Constant Reassembly Required
Monday took her eyes
Monday took her eyes. Making no bones about burning them out on tides of acid tears, until she sank into unseeing.
Tuesday took her teeth. Plinking like piano key chips onto kitchen tiles.
And Wednesday took her tongue.
Thursday sucked the guts out of her, like slurping an oyster. All her courage gulped away.
But Friday took no more than her smile.
Saturday skinned her alive. A molt of raw nerves, at the mercy of the world.
Sunday gathered her pieces. Ready to begin again.
About the Creator
Lauren Everdell
Writer. Chronic sickie. Part-time gorgon. Probably thinking about cyborgs right now.
Website: https://ubiquitousbooks.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scrawlauren/
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Red Silk Ribbon
The morning the girl became invisible, her mother tied a red silk ribbon to her wrist. The girl said she was only invisible, not lighter than air like a balloon, she wouldn’t drift away. Her mother tied the other end to her own wrist, saying she wasn’t so sure.
By Lauren Everdell2 years ago in Poets
Comments (3)
Gosh this truly feels like what the days of the week does to a person. Loved your poem!
Six days of torture with but one of respite. No joy in the work, play, food, sunlight, darkness or people. One day of sabbath simply to tear it all down again. Reminds me of the old joke about the guy who found himself in Hell, given the choice among three doors to enter for the rest of eternity. Granted the right of previewing he discovered behind the first door everyone standing in dung up to their chins. Behind the second it was only up to their waists. Behind the third it was only to their knees. He chose the third. No sooner had the door closed behind him did the demon in charge of the condemned say, "Alright, coffee break's over. Back on your heads."
According to one writer, in Shelley’s famous sonnet about time overpowering tyranny, “the ending falls like a trip-hammer.” In this poem, where (unlike in ‘Ozymandias’) time is on the side of violence, I felt a hammer fall in the last line, striking and above all heavy. That final, plangent clang resounds as the un-finality of repetition: a Sisyphean cycle of seven steps. The last line is right to leave feeling implicit: around words that assemble into seeming neutrality – but also affirm survival or endurance through pain, thus adding nuance to the tone. I especially like the imaginative comparison for Tuesday, and what reads to me as doleful irony in the Friday line, a well-placed understatement. Turning time into subject(s) stresses unfairness: the days gang up on her, 7 to 1. It can also be read as a coping strategy: trying to alleviate the abstract absurdity of suffering by naming adversaries, potential bearers of blame.