nets

When your heart is tangled up and weighted down...

Snarled,

and gritty and shriveled. 

Briny vessels tangle and wheeze,

Protest and collapse at halfhearted attempt.

Something is lodged in the cavity of my chest--

It is not big, 

but is wrapped around, 

and snagged on the anemic rungs 

of my sternum and spine, 

stinging and scraping 

with reluctant force--

There once was a fishing net. 

It was wide and open and resilient;

it caught too much.

cords were cut, and it sank for its haul, easily lost.

Forgotten, until it tangled with intention and was dragged from the sea, 

bunched and tossed to dehydrate 

at the splintery insult of a rotting dock.

The pile is caught on nails, 

Stitched between boards, 

snarled into a complex mound

a Gordian knot.

Dry, 

and scratchy, and salty-- 

Quick to rebuff sympathies, 

reprimand samaritans with burning stinging cuts

For lively provision,

Attempts at spacious clarity.

It’s so, so heavy-- 

it’s not a chunk of shrapnel, 

small cutting or dense,

a collapsing canister.

Yet certainly overwhelming, 

Immovable in lonesome determination. 

Cradling miscellaneous items,

Inconvenient offerings of apathetic time 

None would covet, collect, care for.

Junk, trash, dead things-- 

tangled up, trapped, concealed within ropey serpentine coils--

Of them, what’d dare hope for escape-- 

Their freedom, 

worth less

than the sky to a hermit.

And for what effort is worth the liberation of crabs?

They’re worries, 

and pointless cluttering thoughts 

and heavy tearful tethers. 

And invisible, they must be ignored, but they’re everpresent,

Straining fibrous patience, 

the weight of them is anchoring.

Oh logic, my beloved, ruminative ruler (decrepit dictator) 

rightfully rebukes (disdainfully dismisses)

such attachment;

my mind could care less-- 

I am complete--

--ly separated from my body, 

from whimsy oscillations, irritations.

I just stand and stare at the mass. 

But the realization, I cannot simply leave.

Dreadful, rusty links clink closer, close 

around my wrists and ankles and I see,

Desultory heart has claimed its place in the net. 

It’s still beating-- 

(all else is resolutely still, undead, rasping quietly, evilly)

--still alive, though not for much longer.

I can feel that it’s slowly being crushed;

Sweet blood seeps, slicks the surface, 

a silken scarf, candy red,

to soften and soothe

Wrap itself ‘round ripped ragged tissue.

Foul, fermented rivulets race down your arms

wrung from an old spent sponge,

Salty sticky sitting wine 

Leftover, following a washed out communion.

It wriggles and twitches with hope, 

a stray, stupid seagull with ropes 

wrapped around its neck. 

Who would care about such a bird? 

Apparently I wouldn’t-- 

a mind, detached, 

wouldn’t risk an injury, inconvenience, 

for such screeching greed, obnoxious flighty irrationality. 

The thing keeps squawking-- 

maybe when it’s dead, I’ll finally get some peace.

Author's Note

February 3, 2021 at 5:25pm

If you've looked at any of my other uploads, the trend is... vent poetry! Bada-bing bada-boom this is indeed how I cope.

I'd still like your thoughts!! But due to my sensitive palate, I prefer my criticism with cream and sugar, so long as it's not too much of an inconvenience. Thank you :)

Reviews

[Namus]

When I started reading I fully intended to respond with another poem. When I finished I was in pain. It certainly found concord with memories inside. Shall compose the poem when I recover.