[brigits_flame] About-Face Absolution
Jul. 13th, 2012 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
1stmateAbout-Face Absolution
I cannot face the time I spent
putting you off, claiming to be
good and normal and the good boy
that my mother never had. You
should have had me, then.
You could have had me, then,
if I'd been able to admit to a little bend
in the sheets. I would call those years wasted
but for the time I spent with you,
being your friend if nothing else.
I cannot face the time we were:
stolen moments in bedrooms and attics
and basements and crawl spaces;
stolen nights in your obscenely large closet.
I can't bear to remember the night you took me
and marked me and called you yours,
for fear that I will blend the now and the then
as thoroughly as you mixed friend and
what-the-hell-ever with the touch of a hand
to the side of my face. You always were about
crossing arbitrary lines and dragging me with you.
I remember thinking at least this one's legal--
but I shouldn't, because I'll want, again.
I cannot face the time I gave you away.
Would you have gone so readily without
my approval of Emily? If I hadn't set us up
to get drunk and share you? I wanted to punch her
for taking what I offered. Next time,
I'll be sure to specify that it's just a loan.
But she's gone now, and I have yet
to come back, in any capacity, to you,
even though you're still my everything.
It's not that I don't want anything if I can't have it
all from you. Your friendship is more
than I really deserve anymore, more than
I can ask you for, more than I could stand
to have rejected, so I'll wait here for you to
come back to me, if you could still want this cowardly boy
who never outgrew his first gay crush on you.
I wonder if you can face the one who gave you away,
forgive the one who hides from the truth and the past
in an effort to hide from longing after you,
love the one who still tries to be mother's good son
despite how much better it felt to be yours.
I cannot face the time I spent
putting you off, claiming to be
good and normal and the good boy
that my mother never had. You
should have had me, then.
You could have had me, then,
if I'd been able to admit to a little bend
in the sheets. I would call those years wasted
but for the time I spent with you,
being your friend if nothing else.
I cannot face the time we were:
stolen moments in bedrooms and attics
and basements and crawl spaces;
stolen nights in your obscenely large closet.
I can't bear to remember the night you took me
and marked me and called you yours,
for fear that I will blend the now and the then
as thoroughly as you mixed friend and
what-the-hell-ever with the touch of a hand
to the side of my face. You always were about
crossing arbitrary lines and dragging me with you.
I remember thinking at least this one's legal--
but I shouldn't, because I'll want, again.
I cannot face the time I gave you away.
Would you have gone so readily without
my approval of Emily? If I hadn't set us up
to get drunk and share you? I wanted to punch her
for taking what I offered. Next time,
I'll be sure to specify that it's just a loan.
But she's gone now, and I have yet
to come back, in any capacity, to you,
even though you're still my everything.
It's not that I don't want anything if I can't have it
all from you. Your friendship is more
than I really deserve anymore, more than
I can ask you for, more than I could stand
to have rejected, so I'll wait here for you to
come back to me, if you could still want this cowardly boy
who never outgrew his first gay crush on you.
I wonder if you can face the one who gave you away,
forgive the one who hides from the truth and the past
in an effort to hide from longing after you,
love the one who still tries to be mother's good son
despite how much better it felt to be yours.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 08:17 am (UTC)Yikes, Ouch. can I ask in small letters - has HE seen this?
Love you, Blue.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 07:42 pm (UTC)I swear, one of these days, I'll write a nice, happy, uplifting sort of human-story! I can't stand making you sad week after week! :)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 08:02 pm (UTC)Scuse a silly old woman! HUGS.
Well, write me a happy when it is time to BE happy... can't do it when one isn't!
Loves yer. Old Blue.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 08:11 pm (UTC)I am generally a very happy person! It's just easier to write about other things, I guess. Hmm, scale. I can probably do happy with that. (Maybe. I refuse to make promises I don't know that I can keep.)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-17 07:18 am (UTC)I do find that poetry and things that matter really, are always written in the downtimes. I suppose one is too busy being happy that one cannot stop to write about it. Or is it that happy means words that are so - feeble - futile to describe flight into bubbles or suchlike.
I find that my favourite poets always wrote meditatively and darkly, and some have the ability to make me bleed inside. I can't read sometimes as I'm impossibly upset. Its a damn good therapy tho... put on Bruch and Mahlers 5/4 and Rachman.. and Tristran and Isolde.... read the bleeders (teehee I mean the sad ones) and have a bloody good howling BAWL... sob sob sob.... then feel all better cos I've made an eejit of myself, but it was LOVELY!!
I think I've done a few happies, must go and peruse and see.... aaaah yes, one about getting old and dancing naked in the dew (at 82!!!) teehee.
Scale - how do you see a scale? I see from
bottom to top- (ooooops that is bad wording)... from below upwards and I'm usually at the higher end of the scale... lalala and loopy too!Look forward to your entry this week.... and if you can, do one for JFF as well....LOTSA Happy!!!!
no subject
Date: 2012-07-17 12:20 pm (UTC)I'll only give you one clue for my upcoming Scale entry - I'm not using "scale" as a noun. (And while the first draft (I am ahead of the game this week! whoo!) is not dark and all-consuming sadness, it's perhaps not happy either. More of a vaguely melancholic contentedness. with a side of contemplativeness.)
I think that in your writing, even if it's not the happiest subject, it's sometimes so joyfully written that I don't notice anything but happy! I'm thinking in particular of that one with the worm, you know? Poor worm doesn't make it, but that story just makes me so happy.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-17 01:52 pm (UTC)Ahem. Scale not a noun? could be an adjective? Verb? ah, yes, Adverb.... thank you for sliding my mind sideways. I am now into the French... Escale, Escalier... hahahah and what about de-scale for the coffeepot? oh god, here I go. need to do that prompt...
And the worm? that was real life, man! Me - in real life, thinks all is going fine, then blatt!!! and I retreat and find myself stuck arse-uppards wondering wottinhell went awry!
I see my life a one enormous great joke! It's the only way!
Bless you and look forward muchly to the contemplative melancholic contentedness. That sounds very - comfortable! yes, nice!
Bless you dear lad, HUGS!!!, Old Blue... must go and de-scale...heh heh heh
dodos rolling out the edit wagon,he pauses
Date: 2012-07-22 03:04 pm (UTC)I cannot face the time I spent
putting you off, claiming to be
good and normal and the good boy
that my mother never had.
trying to justify the redundancy of good there. Proper for the first one perhaps? Or Right? acceptable? And I would not have put in the and. I would suggest a ; instead. scans better, at least for me.
Now, you may think I am going to go on like this..but that is the point..it was just that one line that sort of stood out to me.
I would suggest, and it may well not be needed, that you break up the third stanza into the incident and what you are like afterwards? Just a thought.
Very intimate, ever so well written.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-28 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-23 07:27 pm (UTC)There is so much I love about this poem. Wow. Again, I love your voice.
This is really mournful, but the most tragic element in the poem is the speaker's longing to reconcile himself with himself, and I feel like that is getting mixed up in other 'stuff' here.
Your first and second stanzas are lovely, truly. The movement through them is wonderful. I hope you understand what I mean by that. I would remove the colon in line 1, though. It's a bit confusing.
When I get to the last lines of the second stanza, however, I'm completely tossed out of your poem:
I remember thinking at least this one's legal--
but I shouldn't, because I'll want, again.
Wait, what? I feel like I'm reading lines to a completely different poem, here. This may have been what was thought, however, without anything else to tie this in more successfully, I feel like I've gone from reading about an adolescent's struggle to come to terms with his attraction to another boy to reading about an adult who is trying to come to terms with finally being attracted to someone of the age of consent. Rather than weigh down the poem with explanation, I'd just edit these lines out. The second stanza ends beautifully without them.
Next time,
I'll be sure to specify that it's just a loan.
But she's gone now, and I have yet
to come back, in any capacity, to you,
even though you're still my everything.
It's not that I don't want anything if I can't have it
all from you. Your friendship is more
than I really deserve anymore, more than
I can ask you for, more than I could stand
to have rejected,
This part got a bit clumsy and leaned toward self-pity in a way that is very different from the sad, but sharp insightfulness and regret that is so apparent in the rest of the poem. I understand what you are going with this and you arrive beautifully at the end (both the end of this stanza and the last stanza), but the road there is really rocky. It just needs some attention and TLC. Be gentle with the speaker. The self-flogging here is not mindful of all that is going on. As a poet, self-flogging is never carried out in a poem without the intent to reveal oneself more deeply. It is totally mindful and deliberate. Here, there's a vulnerability that is still all bundled up beneath these lines. Push on this. See what lies beneath these lines. This is too safe for this lovely poem.
Thank you, once again, for sharing yourself with us.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-28 01:54 pm (UTC)OKAY YES I'LL TAKE THOSE OUT. NOT WHAT I MEANT AT ALL. More of the always crossing arbitrary lines and at least crossing this one is still legal, unlike many of the others ones.
Speaking of reading wrong, the last couple of lines, nothing awkward there? It occurred to me a couple days ago that it could read, uh, interestingly, but you didn't mention it, so maybe it actually isn't?
Mindfulness and whatnot, I will take another stab at that part despite my instinct being to run and hide. Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2012-07-28 02:15 pm (UTC)It does. :) I had to reread that at least once my first time through. I think all that might need to change is a substitution of "despite how much better it felt to belong to you."
I don't always give feedback on everything. I pick out the major stuff and then often let some other stuff go. I know as much as I hate feeling like I'm getting picked apart, I want to know what needs fixing, but I'm very cognizant that this can be too much for some people. I'll do it, though, if you'd like!
no subject
Date: 2012-07-28 02:18 pm (UTC)