Chemistry

[Raven (ARGD)]

I have unraveled now. I can feel it. I can’t feel anything
Else. I want to be more than these strands of humanity
Scraped together on the floor, I want to-
I want to be warm.
I want to be capable of composure,
Of moving you the way I used to.

I want you to take me Home. I just want to get warm,
Just for a moment, just long enough to ease the chill
From my veins and swindle my limbs into stillness.
I want to remember what it’s like to feel heat
Without fire. Please take me Home.

Take these threads and weave me into something else,
Something else with a life yet unspent. I want to be
Undone, undressed, exposed. I want filaments plucked
From my existence and rearranged
Into a progression. I want crescendo and decrescendo
In the lungs. I want hunger in the right parts
Of my soul. I want the pieces to fit together
In this body as if I have natural order inside me.
I want to be organic again.

In your eyes, I see the spirals I dug into my skin.
I don’t want to see the reflections; I want something new,
Something naked and unabashed, something that resembles
Another world. Now, I want you to take me
home. Trace the scars with ink until I feel used up,
Over and over again, and name the constellations
Made in my flesh. I want it to hurt. I want it to feel like
Fire. I need to be melted down, down to nothing,
Need my composition changed and changed again.

Only then can you fix me into something
With earthly molecular structure, something
With a beginning, a middle, an end, and nothing,
Nothing that disrupts the processes that move me.

[Sasha]

I read the title, and I just had to read this, it's one of my favourite scienc-y topics - chemistry!
The word the comes to my mind while reading this is 'rebirth', actually two, 'radical rebirth'; it's one of thoses moments where you feel like you want to start all over again by removing a past, emotions, even old skin, wanting new cells, new self and experience everything for the first time, like a newborn, and weave it all together to a new human. I love how this was built on two steady ideas all the poem, weaving and process of innovation, and your phrasing for all of what was so, so effective!
I relate to this; when you're tired of the skin you're in, you do want to start again.
Striking OM, Raven, I love it!

Sash

[everhopeful]

Oh no, chemistry! lol just messin' with ya!
Thankfully, since I'm not as well versed in it as Sash, this doesn't need any advanced scientific knowledge to understand or appreciate. Most strikingly, the chemistry aspect is very human at heart, and I like how you've used the molecular element. Maybe it's just how I see things, but I can't help but feel affinity with the 'breaking' descripions of it, and the feeling of being reduced down to mere atoms, scattered all over the place, only hoping to be put back together in a more orderly fashion.
The overall narrative structure of this is excellent, it's a strong platform for the images. The opening two stanzas are more stuttering, and I really like how you played on that to emphasise the speaker's certainty and also their fragility. As the pacing picked up, so did the sense of ambition, almost like they were pleading to be made whole again. However for all of the speaker's 'wants', they were underpinned by the sense of despair at everything they currently are - the penultimate stanza was a fine example of that.
Then the ending really brought home your extended metaphor in style, without alienating non science folks like me!
A cracking read for sure, much admired and enjoyed.

[Jim]

Id wager that anyone who reads this will relate to it.
The desire to relieve allthe aches and pains o 21st century living and returning to a simpler way of life.
so many great lines in this
powerful stuff

[garic]

Great line breaks throughout. The meaning of most line endings transform as the beginning of the next line is added.
Its like - chemistry!

[flux]

Strong narrative here, strong voice, echoing the need we all feel to be changed. Was going to list my favourite parts but will choose just one...

I want to remember what it’s like to feel heat
Without fire. Please take me Home.

[rupertpupkin]

Great ideas in this fine piece. Really enjoyed it . Well done on the spotlight, most deserving, Sean.

[SirFleshwound]

Your feelings swing between raw and brutal to a strangely tender honesty. Truly a mesmeric journey through some kind of organic poetic alchemy. Congratulations. SFW

[dwells]

Sounds like a big responsibility Raven, and congrats on the Spotlight. This was flawless in a desperate longing for something gone but not forgotten; reachable still but fading in the distance and leaving memories like exhaust fumes maybe. A marvelous piece of personal descriptive poetry on an oft neglected subject perhaps, ourselves - cheers!

[everhopeful]

A pleasure to read this one and see it in its rightful place. Again I found myself focused on the smart pacing of the poem and how it added to the impact of the words. It's something I don't see in a lot of poetry, Ladylilith and Baywriter are two of the best exponents of it on the site, and that's good company to be keeping!
Congratulations on the spotlight!

[created2write]

Wow- this yearning to be made into "something" is palpable. Your repetitive request to take me home, and I want are convincing and makes the reader feel the need you describe. Chemistry was an excellent title for this and you did an excellent job in drawing the reader into the need of the condition. Excellent!! peace