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By Cassie Jones February 15, 2014

Sunken Chest

Sleeping like lovers,

You are no longer mine to hold.

We are strangers latching on

Long after we have gone overboard.

 

Your savage words are rough waters,

a tangle of slimy weeds that drag my kicking

feet and beating heart below.

 

Relinquish the cord that binds us

until your absence becomes absolute.

Like a message in a bottle

I am launched out to sea,

but you could never read me.

 

You stole away the lovely.

I am now a sunken chest

whose jewels lie encrusted in a decomposing heart

to be plundered by a pirate’s robbing eye.

 

Throw the excess weight overboard before this all goes under.

A drifter, you could never be the anchor

that moors this sinking ship.

You were the siren's call that led me to flounder far from shore.

 

Navigate these dark depths

Where lost sailors drown by treacherous words.

A traitor, you spin a web of deceit

Chained to sultry voices.

 

The compass rose is broken,

we lose our magnetic North,

and there is no way home.

The sea claims your body for its own.

 

This lighthouse will save no souls tonight

its hopeful beam is false,

as bankrupt kisses cashed in too soon.

 

Sleeping like lovers,

You are no longer mine to hold.

You crossed the oceans at great cost,

only to shatter my heart.

 

Hold fast, to the remains of this life.

About the author

Cassie Jones is an Arts and Culture stud. 

Acknowledgements

Metamorphosis with Feeling by Antonio Lee

The photograph is by Micah Camara of his brother with his girlfriend of 18 years, under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Comments

  • Catherine Duret

    Catherine Duret

    February 16, 2014

    Wow, a magnificent use of metaphor to depict such a tragic story! Still reeling from the power and intensity of your choice of words! Brilliant work!

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    Erika Sara

    February 27, 2014

    The author has a really great play on words. I feel pain and sorrow for the character. I can feel to what extent the heart broken character is lost. Her metaphors really help the audience understand just how alone she is feeling.  The fact that she is directing this towards a specific someone makes it feel more raw. It is almost as if her heart is broken down in words.

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    Thierrystpl

    March 6, 2014

    I feel like the subject is very well rendered overall and the image is very powerful. But the image is too closely cropped by the borders of the canvas. It feels as if the subjects are forced together and enclosed in too small a space. This, in my opinion, makes the characters appear more static and remove momentum from the collision.

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