To a Girl Who Will Get Hurt Trying

you're asleep before the record stops

spinning and ceases to a static

and i know that's why

you still drink sugar in your tea

because the world is still sweet

(enough) for your thoughts to turn off.

how often i wish to hold

this beautiful ignorance 

in my own blanched fingertips.

you remember everything about his hands

his hands

his hands

and the way they linger 

like autumn leaves rustling

down a city's alleyway.

you look up at a sky filled

with tiny beacons and pretend

(just for a moment)

that they won't flash and move along

like an airplane

like the sadness

or like everything else.

you wonder why it's so hard

to pull back that nebulous veneer

but you don't notice

that you've put in two sugars

instead of three.

your voice is muffling

and the stars in your sky

are turning into airplanes. 

Reviews

[DrD]

I like the subtle form of this work, skipping with suggestive adjectives from one thought to another and all the while taking us to exactly where it wanted to go. An superb work, indeed.

[Girl Friday (Sarah W.)]

Wow...cut like a scalpel thin knife, this one... I can feel the pain and the desperation, but I also see so many flashes of tragic beauty. The idea of "his hands" (and the repetition of that image) is something that hits close to home for me...my first love had the most magnificent hands. He passed away some years ago at his own beautiful hands, and I don't think I will ever be the same.

and the stars in your sky
are turning into airplanes -- fantastic!

Well done, Dana. Brava!

[Chris]

Gawd this one actually hurt... sigh

[Eva Rosehill]

I really enjoyed this poem, great work. "Two sugars instead of three." Loved this line, it's a simple mistake yet says so much. Thank you for sharing.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

loss of memory...the capacity to remember?

i see a woman who remembers certain things...but is not aware of immediacy..what she is doing...and the speaker is very sad, watching this.

maybe the onset of alzheimers...

at any rate, i maybe really off, but regardless this is really sad..."and the stars in your sky are turning into airplanes"

wow, on that line...perfect ending.