Flesh of my flesh
Did you think you could make me thing, just say I was yours. Then treat me anyway.You wanted too.
No. That’s not how, this game gets to be played. You must compromise occasionally.
I loved you so but I can’t let you treat me this way. I must confess, I was hoping you’d undress.
Oh no, this is not how its supposed to be. How it’s supposed to end
Flesh my flesh, bone of my bones please don’t go
Flesh my flesh bone of my bones, no; please don’t go
I didn’t mean to treat you so, don’t go…
Prose
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I honestly don’t know what to start with this poem! It is so interesting and intriguing – the ambiguity of it. Evidently, the narrator is a wife who’s currently in an unfair marriage, her husband treating her as more of a “thing” rather than a beloved spouse and partner. She is trying to insist that she is an individual worthy of respect; thus, they need to work on acting like adults – not kids who play games with each other – and compromising in order to ensure that their relationship has balance and equality. I particularly love the sentence where the narrator claims, “I must confess I was hoping you’d undress,” for it suggests that women shouldn’t be the only sexualized beings in a relationship; they don’t need to be the ones who take off their clothes first before intercourse; they do not have to be the submissive.
However, the aspect that really throws me for a loop about this poem is the last four lines: there is absolutely no warning or hint in regards to the sudden transition in tone and perspective. One moment, the narrator is insisting that her partner be more compassionate and willing to collaborate, and in the next, the narrator is sugeesting that her spouse is dying or is gone already. Don’t get me wrong: it’s a great plot twist! But, it is startling to the point of confusion for the reader. That being said, I advise for you to go back and integrate some sort of transition into the transition. Perhaps you can briefly allude to the accident that stripped the narrator’s husband of life. Perhaps you can change the tense of the first four lines to show that this was her mindset in the past, and then in the last four lines, now that he is gone, she has disregarded all of those original thoughts and is just in total distress and dismay. The transition will provide the poem with a better sense of coherency and flow, which undoubtedly will make the poem stronger overall!
I really appreciate the suggestions The last four lines are in fact the husband speaking to the wife who has left him. Although your suggestion is so much better that I will think of how I can transition into the last four lines. Thank you very much for your input!