Double post

I really liked this alot, it's sombre but with a hint of positivity...
Glad it's nominated x

Another beautiful poem, thank you for this :)
Glad to see it nominated
Katrynn

I just had to nominate this! There's so much depth in it, and I have so much I want to say.

I love your use of "pirouetting" here to open the poem. Taking a term I associate with dance and grace with the sharp contrast of blades. Or that you're dancing around the concept of physical pain to match emotional/mental pain. I couldn't help but immediately think of self-harm, or at least toying with the idea of what the blade represents. Its ability to cut through numbness, or instead, to make you feel numb to the heaviness of reality and what you're trying to process.

The second stanza, I at first pictured it as an allusion to writing. Lava being ink, fountain referring to a pen, and you are flushed with this sense of feeling alive. No matter why or how you write, you can dictate and mold the pain, not let it consume you in other ways.

But, I also see it as the act of self-harm, or at least imagined. And the fight against it, the conflict of emotions. Of it going against what you know, yet it validating the pain perhaps others said didn't exist. Of clarity that shouldn't be there. Or maybe even tasting that "spite" in your mind, and imagining your spirit, something restored. Mother's milk to me meant a comfort, and there's a lot to be said about the role of pain in our lives. How we sometimes find a stepping stone to healing in the most abnormal and unexpected ways, through addressing and sitting down with our pain. Allowing ourselves to realize it exists, and surviving/continuing in spite of feeling like it will name us as one of its own, if that makes sense.