before you took your first breath.
My shaking hands gently took yours
The soft flutter of your pulse
Flapping against your wrist
As I looked at my paper doll girl.
I was afraid to crumble your bones with the gentlest kiss,
Afraid you'd fold right through my fingertips.
Nonetheless my heart reached out to encompass you.
You learned to flirt before you could walk
With death as your bachelor of choice.
The slow beeps of your heart giving hints to his presence
As he lays down beside your incubator cell.
I miss you when you sneak out at night
But I pray you'll come back to me.
Time and again. Beat by beat.
-Updated 5/8/18
For me this is a tale of two poems. I find the second stanza here to be intriguing and revealing. It want more like that! I find the first stanza to be sweet but a bit conventional in expression with its reference to a metaphoric heart and using tears to signify grief. Tears as a stand in for suffering and the abstract heart are hard things to pull off, because they have been done so many times over and over in poetry.
ReplyDeleteIn the second stanza, the heart is a real beating heart, and so it is more real and engaging. It is a heart threatened by death, a real heart that I sympathize with, as opposed to an abstract heart that I am not so engaged by.
The second stanza reminds me of some of Emily Dickinson's amazing poems, where death is personified and interacts with characters in the poem. I'm not sure about the very last line, but the rest of this stanza is fresh and arresting. Maybe you should START with this stanza and write a new one (or two) to fill it out, omitting the current first stanza? Hope this helps!
I LOVE the second stanza- spinning off "flirting with death", but then anthropomorphizing him throughout the second stanza- brilliant methodology. The first two sentences of the second stanza are really the strongest part of this poem.
ReplyDeleteAs to the first stanza, I want it to be as powerful as the second- as playful and raw with metaphors, as show-dont-tell. I like the idea of a paper doll girl- maybe lets play with that? Ripping the paper if you soak it with your tears, or crumpling it with the crushing force of your love- some more imagery to communicate your point. Tell me exactly what you're afraid of seeing, exactly how you'd hurt her. I also want to see you more unsure- maybe by a declaration of false confidence- at the end. Overall, incredible.