literature

You can't have it all

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Daily Deviation

Daily Deviation

September 24, 2013
You can't have it all by `SilverInkblot
Featured by inknalcohol
Suggested by vespera
SilverInkblot's avatar
Published:
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Literature Text

but you can have the glazed heat bursting from the blacktop like a broken
fire hydrant. You can have the jangle of keys
swinging from your hip with each stride.
You can have the tactility of leather and the graze of
bathroom mosaic tiles under a cold shower pelting
bullets and when the water cuts off
you can have dry book pages. You can have happiness,
though it will often be bitter, like finding a stranger’s
wallet full of pictures of smiling children until you
return it to find that the couple is barren.
You can have the scratches on the back of his knuckles,
faded, yet raw. You can have the translucency of sheets
in the sun, silhouettes but no details,
never revealing anything more than a fringe of hair
and frayed laces tripping over themselves.
You can drop obscenities like bombs until
they don’t mean anything anymore. You can pull out the Monopoly board
that broke your family. You can’t put it back together,
but you can pretend the thimble is your mother and the
car is your father and you own all the houses. And you can be thankful
for ink under your fingers, stamped letters wasted, thankful
for baldness because the chemo worked, for empty plastic bags
cluttered in your kitchen, for sleepy glances,
for doorknobs, for fingernails. You can have the hope chest,
the chest full of wedding mementos, the dress, the picture of you in it.
You can have the hat full of rabbit bones,
until the nightmare ends, you can have cerebral feats, the stitching
of skin, and furniture as broken as your heart.
You can’t expect him to notice you
but here is the rouge to teach you how to blush,
how to be coy, not shy,
until you don’t need it anymore, until you’re good enough,
and you believe it, know it, walk without heels
and feel tall anyway. And when romance fails you,
you still have the imprint of his hand on your cheek
when the red is gone, the distance of stars,
and the thunder that never came.
There is the fireplace that you can light at any time, if you’ve only a match,
and it will crackle, you can’t have it all,
but there is this.
An imitation of this poem by Barbara Ras for a poetry assignment. 40 lines, 15 sentences, 1 stanza. It's not due for two weeks and I'm already done with it. I am so ahead of the game this year. I feel like such an adult. Notice the running title. I don't use those :la: I think they feel weird.

[EDIT] Well. I feel like I should talk about this piece more now, but I don't have anything to say - I just followed and imitated the original as closely as I could. I'm always surprised by a DD, but this one really did come out of nowhere. I mean, didn't I just get one on Escape Velocity :lol: Careful yall, I'm going to end up with a habit. Shoutout to vespera and inknalcohol for the feature! Thank you!

TWR - comments.deviantart.com/1/5151…

1. Too much imagery? Too fast?
2. Favorite line?
© 2013 - 2024 SilverInkblot
Comments68
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DeiSophia's avatar
Critique for :iconthewrittenrevolution:

The observation of human behavior in this piece is erudite and compassionate. Whilst lacking in metaphor and stronger figures of speech, the gentle easing of the imagery through simile assists one with following the fast pace and is compensated by the vivid descriptions and rich symbolism that appears throughout. 
such as in the following lines:
"You can have happiness,
though it will often be bitter, like finding a stranger’s
wallet full of pictures of smiling children until you
return it to find that the couple is barren."
or
"furniture as broken as your heart."

In fact the descriptions are so opulent, they result in sensory overload, from the combination and variety of senses evoked:
The tactile: "cold shower pelting bullets", "imprint of his hand on your cheek when the red is gone"
The auditory: " jangle of keys", "if you’ve only a match, and it will crackle"
The Visual: " translucency of sheets in the sun", "ink under your fingers"
Gustatory: "You can have happiness, though it will often be bitter"
The only one missing is the olfactory.

And then the extensive exploration of human experience:
from sympathy: the bitterness of the encounter with the stranger
Illness: baldness from cancer
youth: frayed laces
rebellion: drop obscenities like bombs
awkwardness: tripping over oneself
to romance, abuse, disappointment...
it is all here in the words.
and the speed of the pace enhanced by euphony and a strongly established meter, emphasizes the rapidity of life, and as it reaches its finale, descending into almost an anti-climax, time 'burnt' away, the revelation of "this" as the smallest but greatest thing is revealed with all the force of a revelation in only four words.