[POEM] Hurry (a cento)

Trigger warning for self-harm. A cento, composed of lines from other poems, about worry, about pain, about need. Don't worry, I'm thriving.

The girl wrote a story¹

in the keep of this rainy morning²

severed at the roots³

a doll slumped behind the door⁴

“You are sleeping, Mother, and you do not know my fate.”⁵

*

as though it were an ordinary thing⁶

you take a blade to your palm⁷

I didn’t want to want more⁸

I dug so solemnly⁹

*

I say¹⁰

Mother I never knew,¹¹

Will I always, from now on, be this cold?¹²

I still feel like¹³

there are times when¹⁴

walls must crush or hide¹⁵

and I love you¹⁶

*

I can’t believe¹⁷

I just can’t¹⁸

hurry¹⁹

while there is still time²⁰

IMAGE: Hunt by Tšarušin, E (autor) - 1939 - Virumaa Museums, Estonia - CC BY.

1. The Mother / Lydia Davis

2. Rain / Raymond Carver

3. So Lonely Am I / unknown author

4. Daystar / Rita Dove

5. The Ghost of Actaeon / Robin Robertson

6. Beans Green and Yellow / Mary Oliver

7. fear of needles / Danez Smith

8. Year of Blue Water / Yanyi

9. The Swing / Don Paterson

10. Fragment 147 / Sappho

11. Mother I never knew / Kobayashi Issa

12. For Tom Shaw S.S.J.E. (1945-2014) / Mary Oliver

13. At A Waterfall, Reykjavik / Eileen Myles

14. I have to tell you / Dorothea Grossman

15. All Mountains / H.D.

16. Letter to an Old Poet / boygenius

17. Poem for Janis Joplin / Patti Smith

18. Good Morning, I Am Not Going to Commit Suicide Today / Kimmy Walters

19. Late August / Margaret Atwood

20. The Mower / Philip Larkin