Thread: Choke

Choke

You are all the notes between my scale,
for plucking later, for some empty words.
Throatless, always laying your head under the bed
where everyone sleeps. You leave your body on a hanger
to collect dust and songs, and all the things people exhale.
You wonder when your spine became dirty,
and if the sawed off pieces are settled now,
and if they’re warm under the mattress.

This room is a petrified
tumble of old music books filled with you.
There are severed staves, excavated and hanging from the pages.
You knead them into the carpet because they need to be stepped on.
You leave your knuckles to make chromatic staircases
of the boys that kissed you there, of the holes they put in the walls.
This room is like choking on the microphone
because your voice is too small.

You like to hold your breath
when you dismember your body.
You like the way the doorway engineers mirrors
of being whole, noted where there are holes.
Sometimes the hands you left in your daddy’s shoes
like to fan out the books and move memorizing muscles,
where you’ll key the next cut, just to know where the piece will go.

So make me rhythmically worthless.
I’m undotted, unspotted fingernails cutting your hair from the headboard.
Twist it where your neck should be and make windpipes
out of me.
I’ll be heavy when you collect some lungs
because I don’t like you empty.
I’ll go through this whole room and scale it
over and over, keep every piece the way you need it,
if you control your breath.

This is beautiful, Angel. The musical semantic field has been explored many times in poetry and general literature alike (I always think of Mercutio taunting Tybalt), but when executed write it's always pleasing to see. The first line drew me in and you didn't disappoint with constant metaphors that were pleasing to read, and even more pleasing to unravel.

When you set yourself up to have ever word analysed for relation and meaning, even the large separation between the repetition of 'holes' in the second and third stanza was noticed to me. Maybe changing the second to 'gap' would help?

Thanks very much for sharing this.

Fabulous! Really great. You got great talent.

Your images are as abstract, original, and terrifying as ever. This is a lovely addition to your collection.

Just love the way you create powerful, even terrifying, images, with a few simple words. Your works tend to be filled with surprise throughout, not waiting even for the end. I really enjoyed reading this, and the others as well.