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.
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
Imari Finds words 