Unashamed Writing

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Fractured – A poem

poetry is indispensableIf I could stop writing poems, I would. I’m not kidding. I don’t ever come to my computer with the goal of writing a poem. Rather, I’m in the middle of something, most of the time reading, or riding my bike, and the idea for a poem hits me out of nowhere (which is a pretty dangerous thing when riding a bike). Then, after that first idea comes to me, it doesn’t leave me alone. I have to write it out or it keeps circling in my brain and messing up all my other ideas.

So, now that you have more information that you wanted or needed about my poem writing process, here’s my latest one. It came to me today, while riding my bike to my favorite bookstore.

Fractured
By Ada Ireland

 

The day we first met
Time didn’t stand still.
It fractured.
It split itself and me completely in half
I found myself on two sides of one line,
Forever changed, irrevocably divided.

On one side was my old self,
A self unware of you.
Was that self ignorant? Yes.
Innocent? For the most part.
Content? Oh, absolutely.
That’s easy to be when you know nothing yet
Of what can make your soul whole,
Or what can take your heart away and break it.

On the other side was the new me,
Mere heartbeats away from falling in love
And losing every bit of myself
To passion too strong to master.
Is this new self ignorant? Of course, but also a little bit smarter.
Innocent? No, not any longer.
Content? Impossible. That’s out of the question.
Love doesn’t bring contentment.
It destroys it.
Instead it brings pleasure and pain,
Tears and joy,
Fear and self-abandon.

So why do fools praise love and built it altars?
Because being whole might be painless and safe,
But it keeps your soul in a dreamless slumber.
Now that I know what love is,
I’d rather be fractured.

2 Comments

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  1. I really, really like this! Very clever. This actually reminded me of a passage from ‘Morte D’Arthur’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

    ‘The old order changeth
    Yielding place to the new
    And God fulfils Himself in many ways
    Lest one good habit should corrupt the world.’

    Bravo! 😀

    1. Thank you.

      That’s a beautiful poem. King Arthur’s “death speech” was my favorite. Nicely done.

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