archives, poetry

War-Words: Picture Frame in My Mind’s Eye. {poetry}

 

Let us
once again
explore the black and blue
trenches of battle fields
where hostile confrontations and all-out war
befell lost souls
driven by unquenchable thirst
to know
to believe
to battle for
the right to exist.

Was this our greatest sin?
That we believed each other so flawed
so unworthy
so ugly
so faulty
unless…

Is ours an entanglement of unlesses?
Unless you scrub and shave yourself clean…
Unless you can bend and contort yourself in just the right way
to become the image
I need
to fill the picture frame
hung in my mind’s eye.

It’s made of ticky-tacky
and this’s and that’s
and dark needful things.

It’s made of wilted and discarded dandelions
plucked by tender little boys for the love of
their beautiful mommas.
It’s made of unfulfilled wants and dreams
collected along the way.

What were we fighting about?
Ah, yes
I am a nasty negative person
as are you…
But I forgot where I left my mask
and now I am naked
and yours is still hidden.
Perhaps if I wrap myself in airs
and pretend that I am better…
for naked is just too lethal.

I don’t care what you say!
Your words mean nothing to me now.
*but please
O please
hear me
see me
just once…
…please?

The war is over
or is it?
Do I know you as a dirty innocent thing yet?
A discarded soft child
forgotten by your god?
A picture frame made of neglected and wilted flowers?
Are you a burning heart in hell
all bleeding and sticky and sweet wetness?

Are you an overly ripe persimmon smashed
upon the wooden crosstie
of an honest path
overstepped in the hopes of
bigger, better, more titillation?

Hopes of filling the picture frame with
the perfect picture…
O perfection
justify my existence…
I beg of you…
… please.

But what is it to stop and walk
the messy crosstie path of truth
that will surely leave you
sticky, dirty, and alone?

To leave behind
the gossamer overlay dream.
To cast aside
the perfect picture
that requires endless vigilance
to remain framed
just so.

That gossamer overlay dream
that never quite allowed itself
to touch reality
for fear of naked revelations
and splinters.

I cannot look without flinching
in the mirror
of war-words typed and on display.
Am I brave enough to take them in?
Can I swallow them and fill my soft belly?
Tenderly, can I digest?
Do they need me
to hold them
to gently unravel and untangle
to reveal their light and bring them home?

And are these the splinters made of
lightning icicles dangling from the beard
of an honest
winter demon?

Can you set me free
O demon
with your kaleidoscopic shards of pain
casting truth-words and disillusion-spells and resplendent worlds upon worlds?

And all these years later
worn, rusty, and grey
threadbare and spent
too beaten and weary for a hearty battle
yet still gouging at wounds
unable to give up the ghost.
Are we just too immature, nasty, and innocent
to once and for all
fight no more forever?

Is this what’s left
when we leave each other at long last
when we solemnly and soberly walk away?
And could it be
that this is how we
from afar
past high fells of discontent
through valleys of melancholy
and over oceans of deliverance…

… make love now?

***

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Abby Pingree

Abby Pingree

Abby Pingree spent the first seven years of her life in a hippie commune. She is currently an author, hospice nurse, mother, and student of life. She has made friends with her own experiences with drug addiction, bulimia, dishonest and dodgy behavior by simply telling the truth. She explores these experiences in a book titled: Completion, by C. Abigail Pingree. She now seeks an authentic life. She writes for Elephant Journal and blogs for Huffington Post. She can be found on Facebook and Twitter.
Abby Pingree
Abby Pingree

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