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Literature Text
As I sit here, in this twelve pm class,
I wonder what it is like at your home,
so silent now - that, when I loop my y's
(why did you choose this, why did you pick
her, why didn't you just return home or, better
yet, why did you not leave home, leave
the rest of them to suffer as you have always
done) and dot my i's (bright and filled with love,
a warmth you give away as if you could feel
it—dark and unending, burnt and withered
like the trail of bodies you have left, you still
leave, behind), notes filling my page, my
mind wanders everywhere and nowhere.
In this room, others like me bursting at the
seams, I am sure I am the only one who thinks:
"You are not evil."
Not in this hallowed hall are you allowed to be
human, to be one with more than a single face,
to be the judge, the jury, and the executioner -
only a man who kills with such disregard must be
a monster, no matter the lives he has saved with
his degradation - and so, in this clinical institution,
we watch this criminal, his deeds and misdeeds now
playing for fellow law students and I must write
down not just your actions, your heists, the
deaths you collected along the way, but also—
"Define evil: the lack of remorse in which one
harms another. Define good: the lack of malice
one has."
Then, only then, do I look back to you with your
deadly sins written for us to judge and to all,
at once, say guilty; I see you, you criminal on
death row, I see you—I see how you held your
dead mother, your now-dead lover, your sweet
dead son; I see how you pressed your lips to
trembling, elderly hands - hands that reached for
you as you blessed their lives with a hope that even
they, those of gnarled bone and wisdom, had long
forgotten of; I see how you brought your literal
blood money to them, to a large and extended
family of yours, and shared your wealth with them.
I see you, you criminal on this screen, take
life and send it away, as if stealing a life of hate
and giving a life of love - so I write down yet
another line with loopy y's and dotted i's—
"Define human: where good and evil is balanced,
where good never tips the scale."
And I close my notes to the sound of a ringing bell.
I wonder what it is like at your home,
so silent now - that, when I loop my y's
(why did you choose this, why did you pick
her, why didn't you just return home or, better
yet, why did you not leave home, leave
the rest of them to suffer as you have always
done) and dot my i's (bright and filled with love,
a warmth you give away as if you could feel
it—dark and unending, burnt and withered
like the trail of bodies you have left, you still
leave, behind), notes filling my page, my
mind wanders everywhere and nowhere.
In this room, others like me bursting at the
seams, I am sure I am the only one who thinks:
"You are not evil."
Not in this hallowed hall are you allowed to be
human, to be one with more than a single face,
to be the judge, the jury, and the executioner -
only a man who kills with such disregard must be
a monster, no matter the lives he has saved with
his degradation - and so, in this clinical institution,
we watch this criminal, his deeds and misdeeds now
playing for fellow law students and I must write
down not just your actions, your heists, the
deaths you collected along the way, but also—
"Define evil: the lack of remorse in which one
harms another. Define good: the lack of malice
one has."
Then, only then, do I look back to you with your
deadly sins written for us to judge and to all,
at once, say guilty; I see you, you criminal on
death row, I see you—I see how you held your
dead mother, your now-dead lover, your sweet
dead son; I see how you pressed your lips to
trembling, elderly hands - hands that reached for
you as you blessed their lives with a hope that even
they, those of gnarled bone and wisdom, had long
forgotten of; I see how you brought your literal
blood money to them, to a large and extended
family of yours, and shared your wealth with them.
I see you, you criminal on this screen, take
life and send it away, as if stealing a life of hate
and giving a life of love - so I write down yet
another line with loopy y's and dotted i's—
"Define human: where good and evil is balanced,
where good never tips the scale."
And I close my notes to the sound of a ringing bell.
Literature
Choose choice decide decision
The decision doesn't matter.
or, not really.
But can I choose another
without being buried in that decision, can I stand in the storms
of my own doubt?
That is the real test.
Securities and lack of, flashing
like strikes of lightning
across my face
And normally I choose to be broody
And unhappy in my consuming turmoil,
Mine. Possessive.
But these things strike me anyhow.
Be like the water. Soft, heavy,
Sometimes crashing,
Characteristically true.
Literature
once more with feeling
just tonight,
i will reduce myself to instincts.
when your hand settles wide and warm on the curve of my hip
i will allow myself to ease into you,
to sink into this infrequent surety -
to feel small,
(just now, just tonight)
and lay my body and my vulnerabilities bare,
trembling and receptive to your heat -
your solidity -
your mercy.
i will be reverent,
(just this, just once)
enamored of each breath,
each plane and edge,
each soft channel between
each heaving pair of ribs -
i will allow myself
(just once, just once)
to consume you,
to find myself
consumed.
(just this, just please,
just -
)
Literature
morning broke the spell
morning broke the spell
the mirror shattered, now
a galaxy filled with fluttering shards
dancing in air so still it's a wonder
anything could break at all.
softly, winter scars our lungs.
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© 2017 - 2024 hedonophobe
Comments5
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I truly love the situation you portray in this piece; where you have someone grappling with the more horrid and intimate wrongdoings that humanity brings at an individual scale. Your imagery is fantastic, and the ending line is astounding. You have a beautiful tone to your writing which envelops the reader, and I think it was beautiful how you pushed a narrative through your work.
The one thing I was unsure of is if "class" was meant literally, or if the narrator was in a jury duty situation. I read it as the latter in the first read, but in the second reading I was left uncertain. The stylistic parentheses did throw me at first--but what is in those brackets I love--I believe that this may just come down to personal preference.
Lovely, lovely work.