Fill This Empty Shell for Me? [Poetry Time]

[ÆƵ–]

Before I post this, let me educate you on what a sestina is. TL;DR, it's a complicated poem that repeats the same six words at the end of the line in different orders each stanza, and then a final triplet at the end which has one word at the begining of the line and one on the end. Now then, time to put this sucker on the page.

 

Fill This Empty Shell for Me?

 

 

Is it possible to fill
A heart like this?
Lying ghostwhite and empty
Like a beach fish’s home, like a shell.
What good is there for a heart like this, for
Ones like me?

 

I will tell you what there is for ones like me.
There is a place place where we may drink our fill
Where it is only ourselves we do things for
Why would we ever leave a place like this?
Oh right, because we’re shells
Filling ourselves with drinks so that we don’t feel empty.

 

But do we really care if we’re empty?
I don’t. I like the void inside me.
People value a beautiful shell,
So why must some try to fill
Such a nice thing like this;
Who is that for?

 

Oh right, I know who that’s for.
It’s for those who are not empty.
They pity us since we can’t trade socially, since we obviously need this
Connection between you and me.
To them, interaction is food, and they must eat, they must fill
Their gullet, then discard the shell.

 

But even if discarded, there is beauty still beauty in a shell
So much beauty in the remains for
Those who are able to resist the urge to fill
The silent beauty of the empty
So much beauty for the resistor to witness within me
The beauty of nothingness, of the blank, of this:

 

The spaces between the words, between people is what this
Is all about. It’s about the shell
In which we reside, in which you will find me.
Sometimes we need to step back and realize that your life isn’t for
Those few who like being empty.
We need to learn that it is only ourselves that we need to fill.

 

This world for
Shell and bone alone, for the empty,
Me thinks would be all well and good. Now we need only a place to fill.