Kharis
is this the last wrap
or the first
the first wrap was a tissue
of lies
‘oh i’m fine’
I used that wrap
over & over
until the tissue
was a layer
layer after layer of
‘oh i’m fine’
‘i don’t mind’
‘how can i make you happy’
walking away
rather than add another layer
hoping nothing had caught
no thread was snagged
on a expectation
an exception
on resurrecting love
I was protected
entombed by safety
by the fact
that all anyone wanted to hear
was ‘oh i’m fine’
‘this bandage solution will do’
‘you deserve to be fixed first’
bound tight
peering at life though the slits
surrendering to the weight of history
pushed along by an unquestioned past
by ritual expectations
controlled by the clasp of gauze
layer upon layer after layer
some turned to dust
some turned to scar
some turned to face the sun
reaching for release
decayed tissue
dust motes settling in the moonlight
‘how can i make you happy?’
‘how can i unravel the book of life’
can i survive
without another layer
of this tissue
this scar tissue of lies
‘oh i’m fine’
This one was written October 2017 before I watched The Mummy (1959), then worked on the next day after I watched it. In the movie the resurrected Kharis sinks into a bottomless bog. He sees no wrong in what he has been done. His self-sacrifice is unquestioned while none of his victims acknowledges that the mummy may have any sense of self. Not that he gives anyone an opportunity to reason with him. He was ‘pushed along by an unquestioned past /by ritual expectations.’
The piece started with that image of bandages as a tissue of lies. The prime lie being the self-sacrifice lie ‘oh i’m fine’ which come out of ‘the weight of history.’ Culturally men are to keep their real emotions, except anger, under wraps. Questioning the history is to cast doubt on one’s real manhood. It is better to sacrifice than surrender.
It’s so easy for people to accept ‘i’m fine’ without questioning it. Kharis is a man sacrificed to protect the princess he loved. He is a type of zombie compelling by spiritual forces not by his own mind. Not questioning our male history makes many men into zombies fulfilling the prophecy of male stoicism. 
I play with metaphorical bandage images through the piece twisting them round each other the way a mummy is wrapped to point where one no longer knows who is actually under those bandages. We never see the ‘naked’ man only his eyes through the slits – a sort of tunnel vision.
There are some direct references to the 1959 film as well – there is a ritual to resurrect Kharis, it is read from the book of life, he then hopes to resurrect the princess, his one true love. This hetero love is found in nearly every variation of The Mummy – of course the hero’s fiancee always looks like the dead princess etc. All caught in a powerful plot devise nearly as confining as the layers of wrappings.
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