Fireflies and empty eyes,
when you tore your nightmares from gravity.
This soliloquy - these static revelations -
burned the world away,
and you crushed your heart in the taste of his arms,
the night that Eden met its grave.
The radio laced morphine - a vanilla scent -
across the linen and sweat soaked skin,
every time you wasted this broken heart again.
Oh, he promised you he was the perfect Romeo
but his wicker fingers still pull you in.
Tangerine fever, a gentle morphine play,
where you once kissed him softly
that is, until conscience and ceremony were thrown away,
and he stood silently by, burning holes in your hands
laughing all the while and pouring hell on who could have been.
So you declared war on him, then,
after you drowned your bruises in champagne.
Dizzy,
your saviors hid themselves behind the moon,
and hope crucified itself within your chest,
with liquid cyanide and sweet oblivion's taste
as your body gave itself away.
Oh, you'd had it with mistletoe and hemlock slaughter,
when one moment he was your beautiful saint,
and the next your perfect hell.
So you ran yourself away to darker corners, intoxicated,
knowing that his hands were where you fell.
Then the moon was blood soaked,
that night you broke, and ran back to him.
Sirens twirled lazily, rising with Newton's most famous hymn,
in its attempts to make the tempest abate,
but doing nothing to stop your breathing grave,
nothing to hold back the "love"
beating you to death again.
If only satellites could have seen you then;
the black holes he cut in your heart
and bruises drifting along your skin.
This friction cut you deeper than even you knew
and it was all his memories that made Darwinism true;
the strongest survive and the weak bleed away
stripped of everything that once kept them safe.
He made you an exile,
flooded the Rubicon and threw you to her depths,
with the pitch black and where catacombs riddle the dirt,
leaving you no chance of escaping with anything less
that another cavern in your heart.
So you've held these nightmares since those nights,
afraid that another earthquake would tear fault lines wide
and leave you ripe for another midnight descent;
that, in the end, the weight would crush you again.
How long will it take you to cry away these cuts?
will the tinted masks and glassy eyes ever be enough?
Or will you build walls and masks - pillars to keep them all away;
on painted smiles and perfect pictures, covering over the pain?
Will you hide in chaos, cut delirium into your arms to cover the scent?
Or will you swallow fortune cookies whole,
claiming pain as your destined kismet?
Oh, my love, there have been detours along the way
you never needed to stand in the path of such relentless hate,
only to have your heart ground to dust.
You said amen to his slander, but that could never be enough.
He wanted all of you for his starving love
and you followed
And my chest felt empty
watching you throw yourself on their knives
only to have those cold red blades take parts of life,
leaving their tales carved deep in your skin.
Rubik never meant to puzzle the world as deeply as you have
won't you open your mysteries and let me find your heart?
If you hide so well, I may never find you again.
My dear, you knew they were poisonous;
the feasts you gorged yourself upon,
and I know the one who can heal you,
who can save the depths of love,
if only you'll give up your hold on all this hell
and let your gaurdians fall.
My dear, it's only the starving that can be be filled.
Author notes
I'm going to do something I don't often do...explain this poem a bit, mainly since it's rather complicated and the word choices might seem random to someone who doesn't know what's going on.
This is about a girl who found herself in a relationship that, at first, was seemingly perfect. But as time went on, the man became abusive, and after awhile she could take no more and ran away. But sadly, she couldn't find her heart in the empty bottles or dark alleyways, so she found her way back to him. And it started again, he played romeo for awhile, only to turn back to the monster he really was one night, when he dragged her home beneath a full, glowing orange moon.
She ran again, for good this time. But his memories followed her, and she still holds the nightmares in her mind. It's now her choice...hold them and bleed them away masks, force them deep into her heart and try to fill the black hole he made with other men. Ultimately, each of those choices only takes her deeper into her own hell.
There is a way out for her. I know it. Perhaps you do. Will she choose it? That, my friends, I do not know.
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Originally written for a contest with an AMAZING wordbank (something like 100 words, such as kismet, Rubik, Newton, destined, tangerine, Mozart, and many more)
A contest entry
- Raven Qualifier - General: Free Verse, Rhyme and Everything Else by Raven Contest.
450 points, ended August 1, 2007, 140 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Enter your all time favorite poem by whispernthedark.
300 points, ended March 29, 2008, 43 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Show me your best! by Forgotten Anomaly.
1000 points, ended November 10, 2008, 63 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Abuse is a living hell, and she holds it close to her heart
Comments
1 - 10 of 10
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Very very dark, emotional, descriptive, metaphoric, beautiful, well writen, edited, and overall breathtaking. I know someone who was in that position except he left and she still wlll not admit anything was wrong. Its sad, how people can trick themselves into bleaving that someone like that has changed, that things will get better, but they don't, they won't. I absolutely love this, its wonderfully sad. Thank you for entering my contest.
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this is the most amazing poem i've ever read. i just read it 3 times in a row.
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Your fourth stanza is exceptional. This is an amazing piece you have penned. For the subject matter, it's quite eloquent (odd for the subject?). Thank you for entering the contest, good luck.
♥
whisper
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indeed, the piece is somewhat overly eloquent and intricate for the subject matter, but there are two good reasons for that...One, the first write of this way originally written by using a 100 word word-bank (words like kisment, tangerine, soliliquy, Rubicon, Darwinisim, and other sweet ones like that) and the second is because the point of view it's written from, which calls for a breadth of eloquence and depth that is hard to capture no matter what words are used. Glad you like it though...it's most certainly one of, in my opinion, my most important pieces.
-Thefallout
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No~
I was fighting with myself on this,
as I definately love your take on the theme
but this read like a short story to me...
I think this is a very nice scribe, but definately more of a story than a poem, and in the end, I do not think it will stand up to your competitors. -
First, some thoughts on general flow. Stanza 2 (and of course we are talking about the way it sounds to me) needs a word inbetween "this" and "heart" I recommend "old." Second (still in stanza 2), "his wicker fingers still pull you in" might sound better as "his wicker fingers pull you right back in." In stanza three you seem to give up the internal flow entirely and I am not sure where to begin with suggesting how to fix it (I'll ask another judge to look at this piece as well, to make sure it isn't just me). There is an attempt to recover in stanza 4, but it is unsuccessful, for the most part - with slight improvement into and out of stanza 5. 6 and 7 struggle just the same (as though nothing had changed in 4 and 5). I am going to stop the play by play here because I hate repeating myself and it is starting to look like the first 2 stanzas set a tone for the piece that wasn't at all what you intended. So it could be safe to say that those two need adjusting and the rest is fine... but which ever way it goes, it should be one or the other, not both. Inconsistent flow is hell on the reader as we try to discern pattern from whatever exists in its place.
I understand that my review has been negative up until this point which is a shame, because I love this piece. So let's consider my flow issues a triviality for the moment and focus on where I think you have excelled. First off, I should tell you that the author's notes were extremely helpful, and you do, in a sense, tempt fate when you choose not to include them in a piece of this nature. (So, good choice.) In light of that illumination, I find this piece to be deep without over -reaching, a problem plauging a lot of contemporary poetry.
One reason, I think, for the sucess of this piece is that (despite its length) you have managed to hide poetic gems in each stanza that you write. (This is why I railed so hard against the flow issues... why have beautiful poetry that hiccups? It can be frustrating to the reader.) This is by far and wide the hardest part of poetry, that is to say, what makes it worthwhile to read.
Your "Eden" reference in stanza one (signifying both hope and utophia) and the "misletoe and hemlock slaughter" from stanza five are but two examples, from many, of what I mean. This entire peice employs the abstract in the fashion intended for it as a poetic device. It is worthy of contemplation and relfection - an achievement.
Sounding like a cop out, it would take me quite some time to go from gem to gem and indicate why I find greatness within, so I will just do two more and call it a night. The "flooded Rubicon" and the "tainted masks and glassy eyes" give the discerning reader insight into the depths of the piece by painting the scenario with the brush of enormity. Each of those references, does, in its own right, touch the emotion felt by the woman, and, in turn, does then touch us.
Even with the flow issues this is an excellent effort that I feel very positively about. Thank you for your entry.
~Das -
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huge thanks for your very honest and helpful comment...if only one sixteenth of the people here on all poetry would leave one comment like that a day, everyone here would learn massive amounts about poetry daily.
I'm replying to your comment just to let you know that I've done a revision of this piece, as I usually do occasionally on some of my personal favorites of what I write. Hopefully by using some of your advice and some of my own imagination and creativity, I have improved the poem somewhat
a quick thing to note; the last 4 stanzas have a significantly different flow that the rest of the piece for a purpose. As I'm sure you can tell by reading, the first part of the poem is the speaker talking to the general audience. The last part is the speaker directing his discourse specifically at the woman who the poem is about. It is meant to be a more conversational style, without much set flow or rhyme. (I would greatly appreciate your critique on this, I'm not completely sure if I like the way it works or not, but it does set that section apart from the rest of the poem.) Also, there are a few other departures from the general flow of the piece throughout the poem, these are all purposeful, mostly used to draw the reader's attention to those specific lines or stanzas.
Again, thank you for your critique, and I would love to hear more if time allows.
-The fallout
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This is a wonderfully written poem. You have managed to get some great imagery in this piece, and it reads well
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This is a really nice poem! I'm impressed with how you used the words and truly appealed to my senses.
The moon was blood soaked
I love that
Wonderful job and best of luck! -
DAMN MY HAM!!! That was AMAZING! I LOOOOOOOOVED THIS!! IT's soooo cool, the style is just awesome, and the first verse got me hooked. This is totally unique and BRILLANT. You are an awesome writer, best of wishes, in my totallyhardcontesttojudge.
mwahaha,
Inanonsense
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