I miss you but I’m better off without you
I love you but I hate you more. You never left war behind, you brought it back home. Unannounced cracked the gunshot, gouging into your leg. You toppled, collapsed. Too heavy to carry yet you held. You held onto me. Tight. Wouldn’t let go. Neither would I. You dragged me down. I tried healing your wound, bandaging it, amidst chaos blood drowned my efforts. I tried helping you limp, risked bullets blowing my heart up. They Almost did. Your lucidness lost in the carmine deluge Leaving me to fight the war for us both on my own. Sweating like a whore before confession Flashbacks intruded my thoughts: Our last kiss, the way you caressed my waist pulling me in and— But then again, you always pushed me out. You started to slip, not as tight anymore— our grip. Neither could help it, no fingers to point Just one choice amongst the chaos. Who’d be the strongest, wisest, bravest, kindest Is She who decided to let it all go. For the sake of us both. I had to let you go. Couldn’t carry us two, had to choose one. We died together or on my own I survived. If you loved me like I loved you, You’d have let go first. Leaving you did not mean loving you less. It meant loving me more. I hoped and I prayed and I begged that in peace you rested. I hoped and I prayed and I begged to a better place we’d both move on. I laid your body to rest and kissed you a soaked goodbye One last time, you breathed your last. A bullet grazed my chest. Left a permanent mark. A part of me you’d always be, my first love. But that’s it. You weren’t my whole, still aren’t. May we rest/live in peace. Rationale: This extended metaphor poem is inspired by a Vietnam vet’s speech and life story: His wife left him after his arrival from war because he was a different person. Her perspective wasn’t represented in the speech, so like Carol Ann Duffy, author whose poems this written task is written in response to, I wanted to give a voice to the military wife whose side of the story wasn’t heard. The learning outcome explored from part four of the course is: Analyzing themes and ethical stance or moral values of literary texts. I wrote an extended metaphor poem in order to explore in depth the comparison of a war scene where the soldier is injured, dragging his comrade down with him, with the Vietnam Vet and his first wife’s deteriorating relationship. The motifs of self-love and of a toxic relationship are explored as well as the themes of the independence of a woman and rebirth in absence of a man, which were inspired on Duffy’s poems “Penelope” and “Mrs. Lazarous”. Duffy’s extended metaphor poems “Quickdraw” and “Valentine” were explored as a basis of her style and diction. Like Duffy often does, I wrote the poem from a first person point of view throughout the perspective of a woman, Molly, the vet’s wife. In order to stay truth to Duffy’s style I made authorial choices, such as capitalizing important words for emphasis, such as “She” to highlight that the “strongest, wisest, bravest, kindest” one was the woman. I also used used enjambment from line 17 to 18 to make the pause in Molly’s thoughts longer and to emphasize the juxtaposition made “pulling me in and—/ But then again, you always pushed me out.” Like Duffy, often does, I included sexual innuendo and a range of stylistic devices to give Molly a voice.
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Daniela Ontaneda16 year old Junior at Colegio Franklin Delano Roosevelt who's taking the IB diploma program. Archives
August 2017
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Future Blog Posts:
-Free to Learn by Peter Gray reflection
- If you could change someone's life - If you could change one thing about yourself - Should students be allowed to grade their teacher - What happens after death? - Are precognitions and deja vu different? - Mysteries of the mind - Mentalism - The positive of experiencing pain - What is existentialism -Impact of media on society |