Rift

Poem, Backstory, Prompt

Rift

It’s no surprise
that we fall apart.
I pull one way,
you another,
splitter crack
calving open.

The space between us
is a dark line,
a scraped knee, 
dirt rain. 

I am accustomed
to stitching up seams,
climbing out of my skin,
tearing it to thread, 

but you stand now
at the base of the cliff,
neck angling up.
Your eyes trace the breach
like a body, beautiful
or a journey
you are eager to begin. 

You are the stitcher of seams here.
You, with your steadiness and care,
patient as I learn to soften
into this astonishment:

a rift can be
the moment of lift. 

Ramblings

I was tempted to start this post with backstory, but I resisted the urge. I want to know what you make of the poem without extra scaffolding around it. Or at least, I want you to know what you make of it. One of my absolute favorite musicians, Brandi Carlile, just released a new album, and for the better part of a day, I listened to its title song on repeat. Each listening revealed new layers to the meaning. And then I heard an interview in which Brandi talked about what inspired the song, and I realized, oh, all of that stuff that I thought the lyrics meant—that’s not at all what the artist meant. And yet, they can still be the meaning for me.

This is one of the challenges of putting art into the world. Every reader or viewer or listener will have their own unique relationship to your work, informed by the whole of their life experiences and their personal values and whether or not they’ve eaten lunch yet that day. Sometimes I find this intimidating—terrifying even. Benign misunderstandings are one thing, but what if my words unintentionally hurt someone? Other times, I find this lack of control beautiful. Knowing that people are reading my novel right now, having their own totally-separate-from-me experience with it, and forming their own relationships to its characters delights me beyond belief.

Okay, back to the poem. Now that you’ve had a little time with it, here’s some context for anyone who craves that sort of thing . . . I wrote this poem after a day of rock climbing with my boyfriend in the Red River Gorge. A few of the climbs we did were trad climbs, which means there is no fixed gear on the route, and so the lead climber (not me) has to place gear in the cracks to protect against a fall. The images in this poem are all inspired by trad climbing and by the reality that on many trad routes, the cracks in the rock are the only places to put your hands and feet. The heart of the poem comes from the lovely and still startling-to-me experience of being in a relationship with a person who doesn’t shy away from hard conversations or conflict but instead leans in with curiosity, empathy, and kindness. I am getting to live something that I’ve known in my gut but have rarely experienced in romantic relationships: that we can heal stronger at the broken places. That a rift can be a moment of lift. And that, dears, takes us to our prompt . . .

The Prompt

If you’d like a prompt to play with, then I invite you to consider rifts, past or present, in your relationships. You don’t need to jump to the biggest, most painful ones. (I mean, unless you want to, in which case, have at it.) If you’re a human surrounded by humans, then small rifts occur every day. Little misunderstandings. Creeping resentments. Subtle annoyances. So many moments that seem like they could be sources of connection turn into disconnections instead.

Notice what comes up for you as you contemplate this—what memories, stories, thoughts, feelings, physical sensations. If you can already feel your heart pulling you down a particular poetic path, then absolutely follow! If not, here are a few more questions to consider . . .

Can you think of a time when a conflict or rift ended up becoming the starting place for deeper connection and understanding? How did that happen? How did it feel?

Is there a rift in your life now that you wish could be a starting place for deeper connection, understanding, or healing? What stands in the way?

What rifts do you see in the broader world? What is the relationship between these rifts and the ones you experience in your personal life?

As you hone in on a particular rift or aspect of rifts that you want to explore through a poem, consider what they might look like in concrete form. If you had a bunch of wooden blocks and wanted to represent the story/idea/feeling with a block structure, what would it look like? If you had a blank canvas and only two colors of paint to work with and wanted to represent this rift, what colors would you choose? Is there a landscape that fits what you’re thinking and feeling? A taste? A texture? A smell?

These might seem like absurd questions, but without a bit of absurdity to our explorations, we risk regurgitating the same things we’ve already written before or the same things we’ve heard others say. Which isn’t terrible—but at least for me, also isn’t what I’m aiming for (though I land there often enough). I find that if I want to be surprised by my own poems—if I want them to change me—then the willingness to be weird is an ally and friend.

So get weird, loves. I’d love to read whatever you come up with!