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.

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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 2: Nocturne

The days I can’t find. I’ve looked;

I cannot see beyond the pillow.

I’ve tried and tried, but in my dreams

Are my dreams; My aspirations are of sleep.

During the day fall is my night rise,

Wakefulness is my fight, my solemn right,

and my struggle, what trouble.

The musings of malcontent

Infesting my consciousness

Like the nightcrawlers writhe.

Beneath my feet, the centipedes,

And all other things that impede

hide under the folds, nooks and crannies

of the darkest parts of my being.

Above me, the moths breed

In my fleeting thoughts of recluse.

Within my eyelids, I find refuge

 And my only respite is when

The day stays away and my night stays night.

Semblance 7: I, Apart from You

I want to stand by You again,

But my legs have failed me.

Without hope, I cannot stand

The sight of myself. So lonely,

I want to feel like myself again.

My thoughts of You yield no answers,

To be separated from You, is worse still.

When that feeling of closeness wavers

Without it, I’ve neither hope, nor will.

I won’t be able to overcome my gravity

For my legs are aching with numbness

And my heart is heavy with emptiness,

The weight of its despair gives way.

I cannot hope to stand tall without You

Without your strength I’m unable to be.

To venture forth, I can no longer move.

I am hindered, trapped by my inability.

I want to hope again. I can’t imagine

Which is worse? To be truly alone?

Or to be forever waiting? I’ve known,

For You, I will be eternally patient.

It is You, I want to stand by again.

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I’ve been trying to use fewer regular rhyme schemes in favor of something more irregular. The stanzas that slightly alter the rhyme scheme are meant to bring attention to specific lines. The clustered rhymes kind of naturally came out when I originally drafted the poem, so I stuck with the format rather than trying to make everything rhyme in the ABAB format for each stanza. Aside from all that technical stuff I wanted to play around with the significance of how far and close the ‘You’ and ‘I’ are from each other.

The short story is nearing completion, it is basically in the rewriting and editing stage. I am aiming for before the end of March. I am also considering arranging it with some folks to read it live, so if anything happens with that, I will announce it in the next post.

~Mari