Can the body survive this?
This pain, this insurmountable pain
Filling up my corners like
Peanut butter stuck to the roof of the mouth.
Can the body survive this?
This ache and drear, curling up my fingertips
And digging deep into the folds
Of my heart.
Can the body survive this?
This wail, this agon cry?
Tearing us asunder with great,
Shredding wings.
Can the body survive this?
This breaking, croaking, stroking
Pulling me downtown into cracks
Of earth and deeper. To your level. Never.
The body can survive this.
The mind can survive this.
The heart will survive this.
But they cannot forget.
-April 29, 2009
"Not that it was beautiful, but that, in the end, there was a certain sense of order there; something worth learning in that narrow diary of my mind, in the commonplaces of the asylum where the cracked mirror or my own selfish death outstared me . . . I tapped my own head; it was glass, an inverted bowl. It's a small thing to rage inside your own bowl. At first it was private. Then it was more than myself." -Anne Sexton
I love the phrase "tearing us asunder with great, shredding wings." Brilliant imagery. And the last four lines...excellent. Reminded me of recovering from a great loss--how you know that physically you can survive it, but there's something left behind that keeps you from ever being the same.
ReplyDeleteIn less than short, I love it.
Bravo, Elizabeth... incredible imagery. Pure emotion.
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