Poem – After All This

Hello! It’s been a quiet, sun-filled Saturday for me, which has been just what I need today. Weekends begin to have a certain savour to them when school starts to get busy!

The poem that I want to share with you all tonight requires some explaining… This past week I had my first experience with passing out, which was… interesting to say the least. 😀 (I’m fine now, thankfully!) I decided to process that new experience (as I do many experiences) by writing poetry. Then I had to write a ‘golden shovel’ poem for my poetry class. It’s a rather specific type of poetry that involves honouring another poet’s work. Instead of trying to explain it myself, I’ll just let the experts do it here. I chose to write my poem in honour of one of Rupi Kaur’s poems found in her book, The Sun and Her Flowers. So, this poem is a combination of my own processing and a ‘golden shovel’ poem. I hope you enjoy!

~

The sky is loud in my ears, and I don’t understand what

they are talking about so insistently. My head is

heavy – no, maybe it’s just rocks sitting on my eyes. I am stronger

than this. But I can no more move from my seat than

if I were pinned to the ground with boulders, and still the

sun sits heavy on my face. In this moment I feel more human

than I have in a long time. They tell me to breathe and my heart

is unsteady as I inhale, exhale, again, again. I don’t know which

stranger presses water into my hands, but my heart shatters

a little as I hear them say “It’ll be ok,” over

and over again. I want to reassure them that I’m fine and

this was all a mistake. Instead I hear them say “Let’s move her over.”

Then the world comes into focus with a chair below me and

 arms around me. I breathe, feel the beat of my still

shuddering heart. My eyes open, surprised – after all this, the world still lives.

~

So, there you have it! 🙂 I’ve been enjoying playing with new forms of poetry recently, and while the passing out experience wasn’t exactly fun, I’m glad it at least gave me some new material to write on. 😀

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this poem in the comments! Do you have experience with blacking out?