The exercise:
Write something that has to do with: electricity.
I'm having trouble remembering what we did this morning. Oh well.
This afternoon we took a family trip to the beach, because it was hot, hot, hot. Unsurprisingly, especially after seeing how busy yesterday's market was, the beaches were busy, busy, busy. We found a spot eventually though, and the dip in the lake was much appreciated.
Hoping to get our garlic cleaned up and hung up to cure tomorrow morning. Beyond that, I think my plans for the day involve finding time to shave and getting an early start on picking blackberries for Tuesday orders.
Mine:
Sparks.
The first time
We touched
They flew
Like
Lightning bolts
Or
Cupid's arrows...
From
Fingertips they traveled -
Up my arm,
Down my spine -
Leaving behind
A trail
Of tingles
And
Singes.
Now
Though?
The electricity
Doesn't flow
Like it did
So long ago.
I suppose
Our batteries
Need replacing...
Or are
Our hearts
Just
Dead?
2 comments:
It sounds like a pleasant afternoon, though the beach definitely sounds more crowded than I'd like. I was working on Sunday, but I'm down to only working a half-day, so the workload is definitely coming under control :)
I like the little touches especially in this poem: the line "Singes" is elegant and apposite, and the transition from what was to what is is nicely done. The batteries are actually quite beautiful (I'm sure that's the first time anyone's said that sentence!) and the final question leaves a little room for hope... superb :)
[Curiously this came on my music player just as I was starting to write: Inside Out by the New Electric]
Electricity
I figured out how to match the pieces of my heart. I remember waking up, freezing cold and aching like I'd been kicked in the chest by an angry horse. I stared at the ceiling for what felt like years before I recognised it as the bathroom ceiling with the water stain from when the upstairs neighbour's son decided to go surfboarding in their bathroom. Then I looked down and discovered that I'd taken a bath in four thousand ice cubes. Then I saw the scar on my chest and realised what you'd done.
Of course, you left a note on the mirror for me; a little pink post-it note curling up because you never pull them off the pad right. And you left my heart on the coffee-table, a jigsaw puzzle for me to solve. But I figured it out, and I know you never thought I was clever enough to do that.
Without a doubt you can heal the flesh beneath the scar. It's all easy for you, with your degree in Industrial Design and your friends who drink craft beers in darkened bars so narrow that only twenty people can actually fit inside at any one time. They wear National Health spectacle frames with plain glass lenses to recall the days when they were proud hipsters, their jeans are ripped at the knee (and then the edges carefully sewn down so they don't fray) and you all talk about exotica to remind each other, gently, of how clever you are. Me and my television shows, my eager comments about Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga... how was I ever going to compete?
I tried. For so long, I tried. I even bought the Financial Times, and you laughed at me because "pink newspapers are for communists". I wondered then how clever you really were.
You're breaking down the wall around me, it's so clear. But it's not to reach me, not to find the person hiding in the darkness, terrified of the light outside. You just never learned not to break things when you were a child.
Which is a shame, because in your rough approach to things you've also never learned to take your time and look at what's in front of you. And I've booby-trapped these walls.
My dear.
Greg - if that's your workload coming under control... yeah, I don't want to know.
Thanks for the kind words on mine :)
That's a brilliant incorporation of the song. A delightfully creepy scene and an intriguing tale to go along with it... bravo!
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