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Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:53 pm
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we meet out at Tombstone;
the night is cold
and I sift through the dirt,
looking for the bones of anything familiar.
I haven’t been home in a long, long time--
everything has died while I was gone.

he watches me and tells me
“They aren’t there-- not really, anymore. They didn’t die.
They just faded and faded and fell away into gray
and they waited, you know. They waited for years.”
he kneels down, pulls my hands from the dirt, and says,
“They are the smoke and ash through which you search
and they are bitter as tears,
bitter as their bones breaking and blackening,
as the popping noises sounded from the fire.”
he pulls me up and wipes the dirt from my skin--

first with gentle fingers,
then scrapes it down,
and his hands chafe at me
tear through my clothes, and
he carves away my skin,
and I pulse, muscle and sinew
throbbing as I stand,
naked
and smokeless

and he parts muscle from heart and says
“You have eaten so much guilt;
it rests in your fingertips. Everything you hold
everything you make, everything you shape,
you are guilt.” He pinches my veins closed,
vice-like fingers of bone,
and he stops the pulse just for-- a moment.
a second.

“You are broken,
selfish; you have thrown away your life,
refused to live. Secluded yourself
because you think you don’t deserve anything more.
You have ruined any chance of anything
you might have been able to do.
You will do this again and again and each time
nothing will end. Nothing will close,
nothing will last. You are human. You are meant to be broken
where no one else can see.
You are guilt and sin, broken in.”
and his fingers release.

and then I am pulsing again,
and I can hardly stand because
it is beating against my bones,
and he reaches in and pulls my lungs away
and he cuts the side and, as I suffocate,
breathes into the punctures.

as I gasp, he speaks in between each exhalation,
“You breathe guilt,
live guilt, speak guilt.” he takes his mouth from my chest,
reaches in and his hands brush against my breath,
scooping out the air at the bottom of my lungs,
says, “You have hated yourself long enough;
there is only ash and smoke and Tombstone for you here,”
and he plucks out guilt,
like a feather from a bird,
like a gray hair from a young head and I can breathe again--
there is skin across my bones and ash covers me,
like I’ve been buried alive,
and I draw breath,
and I can breathe.
  





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Gender: Female
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Tue Jan 24, 2012 8:13 am
Audy says...



Persy,

Oh, that poor narrator.

So me likes: the setting, the images+descriptions. My favorite part:

and he parts muscle from heart and says
“You have eaten so much guilt;
it rests in your fingertips. Everything you hold
everything you make, everything you shape,
you are guilt.” He pinches my veins closed,
vice-like fingers of bone,
and he stops the pulse just for-- a moment.
a second.


Eww. Y'echkth. I like the duality too - of this entity revealing the narrator's sins/guilt, I mean, I like the entity's voice in general - it could be death calling, it could be some aspect of the narrator's personality. I like the ambiguity, because you can read a lot into that. I like the depictions of guilt, and I'm sure the poor narrator is really feeling the pain of it at certain points (I certainly do).

I think the sounds here are interesting too. A lot of slight-rhymes/near-rhymes, musical sounding words - and the juxtaposition of horrifying images with a sweet-sounding musical voice, is always chilling.

What I didn't like so much was how at times it feels kind of repetitive. It doesn't really challenge me to look deeper, or discovers anything new. I wouldn't call it memorable; though I'd call it interesting. I think with me, what was emphasized were certain unique sensations and images, which is good. I guess, it just didn't resonate with me, and I've read better from you. But now I'm just delving into opinions.

In any case, hope this helps.

~ as always, Audy
  








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