About it all

Sometimes I am so afraid of the end of my life, I'd rather die.

I loiter around the encompassing
borders of feelings unrequited,
because the edge is
barking at me,
low and loud,
to try my patience.

The thoughts smother my fleshy body
while exhaust can put me to fitful sleep,
the slobber is thick that coats my cheeks.

The only smitten nature you find
grown upon me
appears in the damp,
twisting depth of my innards.

My fear of feelings stem deep
like the crawling pace of liquid
seeping downhill
because it reminds me
of all our bodily fluids
that are sealed up inside us.

I've grown habitual tendencies
to tongue the air through a tunnel

in my lips,

it sounds like water dripping from a faucet
or a song
about staring hard at your ceiling through sheets of night.

Can we waltz in slow motion to prose about lonesome winters?
I have doubts about the quickstep to words about spring.

I have doubts about us together even though
we've only been apart.

I have doubts about it all.

Reviews

[Ed Hart]

you may have lots of doubts, but you express them very well, which is always a good start

[Matching Socks]

Some really great lines in this one.
Nice work.

[M. Shepherd]

This is quiet and abstract as all of the most personal expression is abstract and it makes me wonder how people change the very thoughts they think and words they speak so that others can comprehend where they're at. You do not do this. This is pulled organically fresh from the soil of your viscera and it has not been sanitized for the general public. Tendrils of you drip off of it. I could read it over and over and ponder and ponder. It is specific and crisp.

[W.k.kortas]

I found myself nodding my head a great deal while reading this. This is a wonderfully strong piece from start to finish, but I find myself especially enchanted by the final three stanzas, especially with the three repetitions of doubt, three being such a portentous number; I thought of the Trinity almost immediately, even though the final line is a strong expression of a lack of faith (as opposed to Faith, yet...) This is top-shelf work.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

the doubts...yes, they keep us awake at night. they seem to flow like one of our bodily fluids...and the stench is strong---
we doubt our relationships before they start...and once they do....we doubt them more...until we simply talk ourselves completely out of them...

j.

[. serah .]

-- ah, a kind of new peace emerges in your words... -- i dunno if you've written this recently or are just posting this now... but it seems like the speaker within you is meditating while observing an entire universe of thoughts... -- the last eleven lines of this piece slowly cover the sky of the rest of the lines... -- the earnestness in "Can we waltz in slow motion to prose about lonesome winters?" is so gorgeous that it makes this entire piece a symphony about romance... -- the closing is real... authentic... a mirror of the times we live in... -- there's sadness in the air and yet when we doubt it in whichever way, we open the doors to something else... maybe a little more sensitivity... -- this is a lovely piece of writing... perhaps my favourite by you... -- you sound like a ballerina who is striving for perfection... and maybe even looking for newer definitions of perfection...

p.s. for me, the lingering sentiment is not about death... but maybe that's just me... forever hopeful... forever in search of beauty... and life...