Leaving You Poem by Leah Ayliffe

A nice poetic imagination, Leah. You may like to read my poem, Love and Lust. Thanks.

our poem opens with a simple declarative resolution: REPORT TO SELF - I'M GOING TO LEAVE YOU. But you don't leave: you remember the past, feel the sting of loss, wonder why it failed, list reasons for leaving or staying or - your mine is electric with indecision and then electric with certitude and I felt this as rhythm that kept things spinning and put action on hold. // What is a poem? It's x number of words that make a composition that begins and ends. But it's also a poetic space that lasted x number of minutes as you were writing it. The first definition has completion and closure but they may illusory. In the second definition everything is provisional. I felt this provisional poem in the last lines. You speak of the GORGEOUS POSSIBILITIES but recognize they proved to be ILLUSIONS and so you need A BRAND NEW REALITY. If that were all this poem means, your life would T-W-I-S-T into that new reality. But the poem is filled with other twists which go onto other directions: -BUT I KNOW. I KNOW. I'VE ALWAYS KNOWN BETTER.... -I'M NOT THE ONE, YOU'RE NOT THE ONE EITHER.... -I WANTED TO HOLD ON, I WANTED TO STAY.... These also are twists - in another direction and they set up the contrary rhythms that make the poem spin and spin. Which one of these perfectly clear statements is the e resolution? You can't answer before a another twist starts things moving, spinning again. You ended the poem with the opening line. But do you know if it is a definitive ending, or another twist? The impact of this poem on me is the sheer difficulty of intimate relationships in our world of FREEDOM. In my parents' generation something OUTSIDE of them kept people together in a relationship: marriage vows, societal disapproval of divorce, the family minister, etc. But now we are f-r-e-e which is a good thing, and now we are on our own to determine: Do I stay in this relationship and make it work, or do I leave it and look elsewhere for fulfillment? There's no one RIGHT ANSWER anymore, only the answer YOU decide to follow. And until you make that decision the spinning goes on and on. Your poem is an eloquent and intense experience of this BRAND NEW REALITY. -