Petals
Pieces of broken bodies fall around me
Like funeral petals
Fallout from friendships
Faced with the nuclear option of my madness
I gouge through gobs of flesh
That were once lips dribbling easy promises
Scouring for something so solid
As a splinter of bone to support my soul
I laughed and you loved it
And then I laughed too much and in the wrong places
And I could not stop
I cried and you loved it
And then I cried too much and in the wrong places
And I could not stop
Down I dig through gristle hair and teeth
Scratching at sinew for a single fingerhold of empathy
There is a solid something
Somewhere
There is a neon dawn a strobing sunrise
Somewhere
There is a noise that is not the scraping of my skull
Somewhere
But not here
I liked this poem very much.
I wish this were called “In All the Wrong Places” but I can see the petals falling, too….and I’ve felt that, little pieces of me dying inside everytime I do something “in all the wrong places” or someone makes me FEEL as though I have.
People are cruel.
I learned long ago it is not ME that’s in all the wrong places. I *LIKE* me. Not everyone does. Not everyone HAS to…only *I* ever “have to” like me.
The title and the central image of the poem come from the beautiful cherry blossom scene (where the cherry blossom symbolises both the beauty of nature and the fallout from Hiroshima) in Kurosawa’a Dreams.
That’s exactly the place I’m trying to get to, because I know that’s where I need to be to stay sane. At the same time the thought of that amount of self-belief scares me rigid
I laughed and you loved it
And then I laughed too much and in the wrong places
And I could not stop
I cried and you loved it
And then I cried too much and in the wrong places
And I could not stop
Yes, I feel this. People-torture. Torturing people!
You put it across spare & there.