#berthamason

[misskittygrimm]

This character has been haunting me all day. #tea #janeeyre #berthamason #art #watercolour #ink #irgudartist

[shanduziopalmer]

Self portrait. Hommage des Tages #berthamason #rochestersnightmare #janeeyre #brönte #blackandwhite

[iamsashhh-blog]

Bertha Mason

You turned the key.

I pawed at the door,

I roared, I cawed

My mad woman’s howl,

Insane, desperate,

But I could not claw back sanity.

So I crawled:

Begged for lenience,

Anything – anything –

But this.

Nothing worked.

Some nights

I stared at the sickly green moon

Through the attic window, the glass

Smeared with hope and unfulfilled dreams,

And wept hopelessly.

Nightly I rattled the bars of my cage,

And when my third eye burned

Deep into my brow,

Reflecting the sinister flames of tomorrow,

I screamed until the pain quelled.

Animal.

Antoinette.

I was delicate, unfettered, a beauty,

Remember? You’d roll my name

Creamily around your tongue,

Looking lustily at my body,

Preserved in its youth.

I aged three decades in a day

When you shipped me home,

Broke me down,

Plundered the spoils of my body.

I bore your child.

Sickly,  mewling like a kitten

You thrust it back into my arms:

Return to sender.

I almost thought you’d have it drowned

But you didn’t bother,

Saved yourself the pain of cradling

Her dying body, stroking her downy head

As her little life slowly ebbed away.

I grew restless, salivated

For the smooch of the sun and

Its hot hiss on my back,

Ached for the plantain’s hard firmness,

The sticky wetness of the mango.

And so what

If I used to enjoy

A tipple or two, liked to

Sup a sip of something

Fatal now and again

Before a quick kip, that left me

Sprawled on the floor

As dusk began to drip down

Over the fading blue skies?

Those kips turned into

Day-long slumbers

As I lay shuttered away,

Shattered, in the dark confines

Of my boudoir,

Me and my sleeping partner,

My sober friend, the bottle.

Mother’s ruin - my poison of choice.

But look at me now:

Those three squat syllables -

Mad Bertha.

Not I.

For tonight I shall tear in two

The glistening, virgin pallor

Of her bridal veil,

With hands as tender

As the softest kiss

Goodbye.

And then I shall laugh

My mad woman’s screech,

My scorned wife’s cackle,

The hysterical cry of the cuckold, and

Waving my white lace flag

In the bitter red flames of reckoning,

I shall surrender:

Goodnight.