Boneyard

These are my thoughts about what happened.

Boneyard

I woke one morning feeling like

I didn’t belong in my own

        body--

that the skin I saw was not my own

but the flesh of a cadaver;

I thought that the bones within me

must be made of balsa wood and

the deteriorating muscles were surely

thin strips of fabric with

no actual value.

I decided that it was not me on the inside,

but someone else.

The sky outside my window was only

a meager, pale shade of grey, like the ashes

of what her body used to be, and I

watched as the pale pink ribbon of

the horizon began to bleed with the birth

of a new day and I thought about how

all those words you said to me

were actually timebombs because when

you first said them, I brushed them off

but now all I can think about is them and

my brain has been blown

        to kingdom come.

I think I might be brain dead.

But your school picture is still on my

bedside table and when I look at it

a fist grips down on my heart and

I wonder how you are and if you’ve grown,

I wonder if you’re even still alive anymore;

my anxiety is a yew tree bending in a

new formation influenced by the passing

of time and minimal communication--

I become someone I don’t know.

I think that we’re all born with

a different destiny to follow but

when you get right down to it,

no matter how much you’ve changed, or

how much I’ve changed,

on the inside, we’re all the same--

        skeletons.

Except for the fact that I think I might be a

barely surviving Hiroshima victim;

a charred skeleton with no other

contributing human element.

Sometimes I compare you to

        Chernobyl

and I wonder if you ever

draw that connection

too.

I wonder what it’s like to be nuclear.

I wonder what it’s like to burn alive.

There are dark clouds churning in the

early morning sky and I wonder if it

might storm again like it did on that

night when I drove home alone and

that one song was playing on the radio

over and

                over and

                                over again

and I couldn’t possibly shut it off because

who was I to end the life of a beautiful,

(highly relatable),

song when it was just growing out of its

babbling infancy and into its

crescendoing teenage years?  

If I were to write you a letter now

I wonder what I would say,

what I would tell you that I haven’t already,

(accidentally), spilled to you in those

rushed visits we had every blue moon--

I think I would tell you how you

        broke my heart;

I think I would tell you how he

        shattered what was left;

I think I would tell you how

I don’t believe I have a

soul

                        anymore.

Author's Note

Constructive Criticism is always wanted.

Reviews

[J. Kell]

This is heartbreaking at the end...
Except for the fact that I think I might be a
barely surviving Hiroshima victim;
a charred skeleton with no other
contributing human element.
I really like this line, the comparison of a broken hearted person to the survivor of a nuclear explosion, brilliant. Great poem.

[koty bell]

This is a great poem... I enjoyed this alot great write:)

[Cody Williams]

I can feel the hurt in this peom. In my opinion it has somewhat of an Edgar Allan Poe feel to it that I like very much! Thanks for posting it!

-CW