Anaesthetic 11: Butterflies

Oh the butterflies, they’ve never left.
That fleeting feeling of their flight
Felt in my every fluttery breath.
You do still feel it, right?
With our thoughts alight,
Wondering if it was worth it to write
All those things I said to you that night.
Tell me, can you hear my heart’s plight?

My heart is still rapidly beating,
To the rhythm of their wing flaps.
When I was dreaming of our meeting,
I wanted your heart, too, to race laps.
If I were able to say what was on my mind,
I would make you the most flattered person on earth.
Not a better love you could find than mine,
No other love could even begin to compare their worth.

But how does our love compare to a butterfly?
Whose wings are as delicate and fragile since it began,
That which is just as doomed to die,
As long as the emperor’s average lifespan,
Or perhaps a monarch’s, but how could anyone plan
To cut short something so beautiful, so why try?

I try because I thought you would be worth the chance,
Because nothing was ever accomplished without trying,
But for the short time our love, along the petals, danced,
And I didn’t want to stay a pupa without the joy of flying.

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Anaesthetic 10: Only Eight Petals

He loves me…

A picture of us under that tree that warm summer day

The smell of dewy leaves and shady earth.

What’s a love that’s faded before it’s come to saturation?

A photo that’s discarded before developing is proof that –

He loves me not?

That which wilts before it blossoms, the eight petals I pluck,

Silenced before the first whisper – the first utterance of love.

Surrounded by curious daisies that seem to sway back and forth

To the rhythm of our heartbeats, I remember it all too well,

Back then, he loves me!

I agonized over that precious gift I gave to you,

The meticulously selected locket of sterling silver,

But it was tarnished before it was even worn,

Seeing it collect dust, I could have sworn that-

He loves me not!

Burned before the initial ignition,

At the mercy of a hasty decision,

Sabotaged before anything was even planned.

It was almost as if you wanted it to end before we started.

 

How could I even think, – “He loves me?”

Excused before I was even accused of any of the worst

Like damage control, and I was some unintended casualty.

Can we truly break up without being together?

But could we be together without you truly broken up?

He loves me not…

How busy we both were when it was hard for us to meet,

Had nothing to do with your inability to love specifically me.

We talked about that woman you used to know.

You said she didn’t matter, but she clearly did,

And yet, – he loves me?

How your friends and family wouldn’t accept the way it was.

It’s awfully convenient how none of those reasons involve you.

Knowing that you couldn’t love me given the circumstances,

Why didn’t you just answer before there was even a question?

“He loves me not…”

Anaesthetic 9: By Far the Most Insulting

By far the most insulting thing, of course,
Is to abuse a friend in my presence.
And how can you in good conscience,
Say as such when it’s also a friend of yours?

You go to such lengths to make us miserable.
I’m appalled that you would even try,
When you could just as easily lie,
Without saying anything stupid at all!

How can you justify the damage you cause,
Adding layer after layer of insult without pause,
When the impact is so clearly visible,
And you try to pretend it’s not irremissible?

And what more will you bring down with your words?
The way they’re weaponized as merely a means to an end,
When you don’t even understand the meaning behind them.
And yet somehow, it’s an unintended consequence of yours.

The grimace of discomfort is not enough to let you know?
Or perhaps a more emphatic approach is necessary,
Even the most subtle insult would at most seem ordinary,
When you put little to no thought into the feelings you show.

Why do you say what you say?
For merely the sake of conversation?
Your words exit your mouth,
But not enough to exceed escape velocity.
The gravity of meaning causes them to come crashing down,
And yet you’re surprised by the size of the crater at the end of the collision…

Anaesthetic 8: Love is Like a Rag

You treat my love like a rag.
Tossed to the side, your hands dried of me.
In the dimly lit corner of your memory,
I waste away. The odor of stagnant air
With mildew is how you remember.

There’s only so much I can absorb
Before my patience runs thin.
You may think you can use me again,
But these delicate fibers have become worn
Distressed to the point of being torn.

Perhaps it’s the thought of discarding someone
That gives that soured look of disgust of yours,
And yet you have the nerve to dispose of those
Wretched feelings and pretend to be ignorant.
Why should you have to sully your hands
With the rubbish from when you didn’t give a damn?

My happiness is wrung dry and yet sopping wet,
Overflowing with sorrow, I hope to borrow
That trait of yours where you toss into the bin
Any sense of accountability and even then,
It is a hopeless endeavor to polish the past
With a ragged love that was never meant to last.

Anaesthetic 7: Converse-Interrogation

If my life was as easy as a questionnaire, 
I wouldn’t be spending my time looking for the answers. 
Would it not be too simple being spoonfed these answers?
Now, if I were to simply give all my the answers away,
Then there’s no fun or challenge, right?
But sometimes I don’t even know what questions to ask myself.
So what makes you think I’ll have an answer to anything you say?
Who honestly wants to be interrogated?
Then, as soon as I give you an answer,
You instantly have an opinion on what I said.
Why must you challenge any of my answers?
You’re the one who asked!
Honestly, please let my answers lie. 
Because if it’s truth you’re looking for, 
Then I can’t be the only one putting thought into the conversation.
Lest you might somehow overthink what I say.
Why do I answer at all, what do you have to gain?
Here I am asking questions, when all you wanted was to learn, 
and I just wanted to be taken at face value some of the time, 
but I’m being constantly derided for answering the way I do. 
And if you wanted me to just shut up-

Fine, but think about this for a moment.
I answer these questions because you’re so curious,
But you can’t even answer mine!
Now, that doesn’t seem fair.
Is it really a conversation if only one side asks the questions?
Come now… 
And listen close to all the answers you didn’t want to hear:

I was not put on the earth to smile for you.
I am not your puppet, nor your doll.
I don’t want your hands on me.
I have no shame and much less left for you.
Don’t use the illness of your head to imprison me
I will not be a hostage, a prisoner to your will.
Don’t tell me I was the best you’ve ever had,
It’s obvious I was, but I was the one smart enough
To escape the hopeless situation I was in. 
There will be nothing calm about my talk
When the pain in my calves I wish was cut in half.
Chalk it up to bad timing for my walk,
My legs balk at the thought of taking anymore steps,
But I would gladly do so in order to walk out of this
Converse-interrogation.

Anaesthetic 6: The Curse of Her Doppelgänger Sorrows.

She sees you everywhere she goes.

Every single part of life that she knows,

Deeply entangled in proof of your existence.

Your doubles haunt her, their very resemblance,

Even in a perfect stranger’s passing semblance,

Sends pangs of regret through to her stomach.

The engagement ring you both hand picked

Underneath the tree at a summer picnic;

The park’s memory inescapably tormenting.

You cannot stop her incessant remembering

Or ease her fears, for her body trembling

is the only response she has to her haunter.

So my dear Ex-spectre,

Do you really expect her

To simply move on so fast?

When she found out she wasn’t the last

And how much you lied about the past,

“How could she ever recover?” I ask…

When in the light she wants to bask,

but wears her heartbreak, an eternal mask,

To hide her grief, disappointment, and shame.

But who else is there for her to blame

When everything reminds her all the same?

“That’s just the curse of her doppelgänger sorrows.”

 

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Photo by Kayla

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Promise 9: Exist

Desperation is not something I wear on my sleeve.

What I want is to truly be loved, not lost.

And I, having given you my few choice years

the very few that I have to give to another person,

Perhaps made a grave error in trusting myself.

My desparation is not one borne of a need to find just anyone;

It’s the fear of making a mistake and I feel you were my greatest,

But I will not pretend, not even for a minute, that what we had

or rather, what we worked towards was anything free from flaw.

I hate to feel that way towards someone

whom I’ve grown to love so dearly.

When someone who knows I exist

tries to treat me like something that does not,

It sickens me. I’m hopeless for getting so close

And offering things I can’t possibly give.

It gets to a tipping point where I want to get closer,

But I will end up hurting both of us.

But it is not time to say such things.

You had to have earned this sentiment,

As I once had to in order to earn the privilege of doing so.

I wished to learn more about you and I reserve the right

To be careful of you as you have the right to be careful of me,

but it can’t hurt to at least be kind now, isn’t that so?

If only…

I still went through with it that despite that fact.

And I gave a piece of my heart for you to do with as you please,

And though that piece could bend and waver,

and my heart was kept from harms way.

My solemn hope was that you would make my heart whole again

But that piece has never returned,

It remained with you,

Never to be seen again.

What kind of life would I lead if I just wanted

to stay in such a safe distance away from it all.

where no one truly knows anything about me

                                                no one can destroy me,

Where :                              no one can doubt me.

                                    no one can prove

                              non-existence,

I never wanted to hurt anyone and I never wanted to, but-

I never would have dreamed I would ever get this close,

that I would ever get so close to wanting to destroy it all.

 

Anaesthetic 5: Fishing for Platitudes

Tell me something new, anything really.
Tell me that I suck when it’s my fault,

I don’t want those good words when bad hits.

Just because nobody’s perfect doesn’t mean we can’t try.

“I’m really not okay,

and neither are you.”

Those kinds of answers will be met with a fake grin

I’m a bad liar, but I’m a far cry from pathological.

In truth, if I keep being lied to, I’ll never learn my lesson.

And all these things being said will drown out anything useful.

 

“You don’t want things to be awkward?

Sorry, but that’s what you asked for.”

You thought we had something, but that was never the truth.

And so, you make excuses about how it will never be;

When all I wanted was simplicity and all I get is duplicity

Because, clearly, a simple reason is too complicated to have,

“You never even bothered to learn about all the bad

and if I were anyone else, things could be much worse.”

If being called too nice is code for me not to care

And being stepped all over is how I move forward

Then fish in the sea are worthless without a boat

I guess I’m stuck up the Amazon without a prayer.

It sucks when I don’t learn anything new,

And I become complacent when I just want to know

All the things I suck at for my own betterment,

And yet,
People still think I’m fishing just for the fun of it.

 

Anaesthetic 4: Still Life

It’s really not fair.

A still life photograph just gets to be.

Nothing moves, and yet it gets to feel alive.

A great photo. One that lives beyond its scene,

But the photo of this sad woman is inert.

She has to keep her lethargic expression

Forever, an entire lifetime in the same place.

She festers in her unhappiness for all eternity.

I wonder if she had the capacity to feel content

With not having to ever be taunted by happiness;

Feelings that are so fleeting and so out of reach.

How lucky is she to not be tempted by such folly

I don’t get to move on.

The finality of still life was enviable.

The subjects were nudged, just so, into the right position.

Instead, I was stuck in an infinite loop, a living nightmare,

Like that moment of time was paused, rewound, and played,

Over and over; slides were shown until each cell deteriorates.

I can’t just forget about it.

It melts into the frames and that moment of time

Burns into my cheeks, the searing wetness of droplets,

The hot sorrowful stream flows from my eyes

Burns in more still than any photograph in my mind

And becomes more vivid and real than any memory.

 Acting as though nothing ever happened.

I can’t look you into the eyes as I once did.

I don’t get to feel the sudden rush of joy as I had before

And you were the thief that robbed that pleasure from me,

But where your eyes are, I don’t get to see a face any longer.

All I can see is everything that was, everything that used to be

My vision fades as I drift in and out of that time and place

As my mind constantly plays my heartbreak on repeat.

No closure.

I don’t want anything from you, ever,

What I truly want is to never want anymore.

What I never want is what I still have.

To have that moment erased forever

So I can go back to looking at faces like faces

and start thinking about the past as the past

and I can finally leave then back then.

I want to live now like it’s now

I want to breathe my breaths

and I want to cry my cries

and sob for the present

Then collapse inward

And avoid contact

With you

But…

Memory betrays

There’s never enough in frame

Life is not still life.

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Thanks to Kayla for the awesome header photo!

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Semblance 9: Unconditional

I am crying, but the tears I shed are not my own.
My flesh cut open, but my blood is not bled.
The song I sing, its words I’ve never spoken
And yet the feeling evokes that of another’s anguish.

The weight I carry, is but baggage for two.
I apologize for mistakes that aren’t mine,
And all I can do is lend my eyes and ears.
I hope that is enough, I can only offer you time.

But to carry the burden of another can’t be sustained.
This I know, and I’m regretful that no more can be done.
Empathy, in its own capacity, is burdensome to its holder,
And the unconditional love will soon drive us apart.

I’ve always said it would never be too much.
I said in good faith that I would still remain.
Can one love too much? I fear the worst of it,
But too much love remains when all else fades.

I am different now, from sharing the pain between us.
I am strong. I face problems with the strength of two,
And although we are no longer dependent on each other,
I look forward to you seeing the woman that I’ve become.

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I’ve been sitting on this poem for a while until I felt like it was time to close the books on the first series of poems. While it certainly isn’t my strongest work in the set, I thought it would be fitting that my subject would eventually grow and develop into a wonderful human being. A lot has happened, and I’ve learned so much, about myself and about my writing. I am certainly a lot happier and more fulfilled than before despite a lot of sadness and distress. But I can’t forget a lot of good has happened as well. And I hope to continue improving myself and learning. Thanks for sticking with me throughout. More on the way!

Shout out to all those who’ve helped me along the way

Kayla, Vi, Audra, Apro, Toom, Kaz, Brian, the rest of chat, and of course, my readers!

With love,
~Mari