Plagiarism

Okay first of all, I CALLS DIBS ON NOMINATING THIS POEM ON MONDAY :D and second of all WOW!

"I who have always found ways to escape,
skilled at filling gaps and stitching
unmatching shreds together,
I fail to be inventive this time,
the movement of my hands is ordinary
and all my thoughts have lost spirit."

I'm assuming this piece is about writers block, the title suggests plagiarism, and you find yourself plagiarizing words (either your own or others), pairing it with this stanza about failing to be inventive. But this is also a lie, because this stanza is rich with beautiful imagery and verses.

"The only thing thriving is memory,
spinning like waterspouts
taking me back to the sea
which you said you saved us from.
You thought we were passengers
on a sinking ship,
you thought you saved us
by sailing on your own."

I love the sheer imagery in this stanza, and love the idea of memory spinning like watersprouts, linking it with back with what I said earlier, it's almost as if you're trying to control the watersprouts. That being said, I feel like that part of the idea (writers block, stops here), you latch onto the memory that's leaking and pen it, in an attempt to control it.

"Don't you see?
The shore was never a safer place,
I was torn by the regular pattern of tides,
terrified by recurrent dreams
about angry uninvited waves.
You made it through the waters
while I sank like roots in the sand."

I genuinely don't know what to say - it's a heartbreaking stanza, that is relatable for a lot of people. You pen it beautifully, and you tied it in with the idea of watersprouts, and sea extremely well. The verse about breaking in the regular tide is super telling - it speaks about a person on the cusp of breaking, and not needing much to break. It's super heart breaking, but beautifully penned.

"You come a billion years later,
floating above me like a shooting star
that shines bright but quickly disappears,
telling me you're losing pieces
faster than finding ones.
Allow me to steal your words.
You are the puzzle,
who's not testing my ingenuity
but my patience."

Again - I genuinely don't know what to say. I thought I was floored by the last stanza, but this is just absolutely amazing. You manage to outdo yourself again. The title is starting to make more sense, what I thought was about writers block might not be true - or maybe it was, and since a memory latched on to you, more aptly, you decided to go all in and steal from that memory.

"Other than you,
there's nothing buried
deep inside to dig for,
other than you
there are no riddles to solve.
You left to the west,
I wandered the seaside
in all possible directions.
Wind and sun, exchanging hits
against my back.
I've bled so much skin behind
I'm now bare to the soul
with no pieces left to lose,
nothing's left to find."

An absolutely beautiful ending - but what really stuck out to me was 'wandered the seaside', the person who was broken by the regular tide still dwells there, there's enough to think that they still remain incomplete (bare to the soul), and also enough to suggest they are indeed whole (with no pieces left to lose). This is a seriously beautiful, thought-provoking, deep write.

I do hope this is still eligible for nomination after the weekend...such a beautiful verse.