Splits in the Skin

That just won't heal

Image: Zivah Avraham

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We must take sides
for the finer nerves and faculties
understand there is no present or future
only now
it is a nightmare, watching as
one hand washes the other
stopping and scratching backs in endless rounds of
take
give
take
give
obligations measured against gifts with exactitude
automatons repeating this monotony
while truth sticks
like an intercostal knife
paring the muscles away from the ribs, fibre by fibre
and the lifeblood
like the past
claws its way out
a torrent, gimlet-eyed
focused on its trajectory

oh, we are specialists in self-deception
our inflated belief
washing away doubt like sodden silt
as solitude, which is painful in youth
becomes a comforter in old age
and a companion of sorts
if we only let it
walking gladly with us to the
end

we call our last breath
our shadow self
haunting us in the outline of our ultimate demise
and the face of pain destroys the mask
with which we absolve ourselves
the smashed-up things and creatures
lying in our wake
the dirge echoing in wynds and gennels

splits in the skin that won’t heal
recoil from light and seeking only shade
what do we have to gain? they ask
things are hopeless — make them otherwise!
as if it is some other being’s responsibility to make it so
a sky ghost or a dweller in hell’s magma, perhaps
someone! anyone!
but just — not me

logic states that
in the long run, the murderer survives the victim
and yet it is such a small, small win
hatred is self-hatred
after all.

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I created this poem by incorporating extracts from quotes I have collected for my commonplace book. These quotes have captured my imagination at different times and made me think.

This poem is prompted by the theme of ‘nightmare’. It focuses on the human condition — how we consume ourselves and make life difficult for ourselves somehow, without even trying. It’s strange, don’t you think?

I have included the quotes in full below, both to honour the people who wrote or uttered them and to provide you with the full context of their meaning.

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We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must — at that moment — become the centre of the
Elie Wiesel

Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent.
Virginia Woolf

There is no present or future — only the past, happening over and over again — now.
Eugene O’Neill

History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
James Joyce

One hand washes the other.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.
Arthur Miller

It’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.
Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner

People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.
James Baldwin - Giovanni’s Room

I lived in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in maturity.
Albert Einstein

In the face of pain, there are no heroes.
George Orwell

They were careless people… they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds, they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

One reason people resist change is because they focus on what they have to give up, instead of what they have to gain.
Rock Godwin

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden

There is no need for me to curse you - the murderer survives the victim only to learn that it was himself that he longed to be rid of. Hatred is self-hatred.
Thornton Wilder

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If reading this impacted you and you have the means to do so, you can buy me a coffee - fair warning, I’ll buy books! Or notebooks. Or stationery.

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And.. Or… you can do this!