[poem] silence

[kaberett]

my teeth are tacking stitches
that pin my tongue in place
all the better to keep my mouth empty
and my life silent.

they circumscribe the acceptable
extend false promises of a future
in which we will be complete
and finished and understood.

I am hemmed in by absences
I am entirely unable to comprehend
because I don't know - have never known -
what and who it is that ought to fill them.

Comments

[kaberett]

idefk, teeth-as-tacking-stitches is an image that's been trying to turn into a poem for the last few nights; I had a more elegant version worked out NINETY MINUTES AGO but insomnia, so you get this rough-and-ready off-the-top-of-my-head version instead.

context: since midnight, things I have tried include: breathing meditations. warm shower. melatonin. turning the lights on. reading for a bit. turning the lights on. reading a bit. turning the lights off. writing a tiny ficlet. writing a poem. making myself warmer. making myself colder.

things I am not: asleep.

GRUMP. (miiiight be going to manage now? will try again at any rate.)

[alexseanchai]

:(

[shehasathree]

<3

Sorry you are awake, but thank-you for awesome (ausome) poetry.

[raze]

Ooh. Fantastic imagery here.

[quirkytizzy]

Agreed. Very sharp and clear.

Also, the whole "teeth clacking" and "hemmed in by silences" thing makes for an awesome juxtaposition. Clacking usually means noise, but you bring it up as silence. And clacking (to me, anyways) brings to mind feelings of things being VERY close together, squeezed, uncomfortably tight, but the silence implies too much space.

I really loved that play on images and feelings here.