Rings Poem by Katerina Val

Rings
rings of time and rings of solitude
rings of plenty and of richness
rings made of gold and rings made of charcoal
dusty rings
diamond rings
silver rings
filthy shiny things

Black grey rings of ash clenching the heart
dancing around it like brutals
strangling it the way they did with my thin unprotected throat
when I was hiding in order to breathe
as if it was a thin already used piece of paper
etched with smudges of my hectic inspiration
they strangled it
and the heart sits there
to die alone

Tight rings, inconvenient rings
misfits
doomed and exiled
in a long term unconditional exile
never fading always shaking
rattling contra to the ground
and rageful they twist humming
going back to their exile then
where the rings shatter
and the shards cut it
they cut the skin

Scratching the skin that covers the heart
and the soul that never had that the time to grow
because the rings kept it in the ground
restricting it from breathing the air of her existence
and things, lonely, immortals going around
but still the filthy old-fashioned rings
slip in their skin
of their tatty fingers
keeping them in the ground.