They say my body was not designed for this world,
so I built a new place to live.
While they’re sleeping, I reach in and enter it, this new world,
mysterious and perfect. It feels like sinking into a golden sea
or becoming song, a plume of lavender smoke.
Here there is Turkish tile-work and whispering walls,
underground cisterns lit red from below, silk brocade in the dark.
On the beach, I am cocooned in honey, bare and shell-less.
A mother takes my body and lets the sea eat me alive,
her braid a line of sea-grass, her flesh a resonant warmth
as she feeds me to the dark water.
There I discover a new language, but the words are mine.
I think them without thinking.
I’m floating through a glass-still ocean with floating leaves. There are
beautiful creatures swimming in the dim water.
And what is this feeling, this heaviness, these hollows where no sound can escape?
And what is this arch, these columns, these tendrils of fog,
and what is this night, this air, this realm of the unreal?
I am looking down on a tree, its white roots reaching toward me,
its bark adorned with ribbons swirling up from the abyss.
Here there are things not called by names;
here there is nothing but silence. I feel it bubbling in the earth.
There are pulsing galaxies, inscrutable as my own soul.
How much more beautiful this world is, how much more alive!
They say my body can’t possibly go on like this,
and I look down at my empty shell. I will come back,
but for now I will fall into the darkness, the most infinite sea.
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140,103 Literary Works • 673,007 Reviews
Ah now this is a brilliant piece of work! Absolutely brilliant visual language which is something i am starting to expect from your work. If you wanted to make this even better, perhaps put the definition for Paracosmist at the beginning just to inform those of us who have never heard of it. This poem is beautiful though and fits with the overall themes of your works. I would love to one day see your works published, seriously you've got the talent and the ideas! Thanks for writing this, it really is lovely
Thank you <3
Hi!! This poem is absolutely GORGEOUS. I have a friend with a paracosm and she describes it much like this. This poem has such a beautiful and dreamy style with which it's written that I feel like I'm there, like I'm floating. The creative and beautiful way you use words is so unique and creates a spinning and magical feeling to this poem that fully brings the reader into your world. Often when reviewing, I pick out a few lines that I loved and talk about them, but I wouldn't be able to choose because each and every line holds new wonders. The way you began and developed the story and your world before closing it with the most perfectly beautiful stanza is,,,, GAH!! This poem is so incredible. Thank you for writing this.
Thank you so much <3
Hey there, your poem really made my day
Each verse of yours is quotable, they're all so unique and yet fit so well together. The imagery is vivid and I could feel like I was escaping with you to this world you describe so well,
Although this poem lacks any rhyming scheme or structure really, it still flows naturally and felt like poetry. Not just words strung together.
This here is immediately attention-catching since it totally breaks the structure that had been built beforehand. And when you look closer at it, it's understandable.
Apart for the anaphora "here", apart for the sibilance on the second verse, apart for the personification on the fourth verse, and other literary devices you've used that I probably don't even know exist, this has such a deep message, such a deep connection with each of us, that it's truly worth the attention we've brought on it.
Behind every verse I read, a vast world unfurled in beautiful colours and landscapes. Almost as if the words were painting a whole new world in front of my eyes, which died at the last stanza, when you pull away from it.
Truly a beautiful poem, can't wait to read more from you <333
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Little side note, the "ability" you've described, to escape into worlds you've built yourself, is called Escapism. And if you're worried that it might be unhealthy, don't. It's not a mental illness, it's what it is, an ability that you should be proud of having.
It becomes unhealthy if you "go there" to escape from reality. If you use it as a way to ignore your problems, if you use it as a way to forget your life, then it can ruin you. If you use escapism for those reasons, perhaps you should try interacting a bit more with the world, you'll see it's worth living after all <33
Thanks for your feedback!