Motion Sickness

by MyHalozChokinMe   Nov 7, 2012


The ship has sailed and you're a stowaway.

Anxious to find another phase,
another casualty of casualty,
another annotated history.

The clocks are rotting, the hull
is thin and you can hear every whisper
of water in the creaking cabin.

You're fogging the porthole with your
breath, chasing death in the space
between the bullet and your brain.

But
you're
waiting
for
an
echo,
or
an
answer

Cerebrum spattered on the deck like
a Modernist painting to cure our
collective cancers of habit.

Well, if fate's a gun, all you
need to do is pull the trigger:

Shrapnel embedded in rotting wood,
all the possible permutations of
a setting sun, to make a home in the
womb of a white whale or sit cross-legged
at the bottom of the sea until your
lungs give out, the final threads of
an unraveling rope-

And, sometimes you look at the ocean
and all you see are pillars of salt,
there are only shadows of fossils in
dry riverbeds, the crack of splintering
timepieces, glass and gears and pure
terror, expectations in varying
states of disrepair.

If you're anchored to happy-endings
and heroic deeds, or immersed in
the cure of the open sea, you will
find no resolutions on this deck.

Only the noose finds closure,
man in death,
casting away
another phase
Looking back to
the shore
with
no
regrets.

~Seriously, I've said this before, there needs to be an ANGRY category~

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Latest Comments

  • 12 years ago

    by Exostosis

    I was hoping someone would have posted an interpretation by now, because I am quite unclear about the over all message of the poem.

    Perhaps I am over thinking. The poem can be interpreted in multiple ways. The title "Motion sickness" along with a ship mentioned in the poem, clearly describes sea sickness. But I cant seem to pin point the give away of the poem with accuracy. I mean, is the author mad about the time spent with his/her lover on the sea in the past? ..and is he/she butchering those memories because they are smothering on a daily basis?. .or is the poem about a stowaway individual finding himself upon an abandoned ghost ship?. .or is the author exaggerating the sea sickness after just boarding a ship. Although yes, the poem does seem to personify sea travelling as a relationship. The lover stowing away on a ship i.e trying to get away with an alibi, a cold lie. Thus Motion sickness = Fear of getting into a relationship/trusting a lover. But referring to some lines, it seems as though author is speaking about a deceiving ship. The ship symbolizes hope/optimism, and trying to stow away silently into happiness, the ship betrays all on board. Thus hope is deceit. The poem somehow speaks of life and love in general. Certain lines seem to depict a war and the ruins, aftermath. The author is venting frustration at the end, seemingly disrupted by the notion of being helpless. I've never been good at interpreting poems that tip towards abstraction.

    Anyways, I love your use of scientific jargon. You could have used the term "brain" but you used Cerebrum. "Permutations", probability. Very impressive.

    The poem is very well written though.

    • 12 years ago

      by MyHalozChokinMe

      It took me awhile to come back and respond to you, I found that while writing my poems is a manic process, where I don't have to struggle to find the words, the metaphors, the jargon, comes easily-

      Explaining the thought process has proven to be most difficult.

      This poem, in short, is very much about betrayal. The ship, a vessel that holds all of my pain.

      The Motion Sickness signifies the fear of future betrayal.

      The end is indeed a display of my frustration, with myself, for allowing myself to be a stowaway, on the ship of my past, while really, I only want to find myself on the shore.

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