Poem: But Poetry Makes Nothing Happen

But Poetry Makes Nothing Happen

By Archita Mittra
QuailBellMagazine.com

I always find it easier
to dissect my depraved soul
into desperate, discrete parts
labelled 'Despair', 'Disillusion'
'dying,' and of course, 'Destruction'
while holding each dumb shard
of my helplessly hopeless heart
for some depressing
(I)ntrospection.

Imagine if you can, a serial killer
shooting down words beginning with the letter 'D'-
Despair, Disillusion, Dying -
and of course, Destruction
except he was shot down
before he got to Desperation.
Think of your dysfunctional life
as an incurable Type II Bipolar Disorder
with Delight as this rare, once-in-a-blue-moon, psychedelic high
and Despair as a perpetually running horror movie
you just can't escape from.
And Nostalgia as that dangerous anti-depressant
you're secretly addicted to.

I think nostalgia is the first symptom
of the invisible disease
that tempts you to succumb.

You might think nostalgia is like a mirror
to a parallel life
with dream-shaped cracks in its glass
for fools like us to
slip past.

But what if
Nostalgia is the distance,
between
I and we?
A depraved, soulless
infinity?

I can almost believe nostalgia
is a fine-spun lie
we trap ourselves in
before we
Die.

Someone once told me
'Poetry makes nothing happen'.
But even if it did,
I wouldn't want to write a poem
that could make you fall in love
with any of the desperate, discrete parts
of my depraved soul
because even then,
there'd still be a nostalgia-shaped hole
that even pretended-infatuated love
can never fill.

No, I’d rather write a poem
that could save something terrible
like Desperation
from its own time bomb of self-destruction,
by transmuting it
into something
beautiful,
even if it is
unlike my nostalgia
only
ever
ephemeral.

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