11-25-2014, 08:19 AM
I’ve been sitting here for hours now,
right foot falling asleep under my left thigh,
toes twitching with a need to stand up
that I can’t seem to answer.
I've been sitting here for hours,
foot falling asleep under my thigh,
toes twitching with the need to stand
Is the right foot, left thigh significant? The pointing out of it?
Have you flirted with many minor changes? Things that might add or subtract?
My bones quiver, my collarbone shifts,
my ribs creak and my spine straightens,
keeping my head upright
as it turns toward the window
and sighs heavily,
as if it’s been here one too many times.
The curtain whispers in my ear,
the single-paned window rattles softly
against my knuckles, and my fingers move
like the legs of a spider
as he drops down from the ceiling.
I describe my body slowly,
from head to toe,
as if doing this will make it real,
as if taking control of my image could somehow
give me control of my life, of my movement,
and of my thoughts.
I describe my body from outside,
from above, as if I were a puzzle
to be solved, to be broken and made whole
again and again, until pieces begin to disappear
behind the furniture, and frustration appears in the spaces
left by those small fractions of me that meant nothing much
until they were gone.
You weren’t just one of those pieces.
You were the straight edge, the corners,
the definition and the safety
that kept the wayward parts of this puzzle
from escaping into the dust and dirt.
You were the last piece, the satisfaction,
the beginning and the end, the metaphor
for sanity that made all too much sense to me
as this description of my body fades into the darkness
of my mind and those puzzle pieces are lost in the cracks
while you are lost to me in the real world
and I am coming apart, piece by piece,
swallowed by the furniture and the grass,
the concrete and the rushing water
and the wind that pulled my hair from my face
as I kissed you good-bye
as if to say,
“Make this perfect,
just in case.”
Again, I'll come back to this, in its second version. It's a lot to think about, especially before you get down to "as if I were a puzzle".
right foot falling asleep under my left thigh,
toes twitching with a need to stand up
that I can’t seem to answer.
I've been sitting here for hours,
foot falling asleep under my thigh,
toes twitching with the need to stand
Is the right foot, left thigh significant? The pointing out of it?
Have you flirted with many minor changes? Things that might add or subtract?
My bones quiver, my collarbone shifts,
my ribs creak and my spine straightens,
keeping my head upright
as it turns toward the window
and sighs heavily,
as if it’s been here one too many times.
The curtain whispers in my ear,
the single-paned window rattles softly
against my knuckles, and my fingers move
like the legs of a spider
as he drops down from the ceiling.
I describe my body slowly,
from head to toe,
as if doing this will make it real,
as if taking control of my image could somehow
give me control of my life, of my movement,
and of my thoughts.
I describe my body from outside,
from above, as if I were a puzzle
to be solved, to be broken and made whole
again and again, until pieces begin to disappear
behind the furniture, and frustration appears in the spaces
left by those small fractions of me that meant nothing much
until they were gone.
You weren’t just one of those pieces.
You were the straight edge, the corners,
the definition and the safety
that kept the wayward parts of this puzzle
from escaping into the dust and dirt.
You were the last piece, the satisfaction,
the beginning and the end, the metaphor
for sanity that made all too much sense to me
as this description of my body fades into the darkness
of my mind and those puzzle pieces are lost in the cracks
while you are lost to me in the real world
and I am coming apart, piece by piece,
swallowed by the furniture and the grass,
the concrete and the rushing water
and the wind that pulled my hair from my face
as I kissed you good-bye
as if to say,
“Make this perfect,
just in case.”
Again, I'll come back to this, in its second version. It's a lot to think about, especially before you get down to "as if I were a puzzle".