Escape

There is no greater love than to give your life for another,
or so the man says. But the definition of life is nebulous.
I have given mine yet I breathe, eat and barely sleep.
Perhaps we are already dead and no one has told us.

Should I take the poison or you?
Perhaps you would prefer the blade?
Both ways suit us perfectly, but it matters not,
there is always a mess left behind for someone else to clean.

I suffer for you
I suffer with you
I suffer because of you
I would suffer without you

Emotional spatter clings to the wall
as Jackson Pollack smiles with approval.
The world is misaligned, the stars are crossed
the universe continues to spin making us nauseous.

Our pain is a level five contagion.
You are lost and I am your lost light.
Grab my hand and run through this forest 
teeming with despair, darkness and dependency.

We are tied together like escaped fugitives.
The run is slow as grasping thorns turn toward us.
This war has demanded our lives in advance,
and the treaty has no intention of being signed.

Hot ash falls from the sky
in a pryroclastic explosion of thought
traveling exponentially toward the
slippery slope of our escape.

Dare we look for the place where light
dapples through darkened branches?
Does the truth linger there?
Still we know the truth is highly overrated

as we flagellate ourselves with the edge of it.
Truth is freedom's dirty little secret,
but we will ask her to unlock our bindings
and free us from each other despite the empty echo.

Reviews

[Rita L. Sev]

This wraps the reader in gray; you painted the emotions brilliantly, Blue. Some great lines here - love the Jackson Pollack reference - and this: Truth is freedom's dirty little secret... a fascinating line!

[icelandicblue]

Life can be messy. Thank you so much Rita.

[alifeacoustic]

Truth is freedoms dirty little secret...So many fantastic lines, running into each other.
I suffer for you
I suffer with you
I suffer because of you
I would suffer without you...
Every angle you look from you are caught in a never ending catch 22.
Giving life, as you say, not always means the end of it. You give in so many ways that it is unfathomable to think we cannot survive this.
Wonderfully intricate writing, compact, following a path, yet so much meaning within. This is one that will read differently each time it is read. Superb.

[icelandicblue]

Thank you so much. I appreciate your beautiful review.

[alifeacoustic]

You're very welcome.

[rubie]

the best poets are the ones who take risks in their writing.
you have done that...brilliantly.
this poem is bursting with profound thoughts and each time i read it, i see more.
the third stanza about suffering makes me think of so much...especially that it is far more painful to watch someone you love who is suffering, than it is to suffer yourself...
Amazing write!

[icelandicblue]

rubie,

Thank you for such kind words. Love makes the suffering of others much more painful than our own, of that I am sure.

[.]

-- you are very expressive... and i'm especially amazed by the last stanza... (particularly the expression "truth is freedom's dirty little secret")... -- i sometimes say that poetry is a fingerprint of the soul and a tool that can take us towards some sort of poetic justice... and i see a lot of that on this page... though i cannot know how much of it is real nor want to... -- i'm merely mentioning the thoughts this piece triggers...

-- also... people are usually too afraid to reveal the kind of vulnerability and fragility that you have articulated... -- i've just read one post by you so far and it seems to me that you're a fearless poet... as well as a very sensitive one...

[icelandicblue]

Thank you serah. I definitely bleed all over my poems. Thanks again.

[.]

-- you're very welcome, girl... -- it's very rewarding for me to read you...