Tell Me Something I Do Not Know

An adieu to the sea who held my hand.

This is for the people whose hearts have grown numb.

Darling, I love you like my own skin and it burns inside.

Sometimes, love will come to you like fire and wind

This is why it hurts the way it hurts. Fast and strong,

Leaving you alone, despite the kindness you receive,

The love you take, you yourself will never be glad to live.

Too many thoughts, too many words, still here, but here, still.

Be braver than I was, pick yourself up, dry your tears

And leave. With the tears in your eyes, the words stuck

In your mouth. With your soul and mind intact and safe.

After all this, you’re completely empty and your heart

Is full of skeletons nobody wants to bury in the dirt

Because your body is full of the seeds you rejected

And they will sprout back up when you’ve forgotten them.

Pick up the first cigarette and puff it between your lips

Until you forget you ever met him, you ever knew his name

And the remnants of his touch on your lips. Think lightly

Of the world and deeply of yourself and make the whirling

Stand still. Break your heart so that it never closes itself

Against the world. Lose the pleasure of innocence before

You lose yourself and the single lifetime given to you.

Because you were placed back in the shelf in exchange

For someone else doesn’t mean that you’re discounted.

You’re priceless and someone better will come for you.

Your heart is tired but there are only so many of us born

In the same time and we only have so long to find each other

Until we die.

Author's Note

What do you think?

Reviews

[TLK]

The length of lines is very adroitly used here. They become elastic as you shepherd them with line breaks, and it gives the poem the lilt of careworn advice.

I feel the murmur of a loving parent, here. There is something very general about the poem that I believe anyone could and should respond to. The metaphors of being a shop item put back on the shelf, and growth as an untended garden that will heal over time, are very different but pull strongly in the same direction.

[Shivam Murari]

This is a beautiful poem, no doubt. You have used the modern poetry techniques (of long lines and no rhyming scheme), effectively. Though, I do not really adore modern poetry, I still like your poem for the way it was written. It is full of honest emotions. THanks for sharing :)