Scarlet's Poetry Den - Litany of Scars - Notes to a Missing Lover

Scarlet's Poetry Den

"Litany of Scars - Notes to a Missing Lover"

Leaving Virginia Wolfe Behind (Listen to the poem in RealAudio G2)

fortune cookie crumbs scattered on the table
ordered a whole meal just to have one
I'm supposed to marry a rich man and live happily ever after
that's what my grandmother says too
my grandmother is full of it

these endless nights
turn me into a jigsaw puzzle addict
loneliness progressed to despair
beyond boundaries of time
or desire for a lover
past self-pity or anger
naked angst breaks through
I sink down the wall exhausted

the garbage consists mostly
of empty dreams and cigarette butts
people drift in and out of my room like ghosts
I can't hear our conversations
heart pounding or is it music?

no apologies, Virginia Wolfe
I don't want a room of my own
been locked in too many
in this strange town

nothing will chain, cage or possess me again
there is no closed space left
can hold all me in anymore

the years of my own screams
echo between my ears
till I am sick of myself
sick with myself

I remember when it was spring
and I knew nothing
now searing pain of Vision
rips through the numbness of my being

the parade of hollow men through my life
bizarre surrealistic circus

how many men
dressed in my image of god
have put miles on my body and soul?
how many gallons of useless semen
pumped into my gut?
how many broken promises made to me?
especially by myself

shattered illusions
broken all over the bedroom floor

this dirty business of survival
leaves craters in my brain
I am too tired
too tired of being tired

I defied the litany of my scars
and the sea turned bloodier

I come brutal in my Truth
naked in my honesty
angered by love
a raging red tornado

you feel the scarlet nettle of my hair
sting your chest with passion

it is not easy to be mistress to a myth
what one have I made of you?
what have I subtracted
from the person of your miracle?

you have seen my despair
useless as an empty gun
been christened by my tears
you who make me rage
against the dying of the light

who'd've thought I had so much blood
it's dripping from your hands

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