A Field of Empty Pages

19 Jun

 

some mornings

certain words

try to press into me

and  I can barely feel them

 

I shake off their outlines

like they never meant anything

though once they were air

now I choke and splutter

 

It’s always scary and amazing how

that which once felt like life

seems like death

and some of what I had mistaken

for death

is a lot like life

 

just a bit of it

enough to get me past

the raging feeling that

all of this is for naught

 

vanity, vanity

 

and I don’t have the energy

to disassemble

and interpret

the complex

mixed-up

stories

that repeat

over again in my head

 

with no understanding

lessons gone unlearned

headlines unheard

screaming warnings unobserved

 

poetry forgotten

I drag myself into a

field of empty pages

desperate for some awakening

aching for an exclamation

 

yet

when words fail me

I know I put too much hope in them

they are empty without

the meaning behind them

a heart with no blood

bones with no skin

love with no risk

 

you can’t read in the dark

so I must let the light in

3 Responses to “A Field of Empty Pages”

  1. EHGreenaway June 19, 2013 at 2:04 pm #

    Ummmmmmm …. it’s a bit weird to say such a thing, but honestly, I really felt this poem to be part of my own narrative. My very thoughts!

    Best summed up this way: “The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours” – Allan Bennett ‘The History Boys’

    Thank you so much!

    • BrookeGale June 19, 2013 at 2:08 pm #

      Hi Emma,
      It’s not weird at all. I LOVE it when that happens, it’s why I keep being honest in my poetry and putting it out there even when I don’t necessarily understand it. It is so much bigger than us. Thanks for the comment, it made my morning. and that is such a great quote.

  2. Kim Fusch June 20, 2013 at 6:35 pm #

    One of your best Brooke.

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