,

the more of a force your work becomes.

It is finding your voice and unapologetic confidence

which makes one an artist.

Sing your own song proudly. 

It shouldn't sound like anyone else's. 

It is heroic to refuse to bow to the masters.

Instead, find something original to say that is wholly you.

Simply Frida by Devi Nina Bingham

Who knows me,

really knows me?

Not my work,

Not my artistic style,

Not my iconic look,

Not my unibrow,

Not my peasant skirts,

Not the sparkle in my eye,

Not my tragic life story,

Not my demolished love story,

Not my two-timed marriage,

Not my tourist-infested studio,

Not my money-making name.

When all the trappings of my existence have burned out,

like eternal stars,

stars that I mothered

that I gathered to my childless bosom,

when all trace of my existence has been erased,

will you know me,

really know me?

For I am simply Frida. 

Indelible Misery by Devi Nina Bingham

When your own blood betrays you

it is your own limb that maims you,

being attacked in your sleep

by your own fist. 

Shocking, reprehensible, and unexpected.

Doubly hard to forgive the betrayal

by one as close as your own breath. 

Impossible to forget,

I hide what I feel,

you laying with my love.

Shake it off, let it go

these memories of indelible misery.

You may be someone's heartache,

and how does that feel?

But those who inflict misery do not feel it. 

They do not feel. 

Only those maimed by their cruel words

and denials know the sorrow.

The rapist never feels sorry, wondering 

if he produced a bastard child. 

Perpetrators do not look back

or even stop to pause.

That would take courage,

what the betrayer has never had.

It takes no courage 

to speak without thinking,

to act like an animal. 

The most unfortunate part 

is that you, the betrayed, 

still have to see them at Christmas dinner. 

I say: fuck 'em. 

Skip dinner all together.

Let them ingest heartburn without you

for it may be the only time their heart feels anything.

Broken Pot by Devi Nina Bingham

We were young,

or I was-

and idealistic,

before the hard hammer of disappointment struck

with a fiendish vengeance.

Thinking nothing of giving myself

as easily as water slipping over a rock.

Because I had not learned yet

the great worth of my own heart.

The body is worth less than nothing;

as the years pass

it is an anchor that weighs us down,

a ship's rusty anchor.

Our indestructible core

is agile and lightening quick,

ageless-the only valuable piece.

Even the mind ebbs away

as the tide carries off our love of this dirty world.

So, dance will you, will you dance

when the moon hangs heavy in the sky

and the sunrise dazzles in soft swipes of pastel.

When the magic of daylight falls from the sky

to bid you a fond farewell?

Remember, won't you

that you are worth a thousand fond goodbyes?

Oh, I gave myself without a second thought

not realizing I was the Latin queen

with mean dark eyes of thunder

and a catatonic stare.

I was ferocious as a lion's roar, yet I knew it not

for we of genuine crystal never see our own brilliance.

Broken is what I was,

made to be broken as a maiden.

I knew nothing else.

How does it feel to be a broken pot?

Leaking when I tried to hide,

always wanting, but knowing

I could not hold you.

Always facing emptiness

when I deserved happiness.

I was a broken pot

and a vessel of fine crystal

because I rose above myself.

Paris by Devi Nina Bingham

Rubbing elbows with the high society folk

who bitched like large-breasted matrons 

in uppity street cafes over the bitter necrosis of coffee

about the uncouth, capitalist Americans

whose only redeeming value was industrialization

which turned cities into mills of children

who worked like hopeless slaves, 

who turned young women into mistresses of the boss

to escape the unending grind of the sewing machine,

and who made high society folk rich, greedy, and thankless.

Surrealism was our attempt at depicting this human debauchery

without protesting in the street.

We drew, painted, and sculpted the ugliest facets of society,

and because it was art, they did not throw us in jail.

The surrealists of Paris were shamelessly critical

of the Americans 

because Paris had become the pinnacle of antiestablishment sentiment. 

Artists dressed in barrettes and suit jackets; smoking rolled cigarettes

and drinking wine late into night until no one was walking home.

Yet these brilliant intellectuals never stopped to ask

how France might improve.

The only issue I had with it

was their superior attitude. 

Snotty, haughty, and dismissive, 

they would have thought my beloved Mexico primitive.

And by association that made me primitive, which is why I went on display

wearing the traditional Mexican dress and hairstyle,

to show that while Mexico was not savvy as the French,

being a Mexican was nothing to be ashamed of, either. 

I was a Mexican and a surrealist painter

and my country did not exploit women and children

and did not sit around spouting its bushwa.

Mexico simply and respectfully asked to live as it had for eons.

And for that my art was called quaint by some critics.

So, countries who lived with industrialization were criticized,

and countries like Mexico who lived without industrialization were also looked down upon.

And no city felt more superior to than Paris, France. 

Consolation by Devi Nina Bingham

Even my name had the word "free" in it,

and I was as good as my name.

While none would argue that I was a free spirit,

my own insecurities held me captive.

I played a game of "I do not care" 

when the truth was that I cared too much.

We play games with those we love

while hating to fool them,

because we should share

our most sacred truths 

with those we hold the dearest.

To be dishonest is to denigrate the relationship,

but I played "I do not care" because he genuinely did not.

What I learned from this game 

was how ugly and hurtful it can be,

acting worldly and callous 

and using others for your own purposes.

A part of myself was satiated 

that I had taken my revenge,

and I proved that I could be as flip and careless as he could. 

Once this facade wore thin

I would retreat to my house of blue

and feel the rejection, the loneliness, and the longing,

what I hated to feel.

Then I would paint my broken interior

for the world to see,

as shattered as my spine and unhealed.

Either pain or wonder is the cause of creation,

and I wondered at the amount of pain I had been given to ingest.

How can one frail girl be asked to bear the sins of the world?

This wonder at my own complete misfortune followed me 

and caused not a powerlessness, but a defiance. 

If circumstances were going to take a whip to me

I would be the bravest and strongest and bear my back,

never betraying how frightening were the endless surgeries,

the miscarriages, and the living hell of my husband's indignities.

I had resolved to play the mute when in public.

But in private, he heard plenty.

Women have always swallowed their betrayals and sorrows

for the sake of protecting their marriage.

Funny, but I do not think there has ever been a husband who realized 

how catastrophically his wife could have and wanted to ruin him.

The life of a woman in love is destined to be tragic,

though at first neither can imagine how.

My life was a series of disasters 

that I illustrated in a certain odd way

that came to be known as an artistic triumph. 

At the time I did not think of my work 

as worthy of acclaim.

To me they were nothing more than an open diary.

In time they found an audience 

among the heartbroken, my fellow sufferers.

Many would interpret what I painted

as their own grief.

Those who looked closely

saw their accidents 

hidden among my own.

Yet, the one person I needed most 

did not care.

The warmth of an adoring audience

has been a consolation far greater,

like that of a thousand worshipful suns.

 

Art Must Be Beautiful by Devi Nina Bingham

The whole point of art

is that it must be beautiful.

If your creation is grotesque, 

it must be beautifully grotesque

or what is the point?

No matter the subject,

whether war, slavery, 

or the many surgical assaults

my body endured,

within the depiction must shine 

a sort of grandeur.

Minus this mitigating factor,

art is reduced to common screaming,

and nobody is entertained 

by the crude banalities of life.

Give your art a distinguished voice

that reflects God's own,

whether your subject is the tenderness of love

or the dizzying depths of destruction,

for you are part Creator, and part created.

Therefore, rise above what the eyes can see.

Produce only what the heart can feel.

Then your efforts will call you an artist,

no matter what the world calls you.

The Dot in Your "i" by Devi Nina Bingham

Of a world I never saw and only imagined,

like the Louvre I wished to visit and did not

though Paris was the mecca of surreal artists,

San Franscisco had to suffice.

It had a charm, but was so unlike my Mexico

with Romanesque concrete columns and the windswept Bay,

yet not different from Mexico's tiny, winding streets and steep hills.

Houses were tall and thin and stacked upon one another

rather than squat and wide,

awash in drab, demure colors

while my hometown was short and fat casas

painted obscenely and sometimes grotesquely

brightly floral.

San Franscisco was elegance, education

and art exhibits by fine capitalists whom I did not believe in. 

Upon returning to Mexico, I was always relieved 

to be out of the societal straight jacket

and back where I could speak fast and loudly

and smoke to my heart's content.

Brave blood was running through my veins

of my European Father and Mexican Indian Mother. 

Not a mixed-up heritage, but two worlds lived under my skin.

One not better than another, though richer and poorer

is usually confused as better or worse. 

I was most at home in my Tahoua dress and braided hair.

Each is born in a period of time so brief

like the dot over an "i." 

The one importance we have,

what will outshine our mortality

is whatever art, music, and literature we leave behind.

Beauty ages and crumbles into a handful of ashes,

and our money is handed to someone else. 

Only expression, and what men have well built

will stand the test of time. 

So, you see, wherever you live, in whatever period you live

this is your chance to give your all.

Though your time is nearly done,

sands of the hourglass are still falling.

Do not wish your life away,

lamenting, "If only I were here or there, 

or with my lost love."

I spent too much time mourning

instead of fully making use of my talent.

Do not let pain or regret determine your outcome.

Resolve not to squander the dot in your "i"

by getting as close to genius as you can. 

Then and only then will you be glad you have lived. 

Wind, Blow-by Devi Nina Bingham

Desert wind, blow-

stronger, faster, harder.

Blow the roof off,

rattle the windows,

shake the foundation,

sweeping my hat away.

The wild winds of Mexico

can peel the paint off stucco walls

yet, lulls me to sleep with its howls

like a coyote yipping at the moon.

Coastal breeze, blow-

caress my dreams

and softly tussle my hair.

Hard to believe these two winds

are exactly the same. 

I am more like the wind than the fire.

I would rather play than take my vengeance.

It depends, it depends

who you are to me

as to which wind will blow. 

Hurricane Frida by Devi Nina Bingham

It was not the money I longed for.

Why would I want dull and ordinary things?

I owned my world: paints, canvasses, brushes.

What I wanted was beyond recognition,

so I became the suffering Madonna

smoking like a chimney,

and the alcoholic Lady of Guadalupe.

I turned to these not because I craved the taste of ash

or the bitter tang of Sangria on my tongue,

but because they were easy to come by,

common crutches that helped me to stand.

It was not addiction I lived for, 

for I was better and stronger than that.

In one snap of my spine, I could have

ripped off my medical corset

and walked again.

But I took to the bed

because it was the only time

you came to visit.

Something about seeing me there,

laying helpless as a trampled daisy

made you able to see me.

My natural strength was subdued

like a light turned down,

like the sunshine dampened by rain

and you felt safe to come out into the open.

But a hurricane this far inland?

Did you always have to run?

Escaping love that wanted the best for you.

No reason for this nonsensical fear of being caught

in the natural calamity that was me.

But I saw, to my relief, it was not only me

but any woman. 

No one could hold you

and yet, it was a cold consolation. 

So I chained-smoked and drank in an idiotic fashion

to show myself and others that I was unafraid to die.

Death, death, death-

skeletons with glowing ruby red eyes

wearing sombreros and chugging Tequila

that slipped right through you! 

I loved Dia de Muertos

for it mirrored where I was headed-

the dark, undisturbed grave

where robbers could not reveal my bones or my heart.

Hurricanes do not apologize for their strength

so I never apologized to you for getting carried away.

I was born a force which is why

trolleys and iron bars impaled me.

I was a hurricane wadded up inside of a little peasant girl.

Everything, including love

was made to imperil me. 

It was my eyebrows knit together into a silent scowl 

and my sideways stare that suggested a storm was brewing.

It is because hurricanes are so frightful

that I was alone.

Yet had you offered a hand

you would have seen my turbulence melt away,

for that was the only thing missing.

One touch would have calmed the storm

that was Hurricane Frida.

The Language of Frida by Devi Nina Bingham

Love is an international language

We understand

when it is not reciprocated.

Words are unnecessary

in the language of love.

What is necessary

is to throw aside

wasteful wanderings, 

the mind's Tom-foolery,

and to be present by your attention

to the smallest detail:

the way of the inhale and exhale

as your beloved as they sleep,

how the lines creep across their palm,

and the change of weather

upon their knitted brow.

Curiosity about the other speaks volumes.

Do you care to learn?

I was a fool for love.

I wandered from the golden sun

as the maize of corn

which bursts its sheath.

I fled my mind

so color, form, and expression

could have its way with me

and its day in the sun.

Abandoning all reason,

chasing after the ghost of you

I fled to the sky,

tattered as thin cotton clouds

torn into whisps and scattered

anytime you came around.

I became a lost doll thrown into the corner

when newer dolls arrived.

I made my mouth turn up at the corners,

my red lips infuriatingly full of a distant hope.

Blue paint streamed from my black eyes and dripped

on my blouse which burst into blue flame.

A flame which once knew every turn of your long fingers,

every swipe of your hand

that impatiently brushed away your curly black locks.

The maestro of murals

and his weeping, virginal onlooker

with two limbs who crawled to you.

Dragging myself 

under the pitying gaze of strangers

to stand in your shadow.

And for what? 

Not to watch you work,

that was only a guise.

But to hold a place for myself.

Like a bookmark

stopping time as if I could

as it marched over my body

like Communist revolutionaries.

Invisible infant in my arms longing to be held,

I imprisoned her spirit on canvas

where I could see for myself 

this mystery called love

represented in the reds, blues, yellows and greens,

and in hues of dark and light. 

The thorny crowns of surreal simplicity,

the hot nights and cool sunsets all encapsulated

in what was relegated "modern art."

I smiled inside when asked to describe my art

because I was never a painter. 

I was always the same:

a lover 

who spoke in a language few could understand.

Heart Turned Outward by Devi Nina Bingham

I wonder

if all the waiting I did for you

held any magic,

or isn't love so stubborn

really a curse?

The heart cannot be told

anything. 

It stands up and walks out

when you silence it.

It either runs the show

or you haven't got one.

I only lived my life

with my heart turned outwards.

It faced that direction

so I would not drown

in my own sorrow.

I loved you even when I didn't want to.

Through the indignities and betrayals

my heart was a train on a singular track.

How many times I jumped off

and tore up my ticket.

Then my illness would call you to my bedside

and we would instantly be "us" again

like we never and always were.

At no time were we parted 

or ever in someone else's arms.

It was a dream

and when our eyes met, 

we awoke from the dream.

To love improbably and unreasonably

is the only way there is for me. 

I cannot be a fire without burning myself.

Passion pumps from the heart's red blood

and I would not trade one day

of this high-octane passion for

a lifetime of safe and sane.

Surely, I will burn myself out.

The Princess and the Frog by Devi Nina Bingham

Everything and nothing made me royalty.

My art of painting stories

of the princess and the frog.

I was everything:

blooming, flowering, fragrant, and bursting

with the colors of a Mexican peasant girl

who climbed out of her cage of pain. 

And I was nothing:

the scalpel's blade hacking away at my brittle bones.

The blood seeping, the skin pulling my stitches apart

like a too tight corset.

A crown of thorns laid upon my frowny brow,

I became the posterchild for how to survive 

what was not survivable. 

And you, associating with artists of renown

made little time for me

while I only wanted it all.

Photographs show you looking away

while I stared with hopeless longing

as if an invisible spotlight

creating a halo was shining down

illuminating only you.

When you did see me,

my heart stopped pounding

my blood stopped coursing

and a smile that began in my frigid toes

streaked up through my body

and shot out of my head like bolts of lightning.

Inevitably someone would remark, 

"I don't know what she sees in him."

Because all they could see was a frog

and not my prince.

It was not until the last curtain fell

that I realized my own kiss

had made you beautiful to me. 

 

The Wheelchair by Devi Nina Bingham

So odd,

a chair with wheels.

So odd, 

a cripple with wings.

How does unbounded creativity

flow like water rushing from a barren field.

How does beauty the color of vibrant Spring 

push its way past decay?

Until black death sucked me away,

drowning me in pure spite,

in bitter resignation to a hope run dry.

The wheelchair was my captor

and my only friend,

for it never left me.

So odd

that a girl so full of life

would be thankful for a metal best friend.

Center of You by Devi Nina Bingham

Though I never discussed it,

your stomach enchanted me.

Perpetually giving birth,

something I could not do.

Carrying my hope like a still-born baby

I touched your stomach first

before your giant hands wrapped mine up,

or your arm, heavy as a log, fell across my shoulders. 

It was magic to touch the center of you

where all was hidden

wrapped in intestines,

a treasure no eye could see.

The inner you, never given to me.