Thursday Poem: Snapshot
TNG reader Mike B. submits this poem, the second in a Thursday series. Illustration by Ryan Blomberg.
A thought comes,
Maybe against your will,
Maybe a memory,
And life gets away from you.
The purposes and importances around you
Become a pleasant background.
You don’t care at your stillness.
You are not ashamed.
They say sadness sucks the life out of you,
but that’s not true.
Sadness sucks the life
Into you
draining joy and anger and love and hate
And everything together
Down into you,
Down from your face,
And into the part below your heart
And above your gut
Where they all combine
And dance
And fight.
And if you let them,
(and you let them!)
They pound your heart
And twist your gut
Until you don’t know whether to sit and rest
Or puke
Or both
So you inhale,
Exhale,
Clench your throat,
Touch something nearby
For balance—
For a reminder that a world exists
Beyond you
With purposes and importances
That you have a share in
Until gradually
The fire pit above your gut
Goes out
And its liberated remnants
Drift back up
To heat your face.
But there’s still something
below,
Where all that is you
danced
and fought,
And where each one had its turn.
2 comments:
I'm not really a poetry guy but...damn. I recently broke up with my boyfriend. I really loved him and thought we had a future together. This poem captures my sadness perfectly. Thank you for posting it. I suddenly feel a little better.
Hi Anonymous,
Thanks for your comment. I'm glad what I wrote resonated with you on some level. Though I'm sorry to hear about your breakup. :(
And I'm glad my poem made you feel a little better -- it wasn't my intention to make anyone sad, despite the subject. I just wrote this after a random, painful memory bubbled up as I was walking down the street. The physical sensation was so strong and so strange that I decided I wanted to write about the sensation itself, which I imagined was pretty universal, instead of my memory, which was only meaningful to me.
And like you, I felt a little better too once all of this was on the page. It's almost as if describing what's eating away at you gives you some power over it. I dunno. That's kind of a cheesy thing to say, I guess. But thanks for your kind words, and I hope this poem will be a little less resonant soon :)
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