Togetherness

For some reason, I feel like this week’s poem has a slightly different vibe to it, for lack of a better word, compared to some of the other poems in this series. It started with a rather vague concept that became more defined as I worked on it, and I hope that comes through when you read it – and that you enjoy it, of course!

First Poem In This Series: To Witness, To Behold, inspired by ‘Sowing The Seeds Of Love’ by Tears For Fears

Previous Poem In This Series: Simulated Greatness, inspired by ‘Do Ya Wanna Taste It’ by Wig Wam

Togetherness

You do not need to take this ribbon
in your hands; it is already wrapped,
tight, around your fingers, a concept
so vaguely familiar that noticing it
is not a shock, but something reminiscent
of a memory: a confirmation of a whisper.

Look at it, at how it twists around
your skin, carving knuckle from knuckle,
nail from nail, and then: observe, onwards.

Vibrations, every shaking one of them,
become figures entangled in the mess
that brings us, bristling, together,
baring teeth and yanking on the line
in the hopes that the next will be toppled.

You can only see so far, after all:
you can imagine more, but the one in front
and the one behind are all that’s concrete.

Blood is escaping from your flesh–
has been escaping, all this time, but
it is only now, that you’ve noticed,
that you find the breath to panic.

Is that buzzing a warning siren
from your capillaries–is it, perhaps,
psychosomatic? Does it matter, now?

They know you’re here, and they know
you are between them. Now, that precious
and oh-so-precarious pause lives, and waits.

Tremors still, as their eyes adjust
and your fingers shake, and the ribbon–

tightens. There is a tug,
but is it you?

Bare your teeth and snarl, soldier;

your war has been chosen for you.

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