What does and does not befall me

When all else is foreign and incomprehensible,
your pages are clean secrets
told only to my tired eyes
as I return to my planet,
one which today orbits
a colder, more formidable sun.
But on a lighter note, the comets that have befallen their planet have neatly soared past mine, I remain unaltered.
I can barely sense on numb palms the meteor dust from those tragedies,
I shrug inaudibly.
Continuing to relentlessly learn
and invariably forget.
Halfheartedly battering walls
that wouldn't come down
had I a whole army of me.
With eyelids that open in slow motion,
the weak sweep of lashes
catching perhaps,
the vintage matter of my entropic peers,
shattered like shards of tempered glass,
shucked into feathery shrapnel, sifting,
shed like pixelated snakeskin,
burst to puffs of an epidermal mushroom cloud,
motes of them molted so close
to where my perception desk stands
ostensibly behind these vitreous panes
and yet I remain, wholly, estranged.

Author's Note

I suppose this is addressed to Sylvia Plath, surprise surprise.
Prince passed yesterday and I wish I could say I knew more about him and his music. He is a comet here.

Reviews

[h d e rushin]

it sounded like a dear-john letter (a thing I know a thing or two about) where someone has
already decided to move on and a letter is used as just an explanation point. To squeeze out the
final vestiges of judgment and sentiment. Plath new sentiment, or knew of it, but didn't befriend it. Nor pity or
shame. Just the need, (our need) to come full circle with what hurts us the most.

Having to leave hurts way more than leaving...

great poem Marcie......dana

[M. Shepherd]

Oh gosh yes. I often don't even understand what I'm thinking or feeling until I read what I've written later. To leaving - it's compulsive. An itch. Thank you for the thoughts and insights Dana. :)

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this captures the numbness of Plath or others like her..."had i a whole army of me"
is a great line...the clean secrets, her tired eyes...the mushroom cloud in her head...

some really intense imagery sweeps through this poem in the slow motion...you mention...

and this opens eyes to that battle within...really like the war images..fits so well to her.

[M. Shepherd]

Love the insights you've drawn. Food for thought. Thanks for stopping by, Jacob. :)

[. serah .]

-- ah... to me... this seems like an exquisite expression of life reaching out to death... and almost saying that it would rather be dead than alive... -- i dunno if i'm able to convey what i mean... -- there's a character in indian mythology who was cursed... he was forever in suspended animation between heaven and hell... and somehow this piece reminds me of him and his state...

[M. Shepherd]

It is that, in a way. An homage to the unknown as we sense pieces of it. Thanks for stopping by Serah. :)

[. serah .]

-- my privilege, Marcie... :)