I think it would be more powerful if you just cut the first stanza,
Laura, which tends to say the things so often said....
as its last line says....
Doug
On 5-Jun-07, at 5:11 PM, Laura Heidy wrote:
> I Tell Myself
>
> (for Patti)
>
> I cannot bear to talk of how you died
> by your own hand. I cannot bring myself
> to cry in front of anyone. My pain is shame;
> my grief is guilt; there is no way to blame
> this loss on God or fate - and so, each time
> I'm asked, I lie. I say that I've survived
> your death and life goes on and nothing's changed
> except you're gone. I do not speak of things
> unspeakable - I mutter platitudes.
>
> I keep the circumstances of your death
> tucked hidden with your note. I lick the blood-
> stained envelope to seal away the pain.
> I tell myself repeatedly that guns
> and ropes and razor blades are just the same
> as unchecked cancer cells and others die
> in self-same ways a hundred times a day.
>
> I cope. (I do not cope.) I comprehend.
> (I will not ever comprehend.) I cry.
> (I'll never cry again.) And when I'm asked
> if I am on the mend, I tell the truth.
>
> (I lie.)
>
>
>
>
> ************************************** See what's free at
> http://www.aol.com.
>
>
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Art has to be forgotten: Beauty must be realized.
Piet Mondrian
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