Loving, Degloving
Let me tell you about the time I was dumped.
Saw it coming like a pedestrian jaywalking at night,
drunk on the feeling
driving with one hand on the steering wheel,
our heads bob together,
mine glows, hers dithers,
looking through a two way mirror to the tune of Bill Withers.
For an instant I see headlights in her face, then the bones snap and crunch,
chunks of coagulated bile and hair soaked blood
splattered on the bumper and wipers and street,
glittering tendon and tinsel on the yuletide tree.
Her brown eyes wide mouthing words I cant see,
searching for rescue,
shouting the most ridiculous things.
Please tell me that you'll be ok.
I had my eyes open but the pupils
were clouded cracked porcelain plates.
Scooping up my guts, slick coils of rope,
pawing limp and absent
like a fly with just one wing.
More pain than person, defeated, cheated
on weakness and disbelief,
another man? A rat. A thief!
But he's not the one a promise failed to keep.
And still,
I try to put my arms around her at the door
two months later when we break the lease.
Let me tell you about the nights spent drinking.
I can't.
Erase the thought and stinking
bitter hope that festers
with every drop of everything I see.
I long for passionate love making,
to wake from horrible dreams, twisting in bedsheets,
to kiss her on the neck, soft breaths whisper
baby baby... please.
I long for a decadent revenge,
cut her at the throat and cast her limp corpse to the sea,
and watch the water fold
and snap the limbs of the thing that
can no longer be.
Until I follow sunken hearted,
head encrusted, coral bleached.
A creature dark as darkness,
churning in the world below,
it's pulled beneath by wicked tides,
and it wont go alone.
Let me tell you how I jerked off.
Furiously, trying to rub a stick together,
burning when I sleep,
the sound of one hand clapping
encore! Sweet ecstasy!
Echo off the rotting seats in an
empty concert hall.
A player, bent and thin,
fingers calloused and weak,
broken back and bland obituary.
Let me tell you about the healing,
Skin peeling back, with new wound ooze
dripping all over my breakfast and dinner.
Scabs like oyster shells
I dig at with a knife,
retelling the sin to loved ones,
friends and different version of myself
at different points in life
again and again and again.
Paint the walls with her icon and image,
no memory is left un-etched,
and none will be complete.
If she cannot love me, the no one will love me.
I'll make sure of that.
Let me tell you about forgetting,
struck about with boomerangs,
when met with another by her same name.
Familiar blood drawn from gentle taps,
wondering aloud with tired conceit,
tis nothing but a scratch.
Climbing up in altitude
in painful seats and waiting.
Numbness coming not from drugs
but exhaustion, acceptance, and fate.
While meandering down grocery isles,
I spot a couple arm in arm,
they talk about what's on the list,
Her finger thoughtlessly entwined,
his hand about her hips,
unnoticed smiles, small gold rings,
an absent minded kiss.
No need to cling with all their might,
no fighting in and out,
or tumbling apart.
My ass is red and flat and hard,
the heart a nubile sprout.
The bondage loosened just enough
to let the bruises wane.
Time is just another bill collector
with no right, or explanation.
All too eager to appear
with hungry open hands,
still riddled knots and trembling fear,
A distance I don't understand,
and yet,
the ground looks so small from up here.
Posted Sep 2, 2021, 3:39 AM UTC
Fantastic! A poem where you danced around a minefield of cliché's and tropes elegantly, even flirted with them a little, but still it feels raw and honest. Like you got through the soul-searching and pain enough that you can distance yourself a little from it, develop in through metaphors like the excellent car accident sequence of lines or the other couple at the grocery store. Each stage of the break up and the time after, I think it shows you were particularly careful to capture all the different subtleties of feelings, rather than mad, lonely, sad, over and over with increasing intensity.
Like here, where the revenge you want to take it upon yourself, to become worthy of everyone's rejection, not just hers. Obv you play with the cliche here "if she can't have me, no one will" Also touching upon that the kind of anger and resentment someone can develop after getting broken up with can actually make them too bitter and warped to be attractive to someone else (which the violent revenge fantasies you detail here, would) pointing out the cliche for what it is, toxic.
This isn't something to change, because I think the piece works as a whole and especially as a sum of it's parts, but if you were reading it aloud I think some of the lines are SO heavy and overwrought that they don't stand on their own. You do a good job of letting the air out with a clever line to ease back the violent imagery or melodrama:
Like the first two lines here? Eye-rolly. But then you tie them off with the third line. Makes it go down easier, like you're aware you need to pull back on some of the high level drama of a high school blog. It works great, just make sure you have enough of these kind of breathers throughout the piece. Play with the impact.
Thank you for the compliment! I am trying to find that honest voice and get rid of all the high school blog energy (got a lot left over from those days haha). I will definitely read it aloud and look for ways to play with the impact, that makes sense to me, much appreciated! If you have any recs for authors or pieces that do something along these lines id be interested in reading it :)
To be honest, I don't read a lot of relationship-focused stuff, so I wouldn't know who to recommend thematically. It's not quite what you're doing here, but check out some slam poets if you want to see the perfected practice of the impactful tongue and cheek line that breaks up the melodrama.
I'd also recommend dropping in this sub. Not because every poem is great shakes, but particularly because they aren't . Work on feedback. If a poem someone writes isn't hitting for you, try and put into words WHY. That can be better practice than just writing poem after poem or getting thumbs up here, because most things that you wrote are going to sound good in your own head. Start with my back log of posts XD
Finally, you have a great focus on rhyme in interesting spots without committing to a pattern or strict form. Me too, that's what I like, but ALWAYS read your piece out loud a few times and THEN make someone else read it to you. When they stumble over a line or cluster of words, you can ide nifty issues with flow or meaning that you couldn't when your own head was just making sense of everything.
I actually dislike relationship poetry, i just kept seeing really challenging poems on here about love or some such. So that was the inspiration for this. What do you read? I havent read much poetry but i do like sylvia plath, i remember liking frost in high school, and I consider hip hop poetry when MFDoom does it(lol and some other rappers).
Im def gonna creep on your posts too :]
I don't read as much poetry as I should to be honest.