Poetry: #83 Demise (Demise 21)
And my thoughts after revisiting the words
Demise
Well, oh preacher man the room is empty, cold, and lonely. No there is no past memory lying, sleeping, in here. "There is only fear," you had told me. I wouldn't listen, and it is you who pays the price. When I was young I saw what I would become. It's not easy the path I chose, but it was nice to finally lose. The waters waving goodbye as the crystal blue of the sky darkens. The crystal becomes lava as it seeps up and is quickly replaced by the deep sea aqua. There is not a care of these two behemoths for a simple creature like me. They watch as they do their duties to the earth. It hurts to know soon I will be no more. Furthermore, I would request a final wish, one that would carry forevermore in memory. I want a casket with the perfume of my love, and a luster of a hue perfect for mourning. I want to know that as I decay, my demise is with me. The one care, the one love, lust, and purpose that I had, the reason for suffering, I want it with me. It is a bittersweet memory that I will cherish as I take my final steps. I ask that only the beloved watch my fatal breathe. No, there is no pleasure in murder, nor did I think there was. Only torture. Only pain and anguish can fill faces flush with emotion. I will let my final lesson sink deep in the depths of the waters I tread. Let the next in line see my smile as it is my last fornication, my last commission to a mission that ended insincerely wrong. That is all I know, this throng should not see my demise. But here, here is my price. With one last breath of air, my stature becomes still and pale.
What are your thoughts on this poem?
My Thoughts on Demise 21
You would think I would edit my thoughts on the last poem since it appears I do have a call back to “the price” here as well, but no. I won’t.
Anyway, this is the end of the narrator and the final poem. The clergyman tries to comfort the narrator and finds that the man is unreceptive. The man thinks it is not his problem, but rather the clergyman who failed to get him to repent. In fact, the man doubles down on thinking about all his actions leading to the inevitable conclusion that he sees before him. He knows this is where he’s supposed to be. It’s almost like he wanted to be there, walking to his execution.
But it does pain him, the fact that he will die before nature takes its course. He construes this pain into something else, something darker and maniacal. His final request is to be buried with reminders of his love, the woman he murdered, so that he can rest for eternity haunted by her scent and memory. Indeed, it would be a bittersweet memory to have loved and lost as he had, being the cause for the latter and part of the reason for the former, makes it less bittersweet.
He wants the family of his beloved to see, but only them. He says there is no pleasure in what he has done, only hardship, pain, torture, and death. It is his final lesson that he thinks about, imparting it to the ether of thoughts. Then, he smiles. He never got to fulfill his dreams and neither did she. It is wrong to him that neither of them had the chance and it’s a perverse smile of pleasure that crosses his lips knowing that all things have found balance in some small way. This was his price, as she paid hers. And with that, the story comes to an end as the narrator has no more lines to give us.
Question Section
What are your thoughts about this collection? What about the themes of madness, overbearing emotion, love, death, consequences, and all the rest? What is your biggest takeaway from this collection? Let me know in the comments!
I hear another poem is coming every Saturday!