The Midas Touch in Reverse
written by: Adriana M
Tell us why
You haven’t ripped yourself open
and extirpated the anger within?
Why are you so afraid of it?
Anger calcified and became a limb.
You’re so afraid of it growing back
as afraid of it leaving you hollow inside, once severed.
Tell us why you feel like picking the lesser worse,
but either implicates a struggle still.
Every day, you wake up
to rehearse the role that is your life.
Pretend you like where you are, where you live,
who you are, who you’ve been.
The older you grew, the more the light dissipated within,
like a lighthouse’s beam
dimming in the mist
as it drifts away from shore.
Further from being,
Someone he actually wants to be with.
You cling to anger as if it can keep you warm through the winter,
worshipping the problem all day long.
The poems bring bad news: it’s too late.
Even the clocks knew right away
when they struck a minute past midnight.
Someday, I’ll rip myself open,
Pluck the anger out with my bare hands.
once gone, I’ll be so hollow,
you’ll hear my name echoing inside my empty chest.
But then again, I haven’t heard you call me that
in a long, long time.
Ripping all the synonyms to ‘love’ and ‘chosen’ from our shared language.
Yearning to unlearn the tongue you cursed me with.
The Midas Touch in reverse
on the lexicon,
condemning me
to look for poetry in every minutest detail.
I search in vain for a meaning of “gone”
that does not drench every syllable in sorrow.
How do I stop from crying just at the thought of it?
If you never return, it’ll be like cutting a limb.
Forever leaning to my left side,
Limping through the interstate
On my way home;
But then again
Where is?
Grief wove itself into every stanza,
Carrying bad news in every poem.
I’ll stay sight-seeing the Harbor day and night.
- Graveyard Of Feelings - October 15, 2025
- The Midas Touch in Reverse - July 11, 2025
- A Promise Turned Curse - April 11, 2025
