deepundergroundpoetry.com
Snap and Break
This is not your life.
At the very least, it shouldn’t be:
Your life should not revolve
Around the snap and break
Of prose into lines,
Or around the crisp and curl
Of words on your tongue
As you imagine how this sounds out loud.
A thousand people live their lives
Between the pages of a book
Reading line after line and imagining,
Somehow, that the poet knows
How they feel as well.
But nobody does: there’s the truth:
Nobody understands because
Nobody else lives inside your head.
We can have the same experiences
But my pain isn’t yours
And yours can’t be mine.
I don’t know how you feel,
And maybe it sounds harsh to say
But how you feel is none of my concern.
And then there are those
Who live their lives writing
Those snap and break lines
And pretending that makes things better.
And maybe, for a while, it does,
But in the end, the pen dries up
And you open the curtains
And the world has carried on.
Nose down, pen to paper,
You miss the pretty things,
And the real things,
And the blur of pain and pleasure
And the knowledge that despite it all,
You’re okay in the end.
And when you lose touch,
The madness creeps in,
And the purpose of your
Snap and break
Is different in the end.
This is not your life.
At the very least, it shouldn’t be:
Your life should not revolve
Around the snap and break
Of prose into lines,
Or around the crisp and curl
Of words on your tongue
As you imagine how this sounds out loud.
At the very least, it shouldn’t be:
Your life should not revolve
Around the snap and break
Of prose into lines,
Or around the crisp and curl
Of words on your tongue
As you imagine how this sounds out loud.
A thousand people live their lives
Between the pages of a book
Reading line after line and imagining,
Somehow, that the poet knows
How they feel as well.
But nobody does: there’s the truth:
Nobody understands because
Nobody else lives inside your head.
We can have the same experiences
But my pain isn’t yours
And yours can’t be mine.
I don’t know how you feel,
And maybe it sounds harsh to say
But how you feel is none of my concern.
And then there are those
Who live their lives writing
Those snap and break lines
And pretending that makes things better.
And maybe, for a while, it does,
But in the end, the pen dries up
And you open the curtains
And the world has carried on.
Nose down, pen to paper,
You miss the pretty things,
And the real things,
And the blur of pain and pleasure
And the knowledge that despite it all,
You’re okay in the end.
And when you lose touch,
The madness creeps in,
And the purpose of your
Snap and break
Is different in the end.
This is not your life.
At the very least, it shouldn’t be:
Your life should not revolve
Around the snap and break
Of prose into lines,
Or around the crisp and curl
Of words on your tongue
As you imagine how this sounds out loud.
Published 28th Jan 2010
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28th Jan 2010 11:54pm
...ideas on writers and writing which leave much food for thought. Not sure that people who think they were born to write would agree with all you say. No matter - you have put this together using an elegant style which I found enjoyable.
29th Jan 2010 3:41am
And yet ironically I am one of those people. I couldn't thrive without my writing, but I think there is danger in losing yourself to it. Like everything, it has to be tempered. I don't believe in letting something 'other' rule you.
