Sad. The good news is that we can choose our choices and choose the choices that may not take us to that ending in the poem. The other good news, is the realization. Then after the realization can come more choices to choose from. It's a never ending cycle of choices, isn't it?

Sad but true. Suicide happens when our invisible agony reaches an unendurable level and we are torn between kill ourselves or the others. Sometimes I wonder whether one needs more courage to live or to commit suicide. It's not a choice. Maybe it is the so-called fate.

I think not only death in of itself, but also a sever depression can evoke all of these devastating sensations and probably it's the reason behind losing life.

You illustrated the suicidal scene masterly with some mesmerizing metaphors and mind-blowing diction, the use of the present continuous tense really made the verse vivid , intense and resonating.

Awesome, Karla.
Thank you very much for sharing.

Wow....

Karla,
you set the tone with the opening stanza: you look to the heavens, finding them empty. Everywhere else is necessarily so, for if there is no spirituality in our lives (whatever the form it may take) you find yourself "all alone, counting the days left."

Your poem explores the essence of nihilism in its most soul-crushing form:
- the loss of faith in existence ("disenchantment squeezes the soul, life vomits the truth")
- the naked angst of the individual ("despair sits on the pillow, suffocating, scratching the night")
- the defeat of humanism ("you realize that nobody really cares")

You have here the profound Nausea experienced by Antoine Roquentin, hundreds of pages less than it took Sartre to present and perhaps more elegantly.

What this seems to be headed toward is the acceptance of the absurd, the understanding of the cosmic joke in which we are all the fools caught in pratfalls, one after another - that roar of laughter Camus describes Sisyphus bellowing as he takes the first step back downhill to fetch his boulder. A sequel to this work would be tremendous!

Beautiful and well written :)

Congratulations on the win, Karla. This poem is beautiful, even though I might not even know what it is truly about. It deserved to win :)

The one thing that caught my attention is the way that it is typed. I do not know if you intended to do it this way or not, but the words after the periods are not capitalized, so I thought it was worthy to bring it to your attention. If you did this intentionally, then do not listen to a word I am saying; maybe being lowercase is a symbol of something. I just thought that it was weird that the first word of the poem was capitalized, but none of the others weren't.

You use such beautiful imagery in this poem. In every stanza I feel like I am there along with the person who this is written about.

disenchantment squeezes the soul,
life vomits the truth and the blame.
the limit has no limit and you cross
the boundaries of sanity, seeking solace,
seeking for what can't be found in love
or faith.

^ I would have to say that this is my favorite stanza, but I cannot exactly tell you why. I guess I just like the use of the word "vomit" even though if you are actually doing it, it is kind of disgusting. Vomit, in this poem, I think is the strongest word; it tells a lot about what the person is going through. It seems to be saying that life is forcing the person to see the truth and to feel the blame, because that is what "vomiting" does...it makes stuff come up.

I see this poem being about society in general and how it can be so cruel to some of its inhabitants. You are a gifted writer. Congrats on the win again.

Beautiful.

~S

Congrats on the well-deserved win. :)

Despair sits on the pillow,
suffocating, scratching the night,
pushing you through the open window:
the fall is always cinematographic.
you smile back as the audience claps and cheers
when the curtain closes.
the final act is superb.
bravo! they shout.

^^In this stanza is where my heart was caught and the words penned here made me feel the desperation as well as suffocation. Its this part that most associates with the title Oxygen! I really had to take a breath here.
A moving write...Congrats on the win!

This poem really grabbed my attention this week, as Karla takes us into a deep state of depression and truly shows what a dark and lonely place it can be. The tone is hopeless, and dull, and I think she has done a great job with keeping the poem interesting and not cliché for the content. Moving words that really hit the reader hard.

Karla, every time you write down your heart, you blow your readers away.

Oxygen, it's the main source for survival, one cannot live without it. Simply. It's vital.

I loved your direct and straight short There is no comfort. Just hitting us hard from the very beginning.

Then you went on and on with complete vulnerability, a very rare one! You spoke your deepest sadness and most honest feelings without trying to decorate them.

This illustration of the case you're trying to elaborate on, is sensational and touching because it is not limited by your poem, but witnessed on a broader table in our daily life.

You did very well on this one!