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I.
I am too-long whole.
Break this flesh so I can heal; make
Break this flesh so I can heal; make
A wound I can wrap wet
around your claws.
Take my hand like an apple
Full of bones & juice,
fiber
& nectar, choker seeds
& medicine skin.
I am not perfect: I
Am purely me –
Meant to dissolve.
Is it too much? to want
Your mouth making me into
A grinding flow of
finally, finally, finallys;
To wonder if your tongue
drowns
When it thinks of me
Roughly shaped like an apple – with a whole bunch of it eaten: isn't that how you know you're good enough, as an apple?
ReplyDeleteThe speaker feels like a perfectly shiny little red apple, just waiting to be bitten. To me, the speaker is a virgin who wants to experience adulthood, and uses the apple to allude to the apple from the Tree of Knowledge that led to the Fall from innocence and purity. Although the speaker’s metaphorical identity as an apple only has a crisp, smooth “medicine skin”, there are also many layers of complexity beneath - her “bones and juice, fiber & nectar, choker seeds”. The speaker no longer wants to be dismissed as innocent and simple, but instead wishes to be desired as a woman (just seems more fitting than a man to me) with sexual needs and a capacity for danger. She craves adventure. The sense of lust and longing suggests that the speaker considers being “too-long whole” a boring and stagnant lifestyle. The initial pain will eventually heal, and its worthwhile to stop feeling like a prepubescent and undesirable child. She wonders if the person she wants so badly reciprocates her passionate desire, and wants him/her to be so desperately drooling over her that the first bite “finally, finally, finally” satisfies his/her appetite. The title emphasizes that she wants to be explored to her core, both physically and spiritually, as embraces her primal sexual cravings. The collage blends different angles of different apples that have been sliced and bitten, representing the perceptive way the speaker wants to be seen. She resents the shallow misconception that she is a perfectly innocent apple that should remain untouched.
ReplyDeleteThat's a beautiful reading. I'm happy imagining the speaker as a woman -- so by all means, take it as such :)
DeleteThe collage of “Core” first caught my eye because the other collages in this section all tend to incorporate several different images, whereas this one consists of layered images of apples over a pebbled background. This interest was piqued further when I noticed that the layout of the poem itself was in the shape of an apple core. Even though it is structured in this way, it still allows for three separate stanzas between the top of the apple, the core itself, and the bottom of the apple. The speaker expresses a desire for someone to “break this flesh” (3), meaning break through his skin. This may be interpreted to mean that the speaker is unsatisfied by life, looking for a reason to feel something even though this feeling may be pain. This desire is expressed in a paradox by the speaker because he asks the recipient of his words to break his flesh “so [he] can heal” (3). This means that the speaker feels empty. He wants to feel pain so that he can fill an emotionless void. The second part of the poem discusses the inherent imperfections in both humans and apples. The core of both is constant; however, each is layered with individualities that make each unique. The third stanza talks about the recipient of the poem taking a bite out of the speaker in a “grinding flow of finally, finally, finallys” (14) where it can be assumed that the speaker has been anticipating this feeling for a long period of time. He wonders if the action means as much to the other person as it does to him. Altogether, he has been looking for someone to bring meaning into his life rather than simply exist.
ReplyDelete"He wants to feel pain so that he can fill an emotionless void," you say. And yet the poem states, "Is it too much to want... to wonder ..." neither of which seem to emphasize physical discomfort nor a lack of emotion.
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