Monday

 

Trinkets of our tattered love

lay scattered across a room too dark

to make out anything more than shadows,

where lines are drawn in the sand

and yet remain invisible, taunting me

with their epic insignificance.

 

It’s been three days since my footsteps

have led any farther than the kitchen,

ill-stocked for times like these,

and the bathroom, where my mirror and I

play a constant game of hide-and-seek.

 

I’m afraid to see my own face,

salt-scalded and stained with disillusionments;

frightened by my own eyes, the dull

sockets of a stranger staring through me

as though I’m nothing more than an apparition.

 

Tomorrow is dawning like a broken record,

skipping across the sky in shades too pale to name,

and I think briefly about escaping,

shelving my heartache for an hour, for a day,

 

but all I can manage is a moment’s glance

out of a window smudged with forgotten fingerprints,

before dragging myself like a too full suitcase

back to the twilight of a room

drenched in the stillness of waning memories. 

Reviews

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This one seems to remind me of sentiments contained in Kate Chopin's works, and by that I mean that there is a conveyance of imprisonment in a discontented situation that begs and cries for liberation and/or redemption. Though there is a definite distinction between the discontent contained in your work and Chopin's since she was speaking more about issues that pertained only to women, and in your poem, just about anyone can feel these emotions. But the idea of being imprisoned in drab emptiness is the same in a way. But unlike Chopin who tried to show what should be, you're showing how it really is. That's more effective, that it is. Showing the pain and longing and the emptiness within one soul is far more powerful than showing what that soul could be containing...if that makes any sense. There is an obvious lack of hope contained within the words, and that sort of intensifies the reaction to the negative or downtrodden state of the poem itself.
The language that you use in this poem only makes it all the better. =)

[robert]

'a window smudged with forgotten fingerprints'...wonderful writing..a word painting.

[Gandré]

What is gone - is always insignificant; would we know it, we had perhaps less unpleasant moments trying to make corrections on things gone with the wind. beautiful poem. I liked your words a lot! Always.

[Cliff Rhodes]

I like the real emotional turmoil generated in the writing and the constant nagging harassment of bitter sweet memories that never leaves the reader.

[Kiara]

love the imagery and illustration that convey in this poem, brilliant! : )

[LSS]

I loved this poem. Its imagery and plausibility hits home with each of us, though some may be more conscious of it than others. I've been testing out this theory, that its pointless to look at what we don't want to deal with, when its better to imagine that everyone else already agrees with our own assessment.
LSS

[Pax Analog]

Gorgeously eloquent exposition of the gawdawful aftermath of love's labors lost.

As always, you have a masterful touch, no matter the mood under examination.

One sorely hopes this gray Monday yields to rays of sunlight for the hungry heart.

This phantom ache of love's elusiveness haunts us all, and my heart only wants to hold this poet a moment, with a "You are sooooo not alone" warm embrace.

[KUFU]

Damn Anima...Yeah, I guess Mondays are, well...s****y! You have depressed me with this poem of phantom reflections in mirrors and love letters too reminiscent to be thrown away like yesterdays news. Of course the imagery is overwhelming...TGIS...THANK GOD IT'S SATURDAY...geesh. I'm going for my bottle of Sangria. Maybe I can pretend i'm on a tropical island somewhere, instead of leaving the mood that is this poem.

[Lyrical Love]

Powerful write 'Blue'!

I'm afraid to see my own face,
salt-scalded and stained with disillusionment's;
frightened by my own eyes, the dull
sockets of a stranger staring through me
as though I'm nothing more than an apparition.

That is my favorite verse. The images of my own sorrowful
moments fade into view when reading this.
Excellent piece-as always...Applause!!, Applause!!

[The Rock And Roll Cowbo..]

I don't know how you do it... you convey emotions with such and incredible style... this piece is absolutely fantasic for being heartbreaking, they way you take us through a broken heart and all the emotional twists that come with it, the first stanza about tattered love in the dark, to me it's like saying something you thought exsisted now feels like it was a figment of your imagination... and the sockets of a stranger looking at me, when we lose someone we always feel like we have lost ourselves and not sure who we really are... amazing, amazing amazing.