Standing Ground | Teen Ink

Standing Ground

June 15, 2022
By leninacarvajal SILVER, Vancouver, Columbia
leninacarvajal SILVER, Vancouver, Columbia
6 articles 0 photos 0 comments

It's bad


But so badly do I want to go back

and feel your warmth

Soak my skin


I want to blur my memory with swindled sips 

and water the weeds of our past


But how long must I reseal the cracks

You've slithered in our relationship 

 

How long must I stifle this shame in the  catacombs of my stomach


Maybe I'll become one with the walls

And let you suffocate me to sleep


You're the reason I don't want to know myself 


Just darkness and deep


But the blood never stops

It simmers in my fingers and burns to my bones


So I want you to know 


Im done

Walking eggshells on your tongue


I'll stomp and drag my feet through the water

And watch where the ripples 

will flow


So go dig your eyes in my skin

And scribble words in my stomach


You're not mature 

Withholding your spit

Don't forget

The months I've spent curled in that bunker studying the tick of your speech


Anticipating the eruption of your lips


I already know the worst you can do

So go ahead


Because I'll metabolize the malice in your words 

I'll bellow the bullets I've reserved 

I don't care how bad it hurts


Too long have I stifled my resentment, my every objection, 


No I won't make an exception


I'll kill your twisted condescension

and make sure


You know 


Rejection 


The author's comments:

Originally, "Standing Ground" was only supposed to be the last seventeen lines of my poem. I had recently severed a connection with someone I'd know for years, and wrote a bunch of lines about it randomly throughout the following week. The problem was, I had no idea how to incorporate any of it. Then one day I remembered the seven stages of grief (denial, sadness, angry, etc) and then it clicked. I realized it I could assign my random throwaway lines into each category. And so, I had my poem descend in that order with my original seventeen lines acting as the stage of acceptance. If any writers reading have the problem, it's so helpful to use this method.


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