i am not a person.
not the kind that busies itself with the home hearth
or settles because it feels like it belongs somewhere.
a bomb went off in my chest once
and ever since i haven’t been able to keep my legs from walking
or my mind from aching or the cavity where my heart and lungs were
from throbbing, throbbing, throbbing.
i cannot settle my restless limbs under any one roof
or let my toes dig into the earth in any one spot
while my entire being sighs with relief and an echo bounces off the nearest wall:
“this is home.”
i built a castle where my heart used to beat itself to death
out of the fragments of my ribcage,
and i planted flowers using the lining of my lungs as fertilizer.
the things that grow around the empty spaces are all wild,
but it soothes my agitation and keeps my nails from scraping
up and down my thighs (and up and down and up and down).
i am not a person.
my hearth is my belly and my home is within my own bones-
the ruins of a lost empire
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141,266 Literary Works • 674,332 Reviews
Hi Harry here for a review:
OK the title draws you away from the poem itself a little bit, I was expecting something different and you had this. Great job keeping the reader guessing. This I would have put the genre under romance. Because of this part made me feel about heartbreak: a bomb went off in my chest once
and ever since i haven’t been able to keep my legs from walking
or my mind from aching or the cavity where my heart and lungs were
from throbbing, throbbing, throbbing.
i cannot settle my restless limbs under any one roof
or let my toes dig into the earth in any one spot
while my entire being sighs with relief and an echo bounces off the nearest wall:
“this is home.” This I would have thought about your heart being destroyed. And I also didn't get where the bomb was at a house. It happened inside of you. But overall this is one of the good poems because you have feelings in your words. A lot of poets use their inspiration with the things they care about. And you clearly have feelings for the things you write about. I would love to read more of your work. Happy Writing and keep up the good work:)
Hello.
I like the general idea of this, but I think it falls apart on how you are relying on the tiniest stitches of metaphor to convey meaning, without really having much actually gripping the pieces together.
For the most part, you have hints of things here and there. You have the hearth, the civilization, the rebuilding, but nothing is really what I would call tight. They're not explored enough to really have something stick.
I do like what you're trying to do with the third stanza in particular. The second one has promise but it feels like it's too physical for the whimsy of the second two stanzas.
There is a really clear split in the poem where you have two really metaphor rich stanzas and two really literal stanzas. I don't dislike it, but the little stitches that connect the fantastic and the mundane don't feel like enough. There could be so much more, here, and it's a little frustrating to try and grab but not be able to reach.
Overall, I like this and I like the rawness, but I also feel it could use a little more. Maybe not length, but maybe a little more coherency. Of course, watch me say that and remember this poem for years, because there's nothing quite like something a little wrong to make it memorable.
Hope this ramble helped. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
~Rosey
Thanks for the poem! It's a confusing and therefore unsettling piece. The writing style reminds me a bit of an e e cummings poem, specifically "i am a little church." It makes me wonder if the speaker is a person (despite their assertion to the contrary), a building, or an idea.
Not everyone will agree with me on this one, but I wish the poem was a little less abstract.