- Non-Erotic Poetry
- The Same Girl
Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.
You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.
Click herethe woman in Texas
who swore she wasn’t
the same girl she'd been
when she'd killed two people
with a pickax, chose a banana,
peach, and tossed salad,
left them untouched
was strapped to a table,
poison was pumped,
in a death chamber died,
on a night we ate pasta, meat sauce
and a crusty baguette for dinner.
and somewhere during cappuccino,
a woman who'd sworn she was still
the same girl she had been,
remembered times of almost killing.
it could have been her that night,
looking out the death chamber window
waiting for a savior's shining face,
up until the moment of forgetting
to know how to breathe.
- COMMENTS
LeBrozover 17 years agoA good lesson in writing
With impact found in
Understatement and tales
Matter-of-factly told...
KOLKOREover 17 years agoThe secret to it is in the restraint of the style. Smartly, you realized that the subject matter is terrible enough and allowed it to present itself plus your take on the story.
Tempting as it is to bring it up, the focal subject is not the death penalty per - se. Rather, it is the unknown within us; maybe the part which is close to the insane. Probably only unusual and unpredictable circumstances could push each of us away from our safe and predictable life path in such away. But doesn't it make the safe and clear demarcation line between "us" and "them" ever so murky?
I love the fact that you don’t shy away from talking about ‘the important issues'; even better, that you do it by 'showing' (a 'simple' story of one woman). You offer your take. Some people read, maybe talk about it too. We need to talk more about the big issues.
Which reminds me of the inherent barbarism of the death penalty.
“Forgetting to know how to breathe” would indeed be the most digestible way to think about her (or any one’s) death, especially if you still want
To enjoy the nice dinner mentioned earlier. A burning irony if I have seen one.
Anonymousover 17 years agoSo...I'm not the only one who remembers "the woman in Texas" as if it were only a short time ago. This is very, very powerful stuff.
moonstormerover 17 years agoI was really blown away by this poem. I think we've all been in situations where our actions could take us on very different paths, and why we choose not to is always so up in the air. This poem seems to capture that part of ourselves, when we see a path we could have gone down in another. I especially liked the use of the food imagery; it makes it so real and really brings the point home. Thank you for continuing to write, it's a joy and pleasure to read your work!
