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I  fevered the whole night. My cells were being overcome; 
I begged each one to stay. 
In my head the song that played, Desmond Dekker 
Stop That Train
I Want To Get Off, 
over and over and over.
I yelled  and pleaded for the train to stop.  It didn’t. 
 
My loves lapped at my toes 
like sepia toned tidal waves 
and I dreamt violent things:
a troll stealing my baby,
a homeless man getting bludgeoned,
my son being ripped from my arms by a crocodile, taking my arm also, 
severing it at the shoulder. 
I saw this happen to a mother monkey in a nature documentary. It apparently stuck with me.
 
I don't know why I see things like this.
 
How many have died? ten or twelve, 
a dirty dozen: heart breaks, steel traps, cardiacs, cancer, murder. 
That last one- murder? Its true. A girl I loved..... a lot.
She died a violent death, more violent than crocodile death. 
I didn't see it but it’s on repeat like another song that wont go, another train that wont stop.
I find it everywhere, in the suit of every man I meet. 
Women? No, just the men.
 
Persistence is the key to it’s survival because I am usually really good at beating things down.  
False recitations of love and goodness, 
breathe and repeat after me: love yourself before you can love him/them and know that life 
is suffering its not your fault its not your fault it’s not your fault.
But it runs like miles of dark oppressor water. 
Black water.
Mississippi moon wont you keep on shining.
Moon I beg you and you never fix it.
God, everyone says you never existed. 
I assumed you were gone,
get back here to fix this.
 
Now,in the form of a man, 
big/little child shapes,
I am given another chance:
the nurturer,mother, the cleaner, cat feeder, the leader, the fucker, 
the woman.
Stop this train, I want to get off. 
It does. Not gently.
 
My loves lap at my hair
pulling me into ink toned wreckage:
a murderer
of husbands of children of sisters. 
 

Annotations and comments

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I love this entire stanza—except the last sentence. Like in the previous stanza, it seems like an unnecessary afterthought and breaks my concentration. Wasn't too crazy about the "like", but that's my thing—a while back I grew out of "like" as a result of obsessive over-use & now I avoid it; not the metaphor, just the preposition. But you need it here for the rhythm, it seems...
Love this line. This is where it really gets personal for me. And what's the point of a poem if you don't get personal.
this is the only comment i could get the reply to work. unfortunately the highlighting didnt work but I think I figured out what youre referring to. Now that Im looking at that last line I have to say I agree. Im going to remove it. and then I will contemplate the second to the last line. thanks so much for this!!
Noticed the highlighting seems to be buggy (Mark?) —sometimes I could not highlight what exactly I wished to annotate...about the comments: you're very welcome, thank you for being receptive (not that you have to be): myself, I am terrible when it comes to feedback. Something to learn for me. Makes this fun.
It was the line "I don't know why I see things like this." that I loved and called "personal".
Is it horrible that I use the word 'fix' two times?
Not at all, not to me. When I read this aloud (I'm not a poet, reading aloud is the only way I can get a feel for poetry), the last five lines of this stanza sound like a rap...and the "ix" is picked up not twice but three times with "eXIsted". That transports the message of urgency, which I appreciated here...especially since it's the most philosophical of your stanzas. "Black water." is great, too.
that is awesome! I love rap. I'm not going to state specifically who i felt coming through when writing this poem but there was definitely a favorite rapper sitting on my shoulder. He just showed up and I was like, 'yeah, you can stay."
Crocodile death is awesome, but so is "steel traps, cardiacs, cancer, murder." Nice work, Jana.
Thank you Ben. I'm taking a poetry class this fall with someone who inspires me in crazy ways; I hope to come out of the experience a serious bad ass poet. :) For now, I'm still a bellboy.
"more violent than crocodile death" is great.
I don't like the last two lines. Can't even say why not. Too obvious? Biased? I'm a man.
What a sad ending, in a way. Good landing here, to use the aerospace term. This last stanza is marvelous.