Vantage Point
In
that
moment
there was
only the single
pinprick of white-
hot endless nothing.
It became my everything.
It became the vantage point.
The precise angle at which I will see
the world from now on is shifted slightly
by this irrevocable thing, a sharp gutting ache
that stabs me through, pinned like a moth or a tiny
Jesus Christ. Well, then, how many angels are dancing
on the head of that pin? I found out. As many as a bottle full
of prescription pills, white impulses. We are tiptoeing around it.
We are not saying the words you want to hear. We are still wavering
on the sharp edge of a steep irreversible decline. My life, my fucking life,
reduced to a memory hazed by a burning in the heart. My eyes were shut,
they still are. Never saw the sirens pouring a blue-cold light, the neighborhood
witnessing a suburban tragedy. And in the glimpses when I could open them, my eyes
held pupils that expanded to suck the universe into the size of a coin, into this singularity
as exact as the pen-tip from which I bleed still frames and fragments forever. This is forever.
6 thoughts on "Vantage Point"
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What a powerful, haunting poem. Its form is amazing, and greatly enhances the poem’s emotions.
Beautiful poem very well-served by the concrete form you chose
This poem could stand on its design alone. Word choice, syntax, diction, etc. all have to be in top form to create something so precisely shaped, and that is impressive in itself. Certainly helps that the story is so piercing as well.
I feel this,young lady. Great job…
Fabulous! I love the concrete shape that mirrors the content.
I love this because it’s the beginning.