I want to bring you canned corn
and paper towels
and chocolates
and slowly to orgasm
I want a slap in the face
and a bitten lip
I want your lust
floating in the air around me
like fireflies
while you tell me it's over
that I'm a ruined wretch
and competition for your cancer
I want you to hate my body
while you fall back in love with me
and need me so bad
your world changes color
I want the sex that hangs
on the electricity between us
to happen and
reaffirm the last ideas
of life we have left
I want you to see me
crying on your shoulder
and to believe in my grief
and smile
Dec 16, 2022
Competition for Your Cancer
About This Poem
Style/Type: Free verse
Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Editing Stage: Not actively editing
Comments
Competition...
This is just incredible...
Lavender
Sometimes less...
...is just so utterly much more isn't it? I don't have to tell you that, or much of anything it seems, about how to string a powerful poem together. I don't have to but I need to if I'm to describe how heavy the four you left for me above landed. After reading your words and seeing the way you have with them...well that is praise from on high and I am truly humbled. It is so refreshing to encounter those similarly stricken with the gifts that poetry can give, is it not? Thank you for reading.
You are very kind.
I learn more each day from reading outstanding poetry like yours, and the generous help given from the talented fellow poets here. This poem has such depth and raw emotion. It is truly very moving.
L
.
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Excellent
You’re good with emotive writing, that is, attaching words to a feeling in a way that most people are going to recognize and empathize with that experience. Authenticity is the product of careful listening to the inner voice and the courage to let it out, then you’re a great writer too so it’s compounded. Unique enough to be original, classical enough to reach a wide audience.
Nice,
Tim