triptych #4 (Closing My Eyes To Pretend You Don’t Exist)

1.

Powerless to hurt you,
I focus my insignificant, transient
wrath onto a brief memory.
I can only pray, that God
may deliver me from hatred,
as only He can.

2.

Lying together,
the folds of the blanket
cover our exposed selves:
a ritual; a burial.
Even though you are gone,
I listen for your footsteps still.

3.

Sometimes I dream of you. What takes over me after isn’t sadness or melancholy, but a strange, swelling spring of anger. I close my eyes. I remember what my counsellor told me once before: when struck with an urge, an addiction, focus your energies on visions of something else. In this case, my muse is a static screen. Tune in, zone you out. Tune in, zone you out. Tune in, zone you out. Tune in, zone you out.

Filed under: Poetry

by

A member of Singapore-based writing collective /stop@BadEndRhymes ("/s@ber"), Valen dwells in the swamp of poetry. He has been published in various publications, including Anxious Poets Society, Eunoia Review and Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. He has performed his work at the Arts House, the Singapore Art Museum, and in various dingy bars.

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