My Side

 

My side

A Poem by Dominick

 

 

Everything just went blank.

The great rectangle has sped towards me

erasing my heart and soul

like a shaken etch-a-sketch.

 

For a moment I feel nothing.

Sounds protrude through

such a magnificently hinged carving.

My sonar picks up movement

in such an erratic fashion

till silenced in an abrupt halt.

 

The next gulp,

trying to swallow the bowling ball breath.

My mind is clear no more.

I know what has been done.

Remorse, regret, self hatred,

muffled satin outbursts of sadness

mixed with raindrop tears

echoing off the

heart shaped window pain.

 

It’s cold and dark.

The shadows of my mistakes have grown.

Words cut deep

with my own sarcastic, double edged sword.

The grooves of this blockade prick.

The beauty pushing its thorns

into my well deserved skin.

I am a monster.

 

The surroundings have changed,

the feeling is different

and the pain is immense.

Elm has beaten me down,

oak has torn my flesh

But this plank may be my demise.

I am submissive now.

 

The five-finger battle wound still stings

and reddens quickly.

Amazing how wonderful it feels

in comparison to the overall sensation of loathe.

 

My shrinking persona,

decreases in size with each sob stutter

machine gun bullet

that spits from its delicate barrel,

until it's about to implode.

I am unworthy to have a name.

 

My Side;

A prisoner on the outside of a cell,

confused in all aspects,

ready to be judged and sentenced

to life without you

without conviction,

and a hung jury.

 

In this moment I am trapped in silence.

Held by the white noise of passion and anger.

Bound by the ropes of remorse.

Angered by the lack of self control.

Most of all,

Empty.

 

If I could pull a granule of sand from the moment in time

when the disparity got wet

and grew to a Venus fly catastrophe,

then call me mollusk.

Until the chemical calcium bond has formed

the mother of pearl it would be safe in my grasps

to never irritate again.

 

Things over here are dark and lonely.

The night grows colder

and I can almost feel the monster breathing down my neck.

Please open the door and let me back in.

I don’t it like here,

On My Side.

 

 

Reviews

[Travis Lawrence]

Great poem.

"The great rectangle has sped towards me
erasing my heart and soul
like a shaken etch-a-sketch.

For a moment I feel nothing."

-- First off, great image, a 2-dimensional rectangle spreading toward you. I love picturing that. I think you could get rid of "my heart and soul", because a line like that is thrown around a lot. We can imagine, from the feeling of the poem, that this is what you mean. So I would make it "erasing like a shaken etch-a-sketch", cool pop culture reference by the way, those things were awesome!

"The surroundings have changed,
the feeling is different
and the pain is immense.
Elm has beaten me down,
oak has torn my flesh
But this plank may be my demise."

-- I don't understand what you mean when mentioning Elm and Oak, but I do like it, nonetheless. It's original. Also, I don't see how the feeling is different. That's another line that I don't think adds much, because if the feeling is different, the poem will show that to the reader. No need to say so.

"My shrinking persona,
decreases in size with each sob stutter"

-- I like the image, what you are inside, shrnking, shriveling perhaps, though "in size" is implied by "shrinking" and "decreases", as what else could it be shrinking in? Maybe that's an avenue for a new word choice, "decreases in ... with each sob stutter". Think about it, anyway :-)

"A prisoner on the outside of a cell,"

-- Wow, I love this line. A prisoner of freedom, of choice, of consequence and personal responsibility. This is clever imagery.

"If I could pull a granule of sand from the moment in time
when the disparity got wet
and grew to a Venus fly catastrophe,
then call me mollusk.
Until the chemical calcium bond has formed
the mother of pearl it would be safe in my grasps
to never irritate again."

-- Now this, this is brilliant poetry. Great write, overall, though I do hope you go back and revise a bit, because I think it could be better.

[Beautifully Tragic xPoe..]

This poem was absolutely breathtaking and almost haunting. This takes the reader on an interesting journey, great imagery. and kept me going through every line.


Loved this!

[Dominick]

Good catch on the 'pain', it was intentional. Elm was capitalized because it's the start of the sentence. Im going to make the other fixes now. Thanks to a couple helpful review that caught these errors, I can perfect it. Thanks again to the reviewers!!

[Raef C. Boylan]

this is f*****g amazing, friend
regret that i haven't seen it before
so much interesting language and imagery
and also the concept itself
is dealt with in a great way
so that it seems completely fresh

"The next gulp,
trying to swallow the bowling ball breath." - we instantly know what you mean - excellent, excellent metaphor. Makes my throat and chest feel funny! Powerful in its simplicity and effective use of imagination.

really really
great work
there's too much to absorb in just one
or even two reads

exciting stuff
thanks for posting this

"until its about to implode." [it's]
"Confused in all aspects" [should this be a lowercase 'c'?]

[Elm is capitalised because beginning of a sentence, right? Did you change that after the review below, or had they not spotted the full stop that was before it?]

"heart shaped window pain" - just to check: is this a play on words or an error? [pane of glass...pain...]

[Blackbirdsong]

This poem takes an interesting journey. When it began I had no idea where it was going, but the beauty of your words and description enthralled me and I continued. So often I read poetry here and elsewhere where the writer only scratches the surface of a subject, but never gets inside it to really give their readers a glimpse of what world is like. You can't be accused of being like that in any way. This is really superlative writing in every way.

There are some little things like why you capitalized Elm and not oak -

"Elm has beaten me down,
oak has torn my flesh"

But really they are minor things.

Great work.