Cartography of Our Disorder

[honest steeple]

(A Sestina)
By: Gracela // Ladymoonbeam

1. Inside the room there hums a silence
   my hands tremble, tugging at an invisible thread
   you flicker away vanishing like a broken mirror
   yet i chase your pulse through the storm
   as if devotion could collapse the distance
   as if longing alone could keep the flame.

2. Your mind scatters sparks leaping from the flame
   leaving me with unanswered silence.
   I measure love by the ache of distance
   by how much i bleed through the thread.
   I beg for shelter, but you carry your storm
   and i drown inside the shards of your mirror.

3. You say i smother, yet in the mirror
   I see only a woman feeding the flame
   fighting the static roar of the storm
   praying against the weight of silence.
   My heart is stitched by a fraying thread
   that trembles across the void of distance.

4. Still, devotion bends its knees to distance.
   We become fragments inside the mirror
   a boy unraveling, pulling every thread
   a girl shaking, clutching at the flame.
   Both too weary, begging for silence
   yet haunted by thunder of the storm.

5. Some nights your voice softens the storm
   collapsing every wall built by distance.
   In your arms i do not fear silence
   nor the fractured truth inside the mirror.
   Your laughter rekindles the flame
   your hands tighten the loosening thread.

6. But mornings return again the thread
   snaps under the howl of the storm.
   I cradle the ash of a dying flame
   fingers raw from clawing through distance.
   Even in your eyes, the cracked mirror
   I see love whisper beneath silence.

Envoi :

So let the silence weave its thread
the mirror shine beyond the storm
for distance will bow before our flame.

[willow marsh]

@honest steeple has sent a notification! - @cold onyx @queen vault @uncut glen @vagrant pagoda @maiden trail @obtuse onyx @tawdry valve @next tangle @main lichen @tiny phoenix @eternal trench @winter umbra

[honest steeple]

@polar pasture @fallow fossil <@&1145760802666717234>

@modest schooner @silk hawk @vernal marsh @sweet marlin @untold wharf

@halcyon harbor @north forge @small meteor @lethal cedar @normal mica

[untold wharf]

This is a masterpiece in formatting and word diction choice, very nicely well done 👏

[uncut glen]

this made me cry

😭

so good

Ily

[honest steeple]

Ily more @uncut glen

[honest steeple]

Thankyousomuch love

[normal mica]

this is lovely

[honest steeple]

Thankyou Yazziee

[wary void]

Wow this is beautiful

[honest steeple]

@pulsar chasm

[pulsar chasm]

And another one

Look, simply put, at my current level, I have no critiques of your works.

I have an amateurs understanding of how poetry works; just enough to understand how unfathomably hard it is to write a Sestina.

The fact you have 3, without your poems ever falling into disorder, it a shock and a source of inspiration.

I'm sorry, but I'm genuinely not trying to brown-nose here. You'd see that in most of my critiques I try to avoid empty praise in favour of pointed feedbacks and honest thought.

You works are just that good, that I have nothing to say on them

[untold wharf]

JEEEESUS

JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESUS CHRIST

ladies and gentlemen, a master at work

magnifique, bravo! 👏 👏

i don't do this often, buttttt

[willow marsh]

@untold wharf is now following @honest steeple.

[honest steeple]

Thankyou darl for your feedback, i appreciate it so mushh @untold wharf

[untold wharf]

two questions:
how long have you been writing poetry
and how long did this monstrously difficult but wonderful piece take you?

[honest steeple]

I started writing poetry around 2020 (still relatively new).. I started writing poetry about feelings or experiences that I had, what was in my head..
Awe for this poem it takes me days to write, its absolutely kinda hard since it comes to sestina^^

[untold wharf]

hv you experimented with forms other than sestina too?

[honest steeple]

Yes like experimental