Unbecoming
a poem (written for the Full Moon challenge)
It all starts with the drift.
Not a fall, or a slump, or a catapult, catatonic, from here;
You were always the one for dramatics, so you should know
That’s not where the action is.
It’s when you’re halfway between here and atomic dust
That anything and everything happens - when you fight
To stay, not because you want to, but because
There’s wolves out there, in the space between your thoughts, the gaps
In your unraveling frame, your bone marrow, your wilting will to be;
Where mirrors don’t show faces but hearts and, worse,
Fears. I drift, first,
Limbs reaching with disintegrating fingers and toes, scraping
Up against the crumbling marble cage of my skull, cracked
And crushed at the sight of all the ways I could have stayed.
And the worst of it all isn’t that I could have
But that still, I won’t.
\
Stubbornly, every molecule of me becomes something else.
Underwater jello seeps through you, but warm-not-wet and cruel -
It would alarm me, but not you; it beckons,
Lures, leads with a smile, a promise of comfort and
Clarity, that not all is well, no. Not at all
You are sinking into quicksand, fading beyond the knowable universe
And you dare me to let you go.
After all the terrible things we've done, after every betrayal,
You want to shatter the sky as you go. Typical.
I leave you behind
Swim up through gravy days, through pillowy color and
Waterfalls of what could have been
Flowing out from a well of nightmares
That you're still climbing up out of
Closer and closer, the tap
Of your claws digging in, a pulse threatening to stop -
You’d strangle yourself with your own heartstrings before
You’d ever let me love anything else.
For some, self-destructiveness just doesn’t cut it -
Even the stars, stoic at their brightest, aren’t content to simply go out,
And neither are you.
You’ll rip through the cosmos, bursting the dams of your own solar system,
Burning everything in your path until you get your way.
I fling myself across the expanse before I remember:
I am nothing, not a ghost, not a memory, but just
The shadow of your wrongdoings, duly done deeds and lack of regrets.
The whimper within me doesn’t exist
If I don't let it trouble you.
/
You wait in the wings as, infinitesimally, I reassemble
Real life doesn’t feel quite so when every part of you
Has been to worlds away and back, in the blink of an eye -
I’m me again, but I don’t think I’m thrilled to be.
Had Theseus seen what’d become of his vessel, would he have
Burned it all to the ground in horror?
You’re relieved that I’m playing nice, but I just forgot
That I used to know all the rules to this
Funny, deadly, hilarious little game that we play.
Maybe next time I’ll make it out:
Escape your frantic clutches, hide perched in oblivion as I drift
For good, eyes closed and twitching beneath
The skin that used to be mine but
Has been wrung out and stretched back over me so many times
That now, it just doesn’t fit like it used to anymore. But then,
That never mattered much to you… did it?
About the Creator
Savannah Sveta
Once in a while, there are words in my head that feel like magic. The rest of the time, I'm just imitating myself.
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Comments (2)
Oh wow! This read like a trip and not the good kind. You captured menace and magic and twined them together so elegantly I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. So beautifully done. ❤'d and subscribed 🤗. I also want to thank you for your defense of All You Leave Behind. I couldn't find you in Facebook so I thought maybe I could catch you here and read this lovely poem.
I love how dynamic your descriptions are—there's a fluid sense of movement that tells a detailed story with few words. This line really spoke to me: "Even the stars, stoic at their brightest, aren’t content to simply go out" Beautiful!