Aug 2015
her verbal glance
turns my soft trust
to stone.
writhing, tortured years
of her hissing criticism
strangle the living love
to be replaced
with a dead space of protection,
freezing my potential
in the suspended animation
of living rock.
aging but not aging,
aging but not growing.
no Perseus
came flying on winged heels
to my rescue
to hold her up
to the polished shield of reflection.
I am doomed to survive
as a moving statue turned inward,
roaming a blighted inner wasteland
of fossilized emotion.
turns my soft trust
to stone.
writhing, tortured years
of her hissing criticism
strangle the living love
to be replaced
with a dead space of protection,
freezing my potential
in the suspended animation
of living rock.
aging but not aging,
aging but not growing.
no Perseus
came flying on winged heels
to my rescue
to hold her up
to the polished shield of reflection.
I am doomed to survive
as a moving statue turned inward,
roaming a blighted inner wasteland
of fossilized emotion.
This is a poem about my 5-years-older, totally abusive ex-sister (I divorced her several years ago) and what her abuse did to me. It is based on the Greek myth of the Gorgon Medusa whose glance turned the viewer into stone and the Greek hero Perseus who killed her by following her reflection in a polished shield given him by the gods.
