TW: domestic abuse, harsh language,
your breasts are full with milk but they're still too small.
you're gorgeous but don't fuck him enough.
you're intelligent but a little too emotional.
I love you but if you ever cross me again,
I will fuck you up.
attention whore, selfish flee, slut, ungrateful leech, prude, bitch, scum of the earth,
I can't wait for you to die.
.
what if I said these words to you?
would you still keep me around?
My take is that this poem portrays repressed emotions of a character, who is of an indeterminant age but is perhaps married and taking a night class, maybe an art student, who has a partner and is in a pretty serious relationship (unclear if a marriage).
ReplyDeleteThe trouble starts when the female character becomes self-conscious about not cooking and fearful of being unloved, because of an unreturned kiss and an apparent cold moment.
This immediately spirals into a hyper-intense interior moment of hateful, vengeful, sex-infused thinking that reflects how messed up the relationship really is.
The speaker, until the italicized part at the end, is the poet. The italicized part at the end is, I suppose, the male character, who is violent and dangerous. It's possible, though, that these lines are also being imagined by the female character, which would create quite a different poem.
But who is speaking in the final stanza? The poet or the female character in the poem?
This poem might work better as a short story. It is built out of a short story situation and seems to want to do short story-type things. As a poem, I think it needs to be longer if the narrative is going to click. The extremely harsh part from the violent man in the poem-story comes is not fully realize in the poem, which lack details that will allow readers to see the emotions in context. We know the poem is about abuse in some sense, but we have to guess at a lot of the rest. Is that what you want? Of course, it is up to you as a writer.
totally agree about this working better as a short story because there is so much to unpack here.
Deleteas for juxtaposition, though, i think it's beautiful how well you were able to connect the language from the first and fifth stanzas when talking about "curled fingers". in both situations, the speaker is surrounded by things she loves (art and her partner),but one of these things is good for her, the other is violent.
I love this. I felt like I was preparing to paint as you said, "wrists relaxed, breath steady, eyes focused.
ReplyDeleteThe way you describe the process of preparing puts me in the moment i love this. I love reading on in the writers mind and I was brought into reality in this great moment when you said "and he had leftovers anyway" this was a huge message of the idea of not waiting for others and just doing without considering.
When you go into the fifth stanza you say
"your fingers are curled again,
but your wrists are tight, your breath choked,
and eyes wandering. I would suggest you say
Your fingers curled tight again,
But your wrists are tight.
Breath choked, eyes wandering
I just think without the ands and yours in there the words you want voiced are seen more. Since this poem is about a rough topic you don't want filler words. I love your closing lines they left me with my mouth open in shock when you said "I can't wait for you to die.
what if I said these words to you?
would you still keep me around?
I love you." the speaker wants them to die but ends off with confessing "I love you" unfortunately this is part of abuse and leaving is hard. I like how you kept it in reality and spoke in that light, great job!!
I love this poem. It honestly caught me off guard, so it stands out from other poems from our class. I love the intensity. This poem shows ruthless language and is direct in setting the intended mood. I would not mind even more detail, because I want to know what is going on specifically. Love this!
ReplyDelete