My students are practicing spoken word by writing emotion poems following a specific formula and focused on only one emotion. They challenged me to write one of my own and, unexpectedly enough, it flowed.
It’s not great, and this blog is probably the only place it will ever go–but it’s honest enough that I want to remember myself as I am in this moment: raw and a little broken, eyes on the horizon.
“Betrayal,”
they say,
“is the
knife
in your back
twisted with a smile
by the one
who was supposed
to hold
you.”
I don’t know much about
knives
but I know about wounds
that have been
cut,
carved.
I know about
bitterness in my mouth,
salt in my eyes,
the cold
weight
of treason.
Betrayal
is rough hands on
your shoulders
pushing you against
a wall,
insistent,
during a walk in the
dark,
quiet night
with only the dew on the grass
as witness.
Betrayal
is the message
delivered with cowardice:
words
on a screen,
after sharp silence–
driven into your
chest
because of his damn
freckles.
Betrayal
is the graze against you
that you know was
not
accidental
because it was accompanied by
a smirk
that is still
bright
behind your eyelids.
Betrayal
is the series of numbers
that
define
YOU
but is lower than what you
worked for
so now anything,
everything,
all the things,
feel
meaningless.
Betrayal
is your own words
spilling out of someone
else’s
mouth
spiraling against you–
a moment of
rawness,
honesty,
that now colors someone else’s
view of you.
Betrayal
is this poem–
in your eyes
and out of your mouth–
words that
tear off the scabs
that you have cared for
over the cut
of the first
treason
to make a deeper wound,
a bigger scar,
an indelible mark that says
you cannot
trust
anything,
even your hands:
they wrote this poem.
Eliava Says 