My apologies for seemingly abandoning my blog posts. I am a terrible blogger, apparently. About a month ago, I decided to finally combat my worsening depression with a visit to my doctor, who officially diagnosed my with chronic depression linked to childhood trauma. I've been on anti-depressants since and have been sorting through a lot of emotional changes and, well, processing my life once more. My poetic muse seems to have returned as a result, though. Here's a new poem I wrote recently since that visit.
Snapping Heartstring
Sometimes one word
strikes a poetic heartstring…
…unsteady.
Precarious toes on a line,
terrified to fall. He could have
shoved me right off the edge.
Instead he kept me silently poised…
Until I became
a drunken stumble
beneath neon lights
when nights are too long
to bear sober…
…unsteady.
Trembling hands on a steering wheel,
face soaked in tears without leaving
that parking lot. He could have
left bruises and scabs on skin.
Instead the violations were more
than words could ever fathom saying…
to be a quivering voice,
finally speaking truth
after so many years battling alone…
…unsteady.
A shivering string on the heart;
it takes one mere word
to snap it in two.
Curled up beneath a blanket
for the weight of agony
is too hefty a load
to carry any further…
…unsteady.
I have been for all this time.
He could have shattered my legs;
rendered me useless to walk.
He could have set fire to human flesh
instead of the walls of home.
Yet he broke me in another way, left me…
…unsteady.
Spirit in fragments, maybe it’s why
patchwork fascinates me so.
I feel the pieces, stitch by stitch.
And I’ve been shredded at the seams,
abandoned in shadows howling
only one word to snap
the poetic heartstring…
…unsteady.
