pale fragment of face jostled

[qimissung]

they came in the night and stole my beauty
ah, they took my beauty
with careless hands
my insides shiny globules of fat
sliding through their
insouciant fingers
my enlightenment
sliding through the wormhole
past eons
feeling the sun rising
like revenant salt crystals
caught in my throat

pale fragment of face
jostled in the multitude
amorphous love
a molecule too large
to fit into the
chastened tide pools
of my cells
six inches and I'm there
flailing
yet bound
with a searing hope
for life

Qimissung
January 2011

[Hawkman]

Hi qim, Not an easy poem to read, a bit harsh for the narrator's self image perhaps, but it has power. I would suggest that you might be able to tidy the opening two lines though,

"They came and stole my beauty in the night,
took it with careless hands,"

and some punctuation wouldn't hurt. However, the overall effect of the imagery is memorable.

Live and be well, H

[Bar22do]

Qim, it's a touching poem. I think the first time I felt "my beauty was stolen from me" was on my thirty fourth birthday! I believe we have "our mornings" whatever our age... it's enough that winter is too grey and long, or we're worried, feel not loved, are a bit sick, overworked,... but it's a matter of one benevolent smile, or such glance at the mirror and our beauty is back, perhaps changing, but always unique, for it belongs to eternity, not to time.

"Beauty is in the eyes of beholder"... please remind it to the "I" of your poem and -

be well!:smile5::smile5::smile5::smile5::smile5:

cheers from Bar

[Haunted]

Organic and painful. A difficult poem to read but even more so to write. Bravo to you Qim.

[qimissung]

Thanks, Hawkman, Bar, and Haunted.

This poem is not about me, just in case anyone thought it was. It is about a soul trying to be born, or perhaps trying to die.

[PrinceMyshkin]

There is something about that modified repetition in the 2nd/3rd lines


ah, they took my beauty
with careless hands

that moved me so deeply: kind of as if the persona started off with the intention to speak in the elevated voice of Poetry, but her anguish broke free of that and required that she appeal directly to us for understanding.

[Delta40]

I wondered if it was abortion but then I wondered if it was about liposuction and then I asked myself what is the difference? I think your writing is wonderful qim and I would leave in 'ah, they took my beauty'

[billl]

I thought there was something in the spirit of a woman having said "take me" in some of this. There was a lot I was unsure of, but my initial impression was that something sophisticated and sensual was going on with this poem.

[qimissung]

Thank you Prince, Delta, and billl.

You are close to the mark, Delta. The first stanza is about a soul that is trying to be born. Make of that what you will.

And the second stanza is that of a soul that is trying to die. When I wrote it I had this thought that only six inches separates a baby or a fetus from the outside world, and for someone trying to die only those same six inches separates them from the razor, the pills or stepping off a ledge into death.