my beautiful friend

You are the restless tattoo of my sorrow
Inked deeper than my skin, deeper than my bone
Your brilliance shines through to my most hidden, my most protected depths
Thoughts, emotions... these are no match for you
They are consumed, obliterated in your wake
Your caress deafens me, shakes my existence
Hold me in those cruel arms, I will not shun you
Let your suffocating presence steal my breath once more

Be calm my beautiful friend
I greet you without fear
I am listening, confide in me
You are welcome here

Reviews

[Brianna Brie]

I read your comment about embracing pain. I did not want to give up the pain, because it was the only connection I still had to the person. That got old eventually.

When I was reading it, I imagined that you were addressing your fellow poet as we share so much with one another. This poem offers a depth to it as to articulate the poets meaning.

[Troy Dean]

Thanks for such a lovely response Brianna. Not giving up the pain as it feels like the only connection still left, I can very much relate to. What I found was that by only letting in a small portion of that pain at a time (what I imagined i could handle) became like receiving a message a few letters at a time so it can never be properly read. When I plucked up the courage/surrender to welcome it all in at once, the pain transformed and the message it carried became clear.
When a human heart breaks, by filling its cracks with resentment, injustice, rage or sadness it will never mend and in time those wounds will be too hard to suffer and will wound others around me
By filling those cracks instead with my own love it will heal
Be happy my heart broke, knowing it will grow back stronger and more loving than before
And when I cannot stand the pain , remember that pain is simply love in another form
The harder the hurt the greater the love
Be patient … and in time even that pain will turn back into love 🙏🏻❤️

[Red Brick Keshner]

I love the idea of another being tattooed upon ourselves and the even more exhilarating idea of that tattoo being mobile and active. Kind of like Maui's tattoos in Moana. Tres cool. TFS

[Troy Dean]

Thanks Frederick, I'll have to watch it now

[Ken e Bujold]

this is a bloody marvelous poem Troy. Until I read your comment below I had several ways to travel in my interpretation of the piece. And even after reading your comment on pain of lost love, I still consider some of the routes my mind travelled to be of significant direction, which is a testament to the writing.
Let me share my most singular, and lasting thought, having read this poem 4 times now. This poem suggests the moment of original sin, birth if you will of the consciousness. The tattoo, deeper than the bone...
of a man's inner awareness, deeper than his own first memory, the primordial soup.
that is what I thought on first reading, and still it is what takes my mind on a trip

ken

[Troy Dean]

Thank you so much Ken! very glad you shared your interpretation. I find it amazing that the place it took you to (somehow recognised) is exactly the same place from where this poem emerged.

[light and ashes]

This is great. I am left wondering who this is for or what this is about.

[Troy Dean]

Thanks for reading. This would be about the pain experienced in losing the person you most love in this world. So rather than rejecting that pain, as its too overwhelming or allowing yourself to experience it in small doses, this about inviting all that pain in at once, not as your enemy or something that means you harm but as a friend. It is only then that wisdom the pain contains can be properly understood and resolved into something very beautiful and more fitting to the memory of that love. A nice quote from Rumi refers to this " the wound is where the light enters you"

[Troy Dean]

or just ditch this explanation i just gave and continue to wonder, where wondering takes you can be quite wonderful