Idol Survivor: "Unspun"
Feb. 15th, 2021 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
halfshellvenusUnspun
idol survivor | week 11
You Shook Me
x-x-x-x-x
One dark midnight—
terrible winter,
freeze-borne breath—
I stood tree-cloaked
and silent, waiting
moonward, listening
outward, wanting
with sideways-hoping
a sign pointing forward,
some sense of stepping
from the shadows
and at last being seen.
The world was too cruel,
ruthless and dream-spinning
onward, my light no brighter
than the night-birds
twittering skyward,
singing the stars
into the void of un-being.
From the blackness
behind me, a voice
came slithering
down the trees, slipped
into the husk of me, around
the wind-rattled heart
of me, and found
the careful secrets
of my forgotten self
bound and buried
where I'd always
thought them safe.
"This," it whispered,
peeling away the sinew
lacing, icy fingers
deftly unraveling
the stiffest layers
of awful armor
vainly guarding the truth.
I shivered in terror,
scream-scattered words
lost in twine-tongued torpor,
feet fright-frozen and faithless
as that unknown evil
exposed and devoured
my private victories
and lighthearted longings,
leaving only the untouched
remnants of my deepest regrets.
Nothing could have known
that part of me, the names
of all those precious seeds
of my existence
rooted deep
and painstakingly hidden
inside the silence
of my soul.
It seeped out of me at last,
that monstrous intruder
I had unwittingly called
from the shadows
or somehow summoned
from the Other Side.
Then, in the bleak
and unforgiving blackness
of that terrifying night,
I shrank inward, disappearing,
and desperately wanting
to be invisible again.
--/--
If you enjoyed this entry, please vote for it at the poll here!
idol survivor | week 11
You Shook Me
x-x-x-x-x
One dark midnight—
terrible winter,
freeze-borne breath—
I stood tree-cloaked
and silent, waiting
moonward, listening
outward, wanting
with sideways-hoping
a sign pointing forward,
some sense of stepping
from the shadows
and at last being seen.
The world was too cruel,
ruthless and dream-spinning
onward, my light no brighter
than the night-birds
twittering skyward,
singing the stars
into the void of un-being.
From the blackness
behind me, a voice
came slithering
down the trees, slipped
into the husk of me, around
the wind-rattled heart
of me, and found
the careful secrets
of my forgotten self
bound and buried
where I'd always
thought them safe.
"This," it whispered,
peeling away the sinew
lacing, icy fingers
deftly unraveling
the stiffest layers
of awful armor
vainly guarding the truth.
I shivered in terror,
scream-scattered words
lost in twine-tongued torpor,
feet fright-frozen and faithless
as that unknown evil
exposed and devoured
my private victories
and lighthearted longings,
leaving only the untouched
remnants of my deepest regrets.
Nothing could have known
that part of me, the names
of all those precious seeds
of my existence
rooted deep
and painstakingly hidden
inside the silence
of my soul.
It seeped out of me at last,
that monstrous intruder
I had unwittingly called
from the shadows
or somehow summoned
from the Other Side.
Then, in the bleak
and unforgiving blackness
of that terrifying night,
I shrank inward, disappearing,
and desperately wanting
to be invisible again.
--/--
If you enjoyed this entry, please vote for it at the poll here!
no subject
Date: 2021-02-16 02:28 am (UTC)So vivid and a bit creepy too.
Cool!
no subject
Date: 2021-02-16 11:03 pm (UTC)(Boy, doesn't that sound like a completely whacko thing to say?)
Alliteration is something I really love, perhaps too much... but I think of it as a sort of musical technique in poetry. It pleases my "ears."
Thanks for reading!
no subject
Date: 2021-02-16 08:24 am (UTC)I love this:
"...
the night-birds
twittering skyward,
singing the stars
into the void of un-being."
Brava!
no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 09:01 am (UTC)And that passage you mentioned was one that I really liked as well. It starts off seeming like an ordinary event, but twists into something both dreamlike and ominous, and I love it when writing speaks to the subconscious level as well as to conscious one. :)
no subject
Date: 2021-02-16 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 09:36 am (UTC)I don't do poetry very often, but the darker and moodier poems especially allow creative exploration into imagery and wordplay that I really like. This was such a nice opportunity to stretch a little!
So glad you liked it, and thanks for reading and commenting!
no subject
Date: 2021-02-16 08:08 pm (UTC)It's a very thought-provoking piece - our narrator is searching for a way to be seen, but being really seen sometimes involves exposing our inner-most selves, warts and all, and the narrator is vehemently against the idea of being seen in that way, even going so far as to consider even the thought of revealing part of themselves to be an intruder and not something from within. They're in the process of dropping their own walls and removing their own armor, but fighting it at the same time. Finally in the end, they got what they wanted, but it wasn't at all what was expected, hence the desire to return to invisibility - because visibility requires vulnerability, and that's not always easy to take.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 09:58 pm (UTC)This is all definitely me, but I don't often get a chance to try it out. I used to write more poetry when I was younger, before I met my husband and my life suddenly became much happier! But I think darkness brings out the better poet in me, and it hadn't really occurred to me that darker genres and topics could achieve that even if I wasn't personally feeling down or emotionally at sea.
I'm really pleased that you saw the more ordinary case of the poem's experience as an abstraction, where a person might feel persistently overlooked or disregarded, and think they want to be truly seen and known... only to suddenly remember how imperfect they are, and that being seen includes setting themselves up to be judged and found lacking. :O
Primarily, I wanted to explore the spooky side of the prompt and the unsettling experience of getting far too much more than you've bargained before. But that other meaning was always underneath, because it's just as true.
I don't think I've said this recently, but I LOVE how deeply you read into the layers and details of what I write. It is truly wonderful and rewarding!
no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 10:05 pm (UTC)I was surprised to see poetry from you, but I really like this!
no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 11:14 pm (UTC)I'm glad you got the exact feeling from it that I intended, where whatever the narrator thought she wanted... it was a more abstract wish for the future, not something that happened in the moment and went far beyond what she was prepared for or would ever have wanted!
Like so many horror movies, even when a character intentionally summons evil (which wasn't the case here), they always seem to think that evil will be more controlled and better behaved. WHY would they think that?!?
Thanks so much for reading and commenting on your break week!
no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 11:50 pm (UTC)"Creepy" is what I live for, with an entry like this. Boy, does that ever sound wrong!
no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 11:53 pm (UTC)