A Small Request

[everyadventure]

If you would have the courtesy to die
then I could mourn you properly,

sipping feebly on green tea through a bent straw,
waving away offers of soup and toast
with the flick of a pale, bony wrist

and listening to our song wail
on an endless, angsty loop
when everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

while wearing your old jersey,
the one you thought was lucky
until I jinxed it.

But you stubbornly insist on existing,
persisting with life, and love...
leaving me to this meager grieving.

[Delta40]

Very powerful (but I think maybe toast should be croutons!) How well you paint a grieving existence within a relationship EA. Sharpen that blunt knife set.... :-)

[hillwalker]

Croutons? A little too sophisticated. I'd stick with the toast and hope he chokes on the crusts.

This reflects the lot of many couples as they reach a certain age where one partner becomes senile or infirm - a slow death and consequently a drawn-out grieving.

It's tender yet pragmatic in equal measure.

If I might suggest one adjustment, I don't think 'angsty' is necessary - read it out loud and you might agree,

H

[ShadowsCool]

Everyadeventure: I think you did an excellent job with this. Maybe like Hill said and you have a real winner !

[Doralace]

Deliciously perfidious! It must be a silent dream of so many couples, or of children re their parents... a great craft!

[Twota]

I love it lots ;O nice :D

[yuka]

Touching and powerful.
I love the two lines:

when everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

this song sounds maybe beautiful and melancholy

[beautiful_heart]

It is melancholic beautiful poem. I really like it.

[PrinceMyshkin]

What a strong (sad) poem! Perhaps the denial of a proper right to grieve is one of the cruelest things about a relationship gone bad. (But yes, I agree with Hill that "angsty" is somewhat too chipper or too folksy.)

[MystyrMystyry]

Very toasty every (or should I say Blondie?)

How did you jinx the sweater again precisely? I seem to have missed it...

Why have you got it in for this dude so bad - correct me if I'm incorrect, but it seems to be a recurrent theme of yours - try ratsack in his porridge, perhaps?

:)

[Bar22do]

Very powerful, a little heart breaking, but basically - life...

[everyadventure]

@Hillwalker, the tone of the poem was supposed to be one of self-mockery, and I was hoping "angsty" would be the word that tipped the poem definitively in that direction. Yes, it's a silly, melodramatic word, but that was why I chose it :)

@yuka, the song is at least a decade old, but it's a good one. "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls. Worth a listen.

@MM, first off, my poems are not all about the same person. I seem to "have it out" for a lot of people ;) The poem is about breaking up with someone, and everybody expects you to just move on, when really you're grieving for their loss. And the jersey was jinxed simply because the narrator wore it, and anything associated with an ex-girlfriend is automatically jinxed!

[Jerrybaldy]

Whether deboning a chicken or making a small request I would not like to mess with you Miss. I think like many of us you are stuck on here barking at waves whilst life carries on regardless.

[everyadventure]

@JB, yes, life (and people) have a way of carrying on without me. And I am left complaining to all the wrong people. What's a girl to do?

[Jerrybaldy]

carry on regardless?

[MystyrMystyry]

I get it!