T.M.
My initials.
Planted on a whiteboard next to my poem,
It’s a simple reminder to myself that I exist.
To others, it’s a trademark.
a bunch of scrunched-up letters of terrible melancholy
and twisted messages of holy symphonies.
I do not exist.
The art of being invisible starts when the chimes stop ringing,
and the bell no longer tolls.
It’s the silence that bids the awaited farewells a restless goodnight,
and the stammering steps an awkward kiss.
The T stands for tenacious and the M stands for more,
because I want to be more tenacious.
I want to be more.
And as if dipping my hypothetical pen in a symbolic river of ink,
I write my T’s in endless curves and whispers.
I write.
I write.
I write.
I stop and turn my keys to more.
Because there is more to me than just a trademark.
I take ownership of my flaws.
With every indent my body makes,
I bow my head to the future.
She is an almighty deity whose hands reverse and intertwine.
She is beauty.
I pave a path and walk in a straight line,
I stretch out my arms and pray for the light to make me shine.
I want to sparkle,
to be a sun that slowly fizzles out,
to leave my initials.
To leave
Tragic and morbid.
To leave
T.M.
“The art of being invisible —”
Exactly.
“Näkymättömän naisen isku” (= “The Beat of the Invisible Woman”) was my first book in 2017 (Mediapinta: Tampere), so, I agree, “T.M.”
A beautiful poem. Thank you.
BR,
Paula Puolakka, Helsinki (Finland)