Disposable
Disposable
By Marie Gordon
You dropped me
Like a plastic razor
You toss in the can
After a dull shave
You cleaned up
The little black fragments
Of hair in the sink
And you forgot me
As I sobbed
Little red specks faded
Into the fabrics
In my laundry pile
Red turns brown
As time forgets that blood
Once vital soon dies
Or so I was told
So I washed
Scrubbed the stains of you off
Of clothing, off me
But you were still there
I felt you
As I scrubbed you sunk in
Deep in my tissue
Deeper, in my fears
Vital lust
It faded ever quick
But not so fast the pangs
That your lust had tripped
I begged you
Perhaps not out of greed
Or even for pride
But for vital signs
That spoke soft
To me and told the truth
Of a growing heart
Drumming from your lies
Oh sweet truth
How bitter greed deceives
Dormant but to plague
My youth as you wipe
The shavings
That you assume remain
All that’s left of me
On your tidy sink
And far out
From bitter consequence
Your thoughts idly drift
While flecks clog the drain
Perhaps truth
You never grew enough to face
While I hardly blinked
To spill childish tears
Oh God forgive
The heart that wishes true
Such soured lies
And the lips that sinned
Truth, grow strong
Within my little cave
That will ache for you
As you shave your stubbly chin
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I keep coming back to this poem, even forgiving the “hath” that nobody uses these days. The metaphor is striking, but look at it from the other side. I once, long ago, had a professor, a renowned literary critic, who said that he could understand childbirth was painful, but it could never match the accumulated pain of shaving every day of a man’s adult life. Pain does accumulate, as the poet describes, but she should know that every time a man shaves, he shaves away an entire layer of skin, thus exposing himself anew, only to repeat the process the next day and the next. If she is “disposable,” so is he, as he puts on literally a new face to the world the next day. And it becomes increasingly easier, this shaving, from one blade to microsoft blades, to even multiple blades, and, with some irony, a vibrator within the razor to help the process. But it is not perfect; even with all the technological advances, there is the occasional nick, and a spot of blood, wiped quickly with a piece of kleenex, but leaving a little mark until the next morning when it disappears, as if it were never there.
I looked again at the poem after reading your comment and decided to change the “hath.” I used to use a lot more archaic language in my poems, but that’s changed a lot in more recent years. My newest poem (which I’ve yet to post) might explain some of the mentality that I use in this one. Or maybe not, we’ll see.