Untitled

I gave my best friend her first orgasm

& some time later she shattered my heart,

& as I'm facing up to the fact

of facing the world alone,

pacing the building that was once our home,

its fragile splinters dig into my feet

so that when I lie in bed at night

[now a bed with only one side occupied],

I can't sleep.

& maybe I've consumed a diet of too much Disney

but I can't look at an avatar of two tigers nuzzling

without starting to weep;

the Chinese count me as a tiger

constellations figure me for a lion

but really I'm just a p***y -

terrified of my future stretching out before me;

chapter after chapter of a loveless story.

& maybe I'd be better off never having had

that reprieve of happiness,

since devastation's left my mind seeped

in this aftertaste of bitterness;

my ego, pickled & shrivelled,

strives to survive for all it's worth,

but if the sour flavour is vinegar

why wasn't the closeness preserved?

Questions like that are corroding the soul

I don't believe in but must possess, as

I can feel it being eaten away and torn,

hollowing me into a mess of depression.

As my love has shown itself

a thing so easily discarded,

I must return to resignation

& learning to live with myself

 

...a version better guarded.

Author's Note

Does it flow ok? The ending seems awkward but I can't fix it. Thanks.

Reviews

[PianoandPage]

oh my dear sweet boylan.

i'm not even sure exactly what to say. this hurts to read. i can feel your pain through these words. your conflict. your raw resignation.

sometimes it does seem cruel to have experienced any happiness when it is suddenly taken away. you express the shock and numb of this eloquently and evocatively.

the first line was so powerful. i love lines that combine concepts like "friend and orgasm" together. that immediately grabbed me.

you have so many amazing ideas here. the disney diet. the astrological segway. how your ego is pickled and yet the vinegar didn't preserve what mattered most. (AMAZING!!!! double use of metaphor)

you set me heart on fire.

the ending does seem a little clumsy... but that isn't a bad thing. the great thing about writing about heartbreak is that the subject matter doesn't demand tidy writing. y'know? you can be clumsy without worrying about it. i wouldn't change it. anything else would sound wrong. if that makes sense.

also.... i thought it was interesting that in the last line "a version" could also sort of be read as "aversion" and still work. intentional?

[Anthony Morningstar]

This is f*****g great. I like the ending myself because there's that pause where it looks like the end and the end comes along. I can't really think of better words to put in the last line. I get what you mean though that you may not like the ending. I realize this sort of comment doesn't really help. But the reason I like the ending the way it is because it is aburt and kind of not "polished" and it goes better with the feeling. Mostly cause the rest of the poem is writing in the context of something pretty well something that was at least. and the ending in the way that it is now is just that the harshness that is reality. Kind of like a painting. Before Pollocks there were painters that painted moderen things so nice and lovely and there was background and foreground and that's not reality. Reality doesn't always act like that it's not nice and pretty .

and in a way that 's what this is the way that's it's written is hyper-realsim you have what you thought and with lines thrown in the there with the way that things are now with the bed and all it pushes that even more. LIke you had this idea of Disney and that's fake and it's somethign that a lot of people aspire to have few have but most people want. And that's fake. And the ending is just so perfect in that context. Or maybe I'm just reading way to much into it.

[F. Nazarov]

Oh geeze XD
I believe it flows extremely well!
I really like the tiger/lion thing,
mostly because I thought that was really creative.
I love your ability to be able to draw people into
whatever piece you write, it's amazing.
I suppose the ending does seem awkward,
but I think it's fine the way it is.

[Gary H]

Really enjoyed this - probably because I can easily relate and there are some things I never talk about. I felt 'shattered' after reading then realised that line two had put that word in my head so I was going to go with 'devestation' but that's there as well. Seems you have really thought about this one.

I like the ending although sure thats not much help.

[TL Boehm]

the Chinese count me as a tiger

constellations figure me for a lion

but really I'm just a p***y -

OUCH! (taps on glass, the internal editor is a b***h - don't listen to her.) fine introspective spill here. I instantly related - the Chinese count me as a snake and the constellations a bull...snort. Sigh.

[Emily B]

It's perfect. A work that's been stewing for long enough that it seems to come out in one long continous unbroken apple peel. Which really serves no other purpose than letting us say we've accomplished the feat. I've been waiting for these words. They needed to be let loose.

[The Tao of Bri]

It seems to flow well, feelings don't always.. so it is a great representation of thoughts, loose and fluid that do not always connect and make sense..like the loss of love...great metaphor all the way around. mourning and sorrow hinder the beat of a heart left behind. sad that to be sure, so it is. Doubt and jadedness aways creep in, but it is truly better to have loved and lost than to never have loved before as the cliche goes...truly...one ounce of living in a seaful of existiing makes life worth muddling through..