Capital C

[psycosynthesis]

Capital C

Surgical scar tissue,
stitches binding red lines
down your throat.

Palliative perception,
a lense with a capital C:
this shutter blinks like
an eyelid corrupted
by smoke,

which has spread deeper
than your skin.
Deeper, through lymphatic
highways.

This is approaching
your core with a capital C.

This has absorbed you.


This letter is not prone,
like you on a hospital bed
and me, asleep on
the floor beside it.

This is not a static letter,
like the unopened
bottle of Ballantines, grieving
on the kitchen counter.

This is not a sticky letter,
like bloodstains left
under the dishwasher.

It is a letter which
doesn’t speak of you
with a stranger’s affinity
from a pulpit,

While we struggle
to transform all the other
letters into some form
of sense.

While we attempt
to re-construct our
alphabet, without
vital signs.

While we pretend,
that we can spell
ourselves
without you,
a vital vowel.

 

[New]

Could you tell me what this poem means to you, perhaps? I can't quite see it, and would love to hear your perspective.

 

[psycosynthesis]

It is about my father dying from throat cancer, about five years ago. I guess it is rather personal, and the majority of the imagery would only be accessable to myself and those that knew him. It's both a description of his suffering, his death, his funeral and my mother and I struggling to come to terms with life without him I suppose.

 

[New]

Ah, it makes more sense now. Thank you for sharing something deep and personal with us. I can definitely relate with you on death.