The Plummet // by Jennifer Patino
I’m trapped inside a vicious nightmare,
my own body a prison
How does one fight
something that exists
so deep inside?
To remove it
would mean to die
with lack of grace
like the rebel angels
when they fell
When they plummeted down to Earth
only to find
a new version
of a cyclic hell
Over and over,
and over again
choices echo
like whirlwinds
The only sound
answering back
is the howling
and the occasional
knock on the window
from a frightened
tree branch
that tried fruitlessly
to escape its master
The oak trunk
just outside
my battered window
stands tall,
stands proud,
stands strong,
stands its tilled ground
Its strength won’t let me go
no matter how
wicked the winds blow
Barely lucid & paled
are my eyes as they stare,
They find nothing there
but silence
as my innards sear and burn
Look closely and
you’ll see reflecting
off the orange lights, the turn
of my hallucinatory haze
A glimpse,
a shudder,
one gasp,
one tear
One minute turns in
to so many days
If this ship
is emptied,
with no one on board,
my ears will still hear
my own screams,
and the air
will still be
thick with suffering
you can cut through
with a sword
Pierce me now,
end it quick,
for the clocks tick
with every fluttering blink
The spectators choose
to stay blind,
they turn their heads
and count to ten
They pray for forgiveness
as I descend,
alone
I am welcomed
by demons
disguised as men,
but a part of me remains,
surrounded by friends
Time stops,
it restarts,
and it will forever
begin again
* Author’s Note: Another revision today. This one was originally written in 2009 under a different title I wasn’t very happy with. This makes more sense & I have changed a lot of it. The added stanzas to the original give the poem more depth & I included more rhymes because it was losing its flow near the end. I remember exactly where I was when I wrote it along with the scene & the emotions I was trying to portray, & I believe I’ve done a better job articulating it now that I’m so far removed. I don’t even want to share the original here because it’s pretty awful! 😀Â
