The Intimacy of Poetry
Photo: Chris Ridings, © FATC
Poem by PATEEL EULMESSEKIAN
“You’re breaking me as a human being,” my friend tells me,
as I recount the happenings of the year before in September 2012.
She sits, crying about the boy she loves.
I don’t know if he loves her back.
“It’s pleasant in its tastelessness,”
I heard my aunt say in the background chewing on a Chia.
Press 0 if you want to accept this call.
Mama, mama, mama did you pucker your lips when you first kissed baba?
I tell grandma I won’t be able to hold her hand because my hands will sweat so much
her hands will slip right through.
She tells me to keep a kleenex in my hand.
At the bar, over whiskey, his friend says, “She’s a keeper.”
I’m not sure I want to be kept,
Hey guy, what’s the matter with you!
I should write about my thoughts, but how?
So private.
Share this with the rest of the world?
The beauty of poetry is the willingness to bare yourself to others,
and accept unacceptance.
Is this really how I’m going to die?
_____________________
This poem is a journey into numerous worlds, observations, friendships, and familial relationships. Emotional growth comes about in this poem as well. The idea of growing up, feelings, sharing a life with someone else conjures up positive anxiety, one that allows moving forward. The first part of the poem is spaced evenly with a space in between, but the lines get closer together as it progresses into the second stanza, where rapid thoughts cloud the mind. The speaker starts to get uncomfortable as soon as it becomes about herself. I included conversations with a mother, a father, a grandmother, an aunt, and a friend. The intimacy is allowing the world into not only the speaker’s life and private thoughts, but other characters involved, and how they view their surroundings.
The questions that are mentioned in the poem stem from honesty and frequent processing in the mind of the speaker. There are two long sentences, but one is extremely lengthened and it is a reference to an intensely heightened feeling of indecisiveness. The character/speaker feels conflicted with themselves from sharing a part of themselves with another. I pieced together different points of intersection with different people, which seemed appropriate once I completed the puzzle. Once a poem is written, I take a break and let it breathe on its own. The speaker converses with the poem and treats it like another entity. I’m not afraid to say the speaker is me. The first line and the last line of the poem are complimentary. The first speaks of an event that took place, and the last is a reflection on the event. The middle portion is what happens on the sidelines. Life still goes on but, the thought of that day lingers and questions arise. Pateel
