Look,

by Elizabeth   Dec 26, 2017


I never meant to die so bitter
But it looks like I'm going to.
Something in me is screaming "turn around"
While the persistent nagging voice of loneliness is begging me to keep moving forward.
And here I am, center stage and petrified
Silently begging the semi in the lane over to blow a tire and knock the choice right out of my lungs
When did life stop being fun?

White knuckled and shivering
I dutifully cleared the ice from my car this morning.
Wish there was a way to knock it loose from my innards, too.
Because the cold pit inside me sunk lower and lower as the night progressed
And I realized that I was going to wake up alone again.
It takes a certain kind of stupid to keep slamming your head into the same wall
Over and over and expecting a different result.
So look, I am not your fault.

Somewhere between here and home
I remembered the spark that had once ignited
Under the scrutiny of our leveled eyes
And asked myself how it was possible that you didn't feel it too.
But then I remembered that you've frozen yourself
In a version of the past that was always too good to be true.
When all I wanted was you.
When all I wanted
Was you.

5


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Latest Comments

  • 6 years ago

    by Brenda

    Elizabeth, wow to this write. I really felt what you were trying to convey and the hopelessness of being alone and perhaps making the same choices over and over again. The thoughts of a semi blowing a tire and making that decision for you, very powerful. I don't know how many times when things weren't so great, driving next to a semi, with those same thoughts in my head. Well done-

  • 6 years ago

    by Milo

    Where to begin, I guess we can break it down from the start.

    Its a very lonely and dark place to want the semi truck to kill you in a way that you dont have a choice. Here in Colorado, this silent fear burns brightly in the winter, its not hard to imagine but difficult to want to relate or experience because nobody wants to go to this dark rabbit hole you are in. And its even more difficult to continue to be alone with these thoughts. The cold in the morning is colder when alone, the anger builds up with no one there to diffuse it for you when you are alone. There is nobody to help pull you out of this rabbit hole of depression. And all the while, the person that is suppose to be at your side, he or she is a constant reminder of what could have been, and how life is kicking your ass now in this flawless write.

    And asked myself how it was possible that you didn't feel it too.
    But then I remembered that you've frozen yourself
    In a version of the past that was always too good to be true.
    When all I wanted was you.
    When all I wanted
    Was you.

    The last lines in this poem brings all the emotions to an abrupt but fading end in a very powerful way. Some people might think the "when all I wanted was you," is redundant at the end, they are so wrong. It is so beautiful to fade with the thoughts and emotions that conveys a fleeting moment that runs off the page or trails away in the poetry kind of sunset, makes you wonder if tonight or tomorrow or the next day, or the next few years will be the same without this person. Makes you relive the silent struggles you will have to endure that is not in this poem, that is not something everyone can see or relate. I like that the silent and subtle emotions conveyed are so dear to you as it is to readers like myself.

    Thank you.

    • 6 years ago

      by Elizabeth

      Thank *you* for taking time to read this and write such thoughtful feedback. Throughout this I was looking to capture the narrator's obsessive fixation on the negative and on the past, going so far as to, perhaps bitterly, call out this other person for stagnating in their own past.

      If there's one thing I would add it would be that the break in the last two lines subtly highlights the past tense. This could be taken a number of ways but the intent wasn't to consciously choose one over another. I think in this moment or at different points in time the different meanings could have been the intent of the narrator. But at this fading end point to the piece, I believe that the many different interpretations were all meant to coexist. Similar to how the layers of people we have been in our past overlay to create who we are now, but should also be continually built upon to avoid this "freezing" of the self in the past.

      Anyway.
      Thank you for your interpretation, it's pretty awesome to know I'm not making poetry that's completely un-understandable and good to hear that people are getting something useful out of it.

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