We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

11.7.25

Heartbreak


isn’t easier the next time

 

not a task you master,

a skill at which you improve –


no, it’s being stabbed repeatedly

with a sharp blade


each piercing as painful

as every other


every time





Form: textu


Written for Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings #185: Don't Be Afraid to Start Over, this was intended to contradict the prompt – but I now realise it's a misunderstanding of it, as starting over is not the same thing as repeating an experience with another of the same kind. However, as this is what the prompt inspired in me, so be it.




11 comments:

  1. And yet... one cannot be afraid to fall in love - again and again - and expect a different outcome!! Exactly on prompt, I think! :)

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  2. Yes, poking that scar sure feels doubly painful... Excellent poem, Rosemary!

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  3. We were inspired the same way it seems!

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  4. Most days I read your write before I go to.bed. Now I ve been looking for a song that I thought it was a Beatles song but isn't. Your poem made me think of it ". . . and I cried, I cried, cried. Closests were a lot, the lyrics to Ebie McFarland's "cry, cry (Till . . .) seems to me to be the closest fit responce that I found. She even had an old red Nissan pickup. Later a blue one also. (p.s. Also you've lived this by having two husband die. So did my mother-in-law, her say about marriage again was, "I've buried two husbannds and I can't afford to burry another.)

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    Replies
    1. 'Grief,' some wise person has said, 'is the price we pay for love.' Despite the tone of this poem, I still think it worth the price,

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  5. Yes this love thing can be the pits.

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  6. I found the thrill of love addictive, so that despite the grief it continued to be pursued. But the last time I fell in love didn't feel so thrilling and exciting. It just felt right.

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