The Love of This World | Teen Ink

The Love of This World MAG

By Madeleine Barnes BRONZE, Wexford, Pennsylvania
Madeleine Barnes BRONZE, Wexford, Pennsylvania
4 articles 0 photos 0 comments

All the good in me unlaced I pull what I own across the floor,
books devoured to the spine, impressions the knees of my jeans
have made of kneeling, my ghosts of ghosts, the saint who is namesake.

I lay it out. A turtle can lay one hundred
thirty-seven eggs in the hollows of trash-filled beaches
and pray her young into the foam

and I know how she judges her almost-gone
with the shell’s first clean fracture, and how much she holds
when she owns nothing and watches it race away.

I line it up for you, lay it down, armfuls, fistfuls,
incalculable catalogues of rinsed fingerprints
released, as they are back-breaking, as this convex shell

is enough, as the body becomes the loudest resonating
home where I deadlock roomfuls of possessions,
where my valuables belong so unbearably to me

that they are not mine. And because I want to float
I lay them down, the swatches of fabric, the memories of places
I swore I had owned so wholly I felt them through to the relics,

laid down, the hopes I hold for the ones I’d kill to own
who swim between combs of aimless currents,
of whom I am no owner, of what I am no mother

I lay them out for you. And as the sea holds
each embryo to the memory of one
original shell, I am unforgivably enamored

with the ownership of all.



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This article has 117 comments.


on Jun. 14 2013 at 2:58 am
Cars and houses are not very cheap and not everyone is able to buy it. Nevertheless, business loans was invented to support people in such kind of situations.

CATHYSerrano said...
on Jun. 13 2013 at 6:37 am
Make your life more simple take the loan and everything you want.

OldYoungOne said...
on Nov. 26 2012 at 9:25 pm
It is very nice.

on Nov. 5 2012 at 12:52 pm
remember16 SILVER, WhiteLake, Michigan
9 articles 0 photos 44 comments

Favorite Quote:
This is only a minor setback to a major comeback

really really really good poem i enjoyed reading it you should cheak out some of my work.

Kavon SILVER said...
on Nov. 5 2012 at 7:17 am
Kavon SILVER, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
6 articles 2 photos 6 comments
You made such an adnormal metaphor about the sea turtle laying eggs into GENIUS POETRY!!!

on Jan. 2 2012 at 11:28 am
sophza PLATINUM, Sacramento, California
21 articles 14 photos 47 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." ~Ferris Bueller

The images are great, and the meaning is very original.

on Nov. 22 2011 at 8:09 pm
Loserrr122 GOLD, Belgrade, Montana
10 articles 0 photos 12 comments

Favorite Quote:
I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Amazing, I have nothing to say and I normaly have alot to say.

on Oct. 28 2011 at 7:58 am
RedFeather GOLD, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
12 articles 0 photos 155 comments

Favorite Quote:
Prose is like walking but poetry is like dancing.<br /> &mdash;Paul Valery, poet (1871 - 1945)

All I can say is WOW. This is great. Great words. Great perspective. Great poem - keep writing.

on Oct. 7 2011 at 7:16 pm
Smiley1068 SILVER, Capitola, California
5 articles 0 photos 29 comments

Favorite Quote:
Don&#039;t let anyone control you

this is a great poem

on Oct. 6 2011 at 10:10 am
heather_marie PLATINUM, Deshler, Ohio
21 articles 2 photos 62 comments

Favorite Quote:
\\\&quot;Meeting you was fate, becoming your friend was a choice, but falling in love with you was beyond my control

wow im at a loss of words!

on Oct. 4 2011 at 7:24 pm
Rowan_E_Delany SILVER, Fremont, Nebraska
8 articles 2 photos 1 comment
This is really, really, really good.  Keep it up.  I hope i'll be just as good someday.

on Sep. 14 2011 at 12:06 pm
WeAllBurn PLATINUM, Vermilion, Ohio
24 articles 0 photos 71 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.&quot; ~Mahatma Gandhi

no words to say. this is breathtaking. amazing. <3

on Jul. 22 2011 at 9:31 pm
HannahMarie17 BRONZE, Pasadena, Maryland
2 articles 0 photos 13 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Life isn&#039;t about waiting for the storm to pass. It&#039;s about learning to dance in the rain.&quot; - Anonymous

wow...this is amazing. thank you for sharing it and please keep writing. this is beautiful and though-provoking.

on Jul. 10 2011 at 1:23 pm
ElleNicole BRONZE, St. Louis, Missouri
2 articles 0 photos 107 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;My role in society, or any artist&#039;s or poet&#039;s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.&quot;

This is really good. =)

on Jul. 8 2011 at 10:00 pm
remembermeplz PLATINUM, Friend, Nebraska
36 articles 10 photos 230 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;when the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace&quot; -- Jimi Hendrix

woww...!!

that its so so very beautiful! so amazing =D


on May. 25 2011 at 9:02 am
beautifulxdisaster GOLD, Parma, Ohio
18 articles 0 photos 10 comments
AMAZING!!!!!!

on May. 19 2011 at 10:44 am
blonde_with_brains BRONZE, Little Rock, Arkansas
4 articles 1 photo 5 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.&rdquo;-- Albert Einstein

Left me speechless 0_o

on May. 5 2011 at 10:54 am
June_Survive SILVER, Kirbyville, Texas
5 articles 0 photos 27 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.&rdquo; -Jamie Paolinetti<br /> <br /> &quot;In the end, everything will be okay. If everything is not okay, it&#039;s not the end.&quot;<br /> Unknown

We should construct a poem together. I really like your work. :)

on May. 5 2011 at 7:47 am
hdeneen26 BRONZE, Atglen, Pennsylvania
3 articles 0 photos 7 comments

Favorite Quote:
Country music is three chords and the thruth.

Absolutely beautiful.....just beautiful!

on Feb. 28 2011 at 8:09 pm
Maggie2014 GOLD, Great Falls, Virginia
11 articles 0 photos 13 comments
Beautiful.........I dont know how else to describe it, just beautiful.