GTR's Poetry

I wrote this about my family

I've learned to become desensitized. To disengage from what goes on inside this house. It has nothing to do with me. All of her grades, all of her problems, I have no connection to it. All her rage, all of her screams, have nothing to do with me. And yet, I hear everything. I feel like I know everything. I'm omniscient. I hold it all. I hold secrets that can put people behind bars if I simply confess. I hold emotions from others that I keep stored in a little locked box in my mind. I am natural, I am cool, I am calm. She is like a flame that dances, and if it dances enough, can become a fire, a burning fire, a yearning fire, that sets anything in its bath ablaze. She is on fire, in every way, in all of her being, as hot lava leaks from her eyes and her volume and intensity is heard from her voice. You can make out the agony and wrath, you can hear the sorrow that was converted into rage.

I am still. I am ice. I am frozen. I don't say a word as she spits sparks of ember on my silver sparkling edge, as I melt a little from the heat, as I break down from her voice. It's like her entire being is an orchestra, a mad orchestra, that has ascending chromatic notes, ascending dynamics, ascending emotion captivated by the music on the stage, that sends the audience into a frenzy. It builds tension, it builds fury. It makes them melt from the fire. And it makes me break down, solid becoming liquid, liquid becoming gas, as my sharp crystallized edge of pure ice becomes dull, as a drop of water rolls from it; a tear. She has the power to tear me down and burn them, ash and all.

And here I hear mother Earth, weeping as rain falls from every corner of the planet, the animals of the Earth and the insects, the humans and the trees, the flowers and the fields all wonder what is going on, her bedrock is broken. Her trees begin to fall to the ground, because a forest fire has struck in her heart. She is the reason the elements thrive, and how the elements betray her. Still, she fights, green and blue and clouds white as the snow that falls sometimes in the north, giving her frost bite. Or earth and dirt as red as the fire, the fire that burns her and makes her skin jolt.

Air is present, and yet it is not. You cannot see it. It's almost as if it is not there.

These elements are connected only by love, and with that comes faith and trust and hope, hope that things will get better. The air, the absent air, feeds into the fire, making her grow. The Earth is the only reason for everything. The fire, the tremendous fire, is so bright and loud, making the house burn down. Making this home burn

Down,

Down,

Down.

And I am still. I am ice. I am frozen. I don't say a word.