Sunday, December 20, 2009

What I Needed to Say Poem V. 1


words and tears



tears.

big, round, alligator tears.

big, round knots in my throat.

big, silent tears.

words, molotov cocktail words

setting off fire alarms and sprinkler systems

in the form of tears.


tears,

dripping from leaky facet eyes.

big round tears that left big round circles

on dirty, too-tired-to-clean porcelain

I'm surprised they didn't form rivers,

didn't carve paths into the tiles,

didn't build you the Grand Canyon.

my tears.


tears.

and words. Lots of words.

cruel words, dagger words,

that pinned me against the wall while one word

stabbed me.

illness.

The i, the l, the l, so sharp as they dig into my chest

twist around my lungs

I can't breathe, only

tears.


tears

caused by words, could have been stopped by words:

Stop!

That's not true!

I'm not that!

You're not really mad at me!

Stop!

but those words, to save my mental health,

weren’t spoken because of your mental

i-l-l-n-e-s-s.

she doesn't mean what she's saying.

tears.



What can I do to make it better?

Is the ending as good as the beginning?

Does it make sense or is it too obscure?


Ps. My word varification is: luremat. How cool is that? That would make a nice poem.

...my shoes landed on your luremat...

1 comment:

  1. I like the second stanza best for some reason.

    Id say its a little obscure but not necessarily in a bad way. It jumps around a lot but I can see how in a way that helps with the jumpiness and unsettled emotion that is being dealt with in the poem. And thats neat.

    But I do think it could be a little more focused in the final stanza maybe. I feel like a lot of things are brought up and the subject is pointed at things that were not previously addressed in the poem. I do like the spontaneous sort of dialouque with the exclamations its just hard to attach them to things for me at least. Maybe just make them more relatable? Not that they aren't.. But maybe looking at word choice and connecting them in a way.

    I really like your description of tears at the start. I love alligater tears hah so thats so neat and unique. Love it. Very interesting Rebecca.

    And I just love the second stanza so so much. Excellent imagery. That stanza is perfection.

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