BURNING JOURNALS
by Bryan Borland
for joshua, for me
Tonight we’ve reached the end
of you, the boy-man growing
inside of me for far too long,
umbilical-lined pages wrapped tight around my neck,
your phantom fetus drawing nourishment
from the leather-bound
books of us,
a breathing, fully-formed body of
work complete with tiny, beating heart,
the body of what you could have been to me
surviving long after you chose to be nothing,
my womb-psyche mutilated from
the many stillbirths and suicides,
the multiple miscarriages that left me
barren like the shelves now empty of our biographies,
ice-numb and drunk to you for the last time,
I terminate the words, lighting the match
to begin this late-term abortion.
© Bryan Borland
This is an extremely powerful image. I get this feeling of urgency, regret, revenge, sadness, eagerness and so much more. I love that mixture of emotions.
The man-to-be was all wrapped up in himself.
One has to be taught the art of unwinding,
before things start to get gross.
Damn bloody book, anyway!
Very strange visuals, Bryan.
Next time I go to write,
I’ll put on the rubber gloves.
Lots of cool but disturbing images. I can’t remember the technical term but there’s this phenomon where, in the case of twins, one of them consumes the other. Also, I love the connection between pregnancy and parasites. Very disturbing. It’s sort of like the “Alien” of poems. Spoky stuff.
For a writer is there anything more disturbing than destroying words you’ve written, something you’ve created?
Burning a journal is an abortion.
The realization you need to abort has to be nearly as bad, no?
I agree on the visuals, but I still opt for simplicity this time around.
‘…you chose to be nothing’.
Great.
Where this one came from:
Unrequited love can be grotesque, particularly in our formative years. We can hang onto it forever. Sometimes it takes the equivalent of an abortion to get rid of those hang ups, those scars on our psyche. We hold onto those what-might-have-beens (maybe even write about them in journals?). Those what-ifs are babies never carried to term. You have to rid yourself of them somehow.
heavy somehow, dark, so full of imagery my head got spinning. and i love the tag ‘I saw your picture on Facebook and you look like a jerk’
Tags can be fun.
No reason a poem can’t use a tag to ‘further its agenda’.
the use of the abortion analogy is a bit dark!
I like that =)
Forgive me, but my interpretive skills aren’t too good…are you talking about a break-up? a relationship gone awry? I thought it is…
Your interpretive skills are better than you think, Ben.
Now you’re talking my language! Love the images, timing and flow..For what it’s worth, I’ve burned more writing than most people have written….Perhaps I’ll get my tubes tied…
Seriously dig this!
OK, Bindo, for all the metaphors in my poem, you getting your tubes tied one ups me.
Sorry, I can’t help it.
This one is wild and courageous. Risk is a big part of success as a writer and you have taken this difficult image on and controlled it without taming it.
This is a risky poem… I never intended to use abortion as the metaphor here but it’s just one of those times my fingers started typing and I let it go where it went.
Also…the very fact you have to abort makes it so that you will never forget, yes?
I would venture to say every case of unrequited love is in our formative years. As in, every year is a formative year, no?
Also, I agree with what everybody else said.
Stunning~
From you Michelle, this compliment means the world.
Seriously( if I may), I have one thing to say.
It’s one thing to speak of such a procedure,
but it’s an entirely different experience
to go through the real thing, as it were.
I find no offense with the way
Bryan uses the term.
The shorter the better,
no doubt about that.
Prevention is key, as Bindo affirms.
That’s the why/for behind the
rubber glove comment.
With an illegitimate poem, or a premature one,
I just attempt to keep them hidden for awhile,
in the hope that they’ll turn out alright
at some point in the future.
And yes, I’ve had a vasectomy. Uncle Tree Tide
You’ve had your roots tied Uncle Tree??? No matter. We’re all your saplings!
[...] down. Then I came across the poetry of one Bryan Borland, and found my searching at an end. Burning Journals is everything that I was looking for but could not name. A fresh voice in a breeze of whispered [...]
i have yet to burn the old journals – i think i’ll do it for my birthday