A year ago I took up a poetry-workshop course for a semester and we were regularly required to submit drafts of poetry, which would be critiqued (a euphemism for "torn and ripped into shreds," lol) by everyone in the class, including the professor. XD This was the very first one I submitted; my professor's reaction to it was rather dampening, so by the time I revised it into a final draft, it was barely recognizable. Anyway, this one here is still the first raw draft...quite frankly, I'm still more fond of it than of the final draft even until now.
The Preparation
She stares thoughtfully
From the window of her room
Through the broken panes of glass, and
Sees life swarm in and out
On the roads and in the stalls,
Across the wide world,
Pulsing fiercely as one, yet by their own beatings,
Like the stars
Marking the night sky.
She draws the blinds shut
With the image of God’s likeness imprinted in her mind
As she pulls a drawer, and
Takes two guns – a pistol in each hand -
And nestles them in her palms,
Comfort and resentment raging in her eyes
Like hungry lions on a carcass,
Pitting supremacy and strength
Against each other.
She slides them into the holsters
Around each of her legs
Hastily, wanting to forget, yet
She still hears the surge of a flood of tears
As she pulls the straps tight;
Not her tears, not her own,
For they were lighter than hers:
Those tears the living would cry for their dead;
They were lighter than her own.
She fastens the buttons of her coat
(Quickly, but not too quickly),
Concealing her guns from view, and
Pulls a hat over her head
To hide her eyes.
She turns to look at the window
Covered by the blinds,
And sees no life.
Each step is measured, determined,
Yet uncertain of its ambition
As she reaches the door, and
Twists the brass doorknob -
The same hollow steps she takes everyday
Since Cain killed his brother.
The door closes without a sound
As Death leaves to claim another, her hat hiding
The tears falling harder than our own.