Poetry / Alleviation
We once sat here—do you remember?—
in silence that was neither awkward nor meaningful—
silence was all we had left—
and the children were running,
and the parents standing, cross-armed,
and the sky looked as if
it was patched up everywhere
I thought it amazing,
the deftness with which the horde of children
avoided trees
and people,
the wisdom with which they
knew to pull and be pulled—
I later deduced the secret:
You have to run fast enough
to create tension,
to let the kite pull the line tight
and you give a little line
and the kite pulls it tight again
and so on.
You must have sensed danger
in all those lines I wrote,
the lines about loss and hurt
and emptiness and doom,
the lines going in circles
like little nooses,
those lines I wove together
for tensile strength—
You pulled,
the nooses turned to knots
and the lines pulled tight
and I felt it because I had tied them to my heart
It’s funny how things work,
the way the pull remains the same
no matter how far up a kite goes
But no line is infinite in length is it,
the earth spins and
the spindle unwinds
and it all unravels eventually
--do you remember?
We sat here in silence until
you broke it.
Those words you spoke
pushed me down the hill
the trick
was to run fast enough
but I hesitated
for fear of harm to self
for fear of where my feet would take me
The pull was too much
and my world turned up-side down
and back upright,
and up-side down again
topsy-turvy,
a rapid, vicious cycle ever since
and so I give a little line,
let go a little
and I’m pulled again
and I give a little more
I chose this emblem
because you would recognize it
without drawing your own lines
connecting me to it
and how do I let go,
how do I choose which line to cut,
like in the movies,
blue or red,
vein or artery,
how to choose without finding out
what my heart is made of
Pain is necessary to relieve pain
as love is necessary to forget love.
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Hey there! I’m back! And your work is as great as I remember. It’s hard to critique your work because so much of it is pretty perfect. This one is just that until S10 and the lines “the trick, was to run fast enough” I actually think this piece is finished here. Something about the tone after this line changes dramatically. You loose the passion and over arching meaning after. As much as we want our work to be personal, after these lines, the content becomes too personal, if that makes sense? We went from what you and the other experienced and your interactions to just you and as much as there are times for that, I don’t think this is one of those times.
The first line of S8, should there be a question mark there? I read it numerous times that way.
I’ll hit up some more of your pieces after work today!
Heidi
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‘how to choose without finding out
what my heart is made of
Pain is necessary to relieve pain
as love is necessary to forget love.’
this was probably the only part that hit me in a personal way.
Most of this poem didn’t make too much sense to me. I get what you’re trying to compare life to, but I felt that this didn’t spark enough interest for me to keep reading even though I read through it all the way.
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