Abandoned Ship

 

ABANDONED SHIP

I’m not as hollow as I feel
My abandoned shell just off your sandy shore
You mock me with a gentle breeze

Whistling through my rusting plates
Leaving me covetous for the sound
Of life and laughter

Dreams unrequited, memories escape
The integrity of my bones slowly gives way
Falling in upon myself

Emptiness echoes through and down
Lonely passageways once full of light
Becoming a flood of sleeping shadows

A bird occasionally lights
Upon my deck in an animated flurry
To mock me trapped as I am

You wrecked me here
But you won’t take responsibility
Acknowledge all the songs you’ve silenced

And while I slip with time, into the sea
You are within my sight
But too far from the scope of my grasp

Are you afraid
If you took a step closer
My fury would rise up like a wave

Might pull you under with me
And push your bones up to the surface
Exposed, your carcass on parade

You trepidate, the thought of your insides
Stretched out, like some side show fake
Gelatinous sea monster who has lost his venomous sting

Perhaps the enjoyment of the taunt
Has outweighed your concerns
All of your doubts in their nest, little chickens

Clucking to themselves, oblivious
While you play the fox
Sniffing hungrily at the door of your own henhouse

More likely, you are as always
Ambivalent
You don’t know what you want

There is no satisfying conclusion
Standing in the sun, while you feign sitting in the shade
You are not Switzerland when you have an agenda

You can’t decide what leaves you shining
To sink me, to leave me or to try save me
So you just stand there staring from the shore

Gawking at my spreading rust
All my insides floating like an algae bloom
Turning into a suffocating blanket of red

Declaring that you’re helpless
All you can do is look away now
Let things decompose as they do naturally when left alone

LM 2014 – 2018

* A note:

I stumbled across this unfinished piece about a month ago. It’s been sitting open on my desktop begging to be finished. You may notice it has a poem within the poem. That was difficult to hammer out, but sometimes even a free verse poet likes to toy with structure. I actually began this poem several years ago when I was still working through my breakup with The Josh. It was not primarily about him, in fact it was inspired by the photo of a shipwreck.

This is one of those things, that in the old days, I would have posted on Facebook and there would suddenly be a flurry of angry badgers accusing me of it being about something or someone, that it was not. It generally encompasses our experiences of abusive narcissists behavior; spreading destruction and chaos then refusing to take any responsibility and ultimately only being concerned about their image and their needs. This is something many people identify with. It didn’t have to be specific, but I admit, it is ironic and timely. It just isn’t purposefully related to things coming to light, right now that I will probably write about in my personal blog posts.