Awakening to sirens

This poem was inspired by "Elastic Heart" by Sia, a song that greatly epitomized the depression that I faced and the two sides of myself fighting against each other after a very tough heart break.

whistling winds meet deadly silences

moments of clarity, moments of confusion 

"MOVE! RUN!" 

the vicious twirling of air and debris

the darkness, the pain 

"Don't stay here!" she shouts.

stuck still, glued to the chaos. 

moments of clarity, moments of confusion 

house by house by house destroyed 

to be built again and again and again 

only to fall over and over and over again to the destruction 

never dissipating 

"Why are you still here?! Go! Run!" 

stuck still, eyes to eyes

lay down in the valley, or run? 

no signs of stopping, must take control

"Forward! Run! Don't stop!" 

running, running, running

She's pulling, pulling, pulling

up, up, up the hill

clouds start to lift

upwards they push as I push

calm descending, fear ascending

deep breaths, sorrows lifted

deep breaths, pain easing 

deep breaths, chaos subsiding 

deep breaths, note the climb

deep breaths, continue the climb 

sirens subside.

my own warm arms a comfort. 

lying in comfort, deep breaths, deep sleep

 

Reviews

[Danielle James]

I really like how you've structure this one. The pacing is fast and adrenaline-fueled at the start to match with the tornado-like disaster that is wiping out the houses and causing everyone to run. It's almost like the clips you see in a movie trailer for an action film and it encouraged my reading to mimic a similar speed so that i was caught up in it too. The 'deep breaths' part was brilliant in juxtaposition as it was like when you are panicking about something, full of anxiety, and you repeat simple instructions to yourself to try and restore some form of order in your own personal chaos.

The ending left me with a few questions, was the ambiguity intentional?
Because of the sudden calm i am wondering if this 'deep sleep' is death? But then i am also wondering whether i am reading it too literally and perhaps the entire disaster is just a metaphorical one, and it is all one internal struggle? Were the peaks she climbed legit, or perhaps some transcendental psychological equivalent?

[labellevoyageuse]

Thank you so much for your review! I really appreciate it! I am so glad that you saw what I was communicate in that it was a tornado. I know that I didn't come out and say it. I would say that maybe my ending does need a little work. I want it to be a little ambiguous because I want people to read this poem and apply it to their own storm, however, you're right, it's too ambiguous. Also, it's all a metaphor. While going through my depression, I suffered from anxiety too. The tornado represents the state of my mind in the middle of an anxiety attack as well as the lies that I would tell myself when I was depressed. Depression and anxiety act like a tornado in that it keeps continuing to pick up debris and to gain momentum, or rather reasons to continue, such as lack of self-respect, intense self-criticism, self-doubt, self-loathing, not seeing a need to ever cease, etc. This is how I felt my mind was functioning. The depression would always be fueled by the terrible thoughts about myself that I allowed to enter my mind. So, it kept gaining and increasing. It would seem to pick up, much like my depression would, for awhile, like a tornado picks up and jumps over houses. I had good days. The new houses being built only to be destroyed again represent the times that I tried continuously to rebuild my life and failed. The girl shouting is the side of me that wanted to keep pushing, to keep fighting, to keep moving forward, despite the difficulty of it all. The peaks she climbs are the peaks that I had to climb to combat my depression. The ending is suppose to signify the recognition of a battle won, the recognition of having found safety. Anxiety and depression created a constant sense of being in danger for me, so the end is suppose to show that I finally conquered the self that was terrified of moving forward. I constantly felt like my mind was a chaotic organization of overwhelming thoughts and feelings. Do you maybe have any suggestions on communicating the end better? I'm definitely open to suggestions.

[Danielle James]

I think your explanation is excellent, and although I wouldn't have been able to gather such specifics from the reading of the piece, I definitely think you were successful at getting across a lot of the motifs you've gone on to share. A tornado seems to me a perfect metaphor for the cycle of depression you described you went through. I have not personally had such an extreme experience, but your words really helped me to understand such a circumstance which I think is really powerful and a testament to your skill as a writer.
As this poem appears very personal it is not wholly essential that the ins and outs are directly understood by the reader. I think the poem works well with the ambiguities as they give the reader the leverage to make applicable their own experiences, allowing their own interpretations to shape the poem into one suiting their own personal dilemmas.
One thing though, that it might be worth thinking about is your perspective. For this there was one part that bothered me. The poem is for the most part in present tense, so as I understood, the narrator is experiencing this storm at the same pace that the reader is reading about it. When it goes:

house by house by house destroyed
to be built again and again and again
only to fall over and over and over again to the destruction

I feel like the narrator suddenly becomes omniscient, and for some reason it didn’t quite fit. I love the imagery, and that the metaphorical houses are symbolically being destroyed and restored in a cycle – it’s perfect for her personal chaos as her whole world is subject to both total annihilation and back again. However, I think that this is something you’d only know in hindsight, and in the midst of the present tornado I don’t think contemplating future restoration is something that would be on her mind? (But that’s just my opinion if I’m being pernickety, please don’t feel like it’s a criticism). Maybe, if I was to make suggestion, these lines could be placed a little later in the sequence of events? It is mentioned that amid the confusion there is also clarity, so it does also totally make sense, I just think when you’re consumed by anxiety and harmful thoughts, clarity is something that might come once those feelings subside (i.e. once the tornado has passed). So maybe more towards the end you could put that what has been destroyed is capable of being restored (perhaps by the narrators own hands?) and as she is at this point at the top of the hill, symbolic of rising above it all, her positioning will suggest that she has won this battle, or, if there is to be a negative spin, her positioning will also provide a subtext that at great heights her balance (both literally, and emotionally as she has found) might teeter and fall, which will be the same implication as the tragic cycle you described.

[labellevoyageuse]

I guessed I had never thought about how I do shift perspective in that part, but I definitely do. I think it was definitely subconscious because I did write this poem after I felt that I had climbed that hill. So, I am looking at it from the perspective of having fought the battle. I think for me, I always felt when I was having an anxiety attack or a severe bout of self-loathing that I was never going to get better. I always felt like the houses that I kept trying to rebuild were always going to keep falling to the destruction I was creating in my mind. I'm not sure how I would communicate that without allowing the retrospective portion to come into it too much until the ending like you suggested. I do agree that the retrospective portion should be put more towards the end. To try to explain it best, I would always hope for the restoration while viewing the tornado occurring. I felt at a loss to control it, to stop it, but I always felt hope when it lifted, even if it was just for a few hours. Also, something else, concerning the ending, the verse "my own arms a comfort" references mostly how I needed to rely on myself to change. It was up to me to find that inner strength and to choose to fight the battle. My own arms were the those which fought the battle for me and those that held me when it was all over.

[Danielle James]

the solution might be as simple as just changing the phrasing - make her musings sound more uncertain perhaps? it would be rational for her to speculate upon further destruction and hope for reparations. but yes, just think about where in the immediate chaos it would be best to place her contemplation of such a trajectory

[labellevoyageuse]

Thanks for your input. I greatly appreciate it. I will definitely look into making some changes. I just started writing a book. I have the introduction written if you don't mind taking a look at it. It's under my "Undecided" post. Thanks.