Trev thought better than to slip this one under Em's door. Translated from the original Hynerian.
Regret within my veins
eating me away from the inside
I live with a monster
my own creation
one I see in the night
cold, sweating
neither waking nor sleeping
Concrete in my lungs
breathing labored
I feel my ribs breaking
brittle
pieces of me
shattered
shards
When the ambulance pulled away
and I knew I could not catch it
my world became blurry, endlessly
a windshield in rain, my eyes
nothing clear
nothing focused
confusion blurred upon confusion
falling around me
falling upon me
as if all the sky
targeted me and
only me
Nothing looked the same
Nothing was the same
Color changed
Sound changed
Pleasure became pain
And Pain was all I felt
All I could feel
My world
Pain
Dawn or Dusk
Mattered not
I felt fueled on agony
Needed not to eat
Was not hungry
My stomach a knot of snakes
Churning
Eating me from the inside
the taste of blood
in my quotidian mouth
common as saliva
And I would reach
my hands into the nothingness
pleading with silence
begging on bruised knees
torture without a torturer
a whipping without a whip
trapped in a room without walls
as rain from a cloudless sky
sunburned in the night
In the mirror
a horror
a stranger
eyes that would not shut
lips that would not close
lost
in full daylight
the known road unknown
the future measured
not in days
or weeks
months or years
for a future needs to breathe
hard to do
when the present
tightens it grip
on your throat
and the next breath
is in doubt
7 comments:
Maybe it's just me, but with each of these poems, Trev becomes 'more real' to me. I'm not sure if this is because with each poem, a little more of me is instilled into him or whether his baring his soul, the good and the bad, the pain and pleasure with all the wonderful complexity and contradictions, the wisdom and the immaturity, the clear-sightedness and confusion that he becomes more real. Would be interested in your thoughts on Trev since the poems appeared. Has it changed? Do you see him differently and if so, how?
I feel that Trev is surely becoming very real. He is unveiling a more instense vulnerability, a man filled with multi faceted emotions that are running through his veins like wildfire. Each one run from one end of the spectrum to the other. For me personally, I feel the poems have brought Trev beyond the screen and placed him into our own hearts. I hope that didn't sound korny, I did my best trying to put my thoughts into words. :-)
Hugs,
Kimmie
As for the poem...heartwrenching.
Kimmie, not corny at all. I'm trying to understand myself this literary transformation, at least as I feel it, and your comment is very helpful in sorting out what is happening. Thank you for reading and commenting. Always, always very much appreciated. Thank you. :-)
More real yes, to hear him voice what we have seen in his silences, in his actions, in memories shared that showed us pieces of him, of words spoken that suggested layers. Impressions gained of Trev through the chapters that came before the poetry have been clear and forceful and the realness comes about, to my mind, through in the main the confirmation of the way he thinks, the way he feels, that until now he has only (mostly) shown and often reluctantly, in reaction, because he could do no else. This is the first time that he has opened himself up in this way, slowly yet steadily, in a manner that suggests he intends to continue, with or without response from Em, until he has exposed himself completely, to himself first and foremost. With every post, with every new thing that we learn about him, one realizes just how more there is to him. Quite a contrast, one that in Trev's case is unlike any of the other characters who appeared more clearly from the first, perhaps from knowing better who they are, or feeling less of a need to deny, contrast from the man we first met, to the man that is before us today.
A most amazing piece of writing. With every poem, he seems to open a little more, move a little more assuredly within his own mind, within his own soul, becoming better acquainted so to speak with his thoughts and his feelings, more accepting and as such more honest, and as though in allowing them to take centre stage he is finally able to appreciate the room that they fill. With Trev, he has seemed behind himself, disconnected and unclear, as though on the one hand he knows who he is, but the understanding of why has been elusive. He has known his lacks, adhered to his fears, been conscious of where he was, but never so it seems dared examine at any length the path that took him there.
If you continue to post new chapters while I am still writing for the first, I may never finish. :-) I have all three floating around me.
Four and counting.
Perhaps the only way now is to take one stanza at a time. Regret, like guilt spoken of recently, is a consuming, debilitating emotion, and had he not said it so directly, his continuance evokes immediate certainty that he has been in close proximity, has lived with, that emotion. That eating, shattering, labouring emotion. These are so hollow lines, filled with bluntness so to speak, here is the thing, this is how it feels, this is what it means, call it honest, call it real, call it simplicity, whatever one might say there is a recognizable truth in the writing, again call it realness, call it honesty, it is something that we understand instinctively, when we see it, when we hear it. A monster of own creation, once again I am amazed how you communicate a thought, an idea, in the one way that must be amongst any that could be chosen the most easily understood, whatever your subject, you have shown that this capability is something that you have mastered. Your choice of word, a classic example is the line that reads Concrete in my lungs, where the connotations to the word and more so in context with the rest of the passage is above and beyond any alternatives that I can think of, seeming instead, in that one singular, to incorporate all of those examples. The king in representation of all his subjects. Vivid, evocative phrasing so characteristic of your writing displayed anew in sentences such as I feel my ribs breaking, I don't remember a case of that word, breaking, ever being so audible, in the very reading of it, is the crack, is the hush before and the hush after.
The third tells us so much, or rather confirms our impressions of Trev, confirms what he wrote above too, his entrapment and apartness, his turmoil such that it takes so much out of him, he is always looking to fill it, looking within, rather than without so to speak. I can combine the rest in one description, it is a breathless read, confining, in yer face as the expression goes, and what I mean by that is that it is akin to attack, to being faced with a person who is in complete emotional turmoil, the voice is loud, eyes wide, and they move closer and closer in an attempt to convey, to fill the vision, every space and every sound of the person in front of them, as though in hope that in so doing, that person will feel the pain upon their person, not to harm, but to be understood. Not explaining myself well, but the build within is momentous, the writing executed to perfection, his voice, his words, forceful. Excellent stuff.
The only monsters that exist, I feel, are the ones of our own creation. The title of this one is all wrong...It should not be "empty" while the protagonist is so "full" of monsters. Emptying will come only when they are gone...
Empty is empowerment, when you are empty, you have the space ready to fill with bliss again. When you touch the rock bottom you have no choice but to rise up again...
The imagery in this one is very powerful!
Mona, you are correct. I should have called this one Full. Trev is full of himself. :-D
Post a Comment