The Great Impasse

R.D. Boucher
2 min readJun 7, 2022

Colors bleeds from a pen

the way it drains from a body

flowing until it empties out

The scars on your wrist

vertical and jagged

covered by shadow puppets

cannot hide the pain

remaining which caused

that action to be,

and seems to boil up again

in fits of overwhelming anxiety

that you aren’t enough

won’t succeed,

and that hole in your chest

keeps growing,

unable to be filled by external love

if you cannot produce it yourself

like Lysine-deficient dinosaurs

that fall asleep and die

when scientists cannot give them

what they need

as I could not convince you of my love

when you cannot believe you’re worth loving

The tree line is crisp,

whether it be rain or sun,

but hides itself in fog.

Both landscapes evoking emotion,

but you decide if it’s worth calling to the surface

with creases of skin or

water from holes or

sound from gorges

It can be easier to ignore, but

as ink and as blood —

it’ll flow out eventually

until it has decided to stop

With you, I cannot pretend

that all these feelings aren’t

knocking and knocking,

pushing and fighting

to break down my doors

I don’t think it’s worth fighting anymore

Part of me keeps growing, and will

until I force it to stop

Control of these parts

will soon be no more

I am caught between what I have to do,

and the question, “Should it even be you?”

Your presence once had a solid foundation,

your actions now tell me it’s crumbling.

All this tells me is that I could

and should do it alone

I thought that space and

time could bring clarity

to where our loyalties lie,

but I was wrong

It brought cold, indifference

flipped the light off

in a warm, sunny room

and I’m left in darkness

my blood pouring from my chest

and pooling in my belly,

where it will sit

until it empties out

as I become one from two.

You won’t stay to see it through,

from warm love to cold indifference,

you still come today when I am shedding

weeks and weeks of growth

to meet me with relief to show

your support for the removal of evidence

that this ever existed.

you can turn from this

great impasse, unscathed,

rather than stay trapped without faith.

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R.D. Boucher

Dami grew up in Hillside, NJ and attended Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. She is currently working on her PhD in Santa Cruz, CA.