Silky Tension

[Ashley]

Silky Tension

Bleed for me, for you
have cursed me with grief
of my own. The pain of
ending that chapter, it
does echo about my self,
and this long after, still
inside of my heart, plunged,
is a dagger - with a blade
of fine steel, a handle made
from elephants, and every
now and then that edged
weapon that is driven through
my heart, it gets twisted
and tugged on and pushed upon;
then come the shrieks and
the squeals that sound more
like blood curdling screams,
eyes that bleed tears so
quickly that my body becomes
sodium deficient. You left
me wounded, you selfish wench,
and whilst I am still impaled,
upon your dagger of delusional
revenge, I will bide my time
until, the thought of missing you,
causes no more agony, no more
pain, when you're nothing but
a faded photograph, just tucked
in between a couple of novels
that I will never read. Once I
have recovered from this wound
that upon me, you inflicted, the
revenge that you sought by
packing your suitcase and never
coming back, will be matched
and raised ten-fold, when I
commence my attack. So, li'l
darlin', I suggest that you
watch behind your back. You
never know when I might
decide to visit, and announce
my presence, and start asking
questions - demanding answers
that just aren't there to be given,
pouring hope, and energy, faultless
ambition into a lost cause, that
is making itself clearly advertised,
yet still despite all of this, I
find myself not sleeping of a night,
and waking with eyes that often cry,
as I chase away the memories of the
dreams that haunt my slumber, the
kind of ones where you and I are
lovers.

A.

 

[Horton-Scorton]

Wow. Strikes a cord in me, captures the experience well. It seems like the big struggle is between accepting and owning the pain as yours and the counter-desire to assume the victim role and ascribe the pain to the external entirely. The narrator calls it a pain of her own, and the flowing sequence of words - about my self - makes me focus on the my, the realization that problems and solutions in the mind are born and exist within the same mind. But the poem brilliantly shows how this intellectual conclusion can easily be buried under the weight of emotion and a narcissistic desire for the ego to control the outside, to alter others and thereby try to gain inner peace that will always be out of reach. The irrational impulse is often the winner, and the confusion, the mixed hatred, sadness, and longing, the bittersweet memories and red teethgrind projections of a future that has yet to come, all indicative of a broken heart and a wound of the soul mind and body, are made flesh in these words. This piece selects and cracks open things in my mental library that I will never entirely outgrow, buried shame and sighs, melancholy-tinted relations coming together and collapsing in oceans of jealousy loss and tears...bravo for connecting to the reader with raw honesty supported by competent and swimmingly natural flow, alongside nicely restrained diction and songlike readable rhythm.

 

[Ashley]

Thanks.

A.