We left ghosts of ourselves in empty houses,
so many that we lost count
until we each were thin and spread out.
We were young and foolish then
and preffered it that way.
Transparent against the setting sun,
we barely cast out shadows,
and everything went straight through us,
be it words or fists or the breeze.
Untouchable, even to each other,
but the way our voices reverberated
through us like stones knocking against our bones
was too good to pass up.
Standing in the depths of the river rapids
as the water rushed through us,
tickling through our stomachs
like a wild swarm of butterflies
was too good to pass up.
Sometimes we felt a longing;
we didn’t know where it came from.
Maybe it was our ghosts left behind and
aching for us to return to forgotten places,
or maybe it was us aching for our ghosts.
We didn’t stop to consider
that the butterflies could ever have been locusts.
The part where growing up is inevitable
always managed to escape or notice.
But somewhere along the way someone got lonely,
though we could never admit to who,
and we returned for our ghosts.
Strange how until then we didn’t realize
how cold it had been to be hollow.
Now it was strange how our skin rebuffed the wind.
Strange, and thrilling, how we could suddenly hold hands,
and how it was better than all our years
spent in the rush of the rapids.
Comments
Coolness
This was chilling and eerie, in a good sort of way. I was reminded of grays and blues and the occasional purple. I could picture it well too.
Great Job!
"Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more less or other than what you really mean; That's the whole art and joy of words." C.S. Lewis
It's like Peter Pan in
It's like Peter Pan in reverse. Because Peter Pan makes you want to stay a child... and this makes it seem like such a gift to finally grow up (and still remember).
I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right. --The Book Thief
This is just lovely!!
This is just lovely!!
A poem begins as a lump in the thoat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness -Robert Frost
Emilee @ http://fantasticalpaperrealm.blogspot.com/
Wowww
This is incredible! Fills me with such comfort and hope.... like, even though it feels good to be hollow (fists go through you) - it feels even better to be whole!
It actually - this might be a weird comment to throw out - makes me think of dissociative identity disorder (/multiple personality disorder, as it used to be called) where a person splits off into a million pieces because of a trauma or traumas they suffered... they 'dis-associate' from themselves because it's insufferable to think that such a thing could happen to them - so they leave parts of themselves like shadows or ghosts in the past. And I think that the only possible healing is from revisiting those places and inviting those forgotten parts back in - to feel whole once more! I don't think that was the point of your poem, but the ending just seemed so restorative or healing or something.
It also made me think of revisiting childhood in general.
Anyway, that was only through a couple read-throughs: I could see this being discussed way more thoroughly in a classroom, haha.
You really should publish a book of poetry!
You're too amazing. This is
You're too amazing. This is beautiful.
"You were not meant to fit into a shallow box built by someone else." -J. Raymond