February 23, 2016

Break My Bones but Never Hurt Me

Bloody black sadness drips down like long shadows.
It’s memory.
It’s madness.
It’s regret.
It’s pain.
It’s all the dreams
that lie lonely and broken
in this walking tombstone that carries my name.

Your street lies bathed in the dawning of twilight,
I call your name,
but you won’t let me in.
Though the door’s open
I cannot approach it.
I’m held back by shackles of sorrow and sin.

Worthless. Pathetic. I cry in the silence,
hurling self-epithets, wretched and wrong.
They curl about me
and swirl in the silence.
I’m the only one here to be pierced by my song.

The words settle down on me,
forming a coffin
of cold isolation
and bitter remorse.
They carved my epitaph
moment by moment,
written in bite-marks,
scarred over and coarse.

If a soul shatters alone in a forest
of onlooking tormentors gathered around
Does anyone there
who cares ‘nough to listen
hear the infinite ugliness steeped in the sound?

Is it repugnant,
that snapping staccato
I make when I come to the end of my rope?
A long fall, a short stop,
suspended,
abandoned,
broken down by their words and drained of all hope.

A square of light is thrown down on the pavement,
It feels like the sunrise,
both painful and pure.
A black silhouette
stands framed by the brightness
and gestures for me to come through the door.

Worthless. Pathetic. Destructive and dirty.
I step forward and back in a hesitant dance.
I might just bite
any hand that I’m offered,
but just at this moment, I'll give me a chance.


2 comments:

  1. Mary, I really like it! Very poignant imagery.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! I was lounging around contemplating the pathetic fate of certain fictional characters and it sort of came to me. And then I thought, "No, I'm gonna change the end. THIS character, at least, will have a happy ending!"

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