(Always a Stranger is the first of five we will be running by Fabrice Poussin this week. Dale is by far a better judge of poetry than I am, but I think just about anyone will see the quality in this poet’s writings–Leila)
I feel the crushing weight of all those lives
foreign to me, and I know they do not understand
the pain mine, factor that seems to define my existence.
I think of those who may have loved me once, who perhaps
care for me a little today, but they move on without looking back
they have their own lives to live, and I stay frozen as a statue.
I cannot fathom the immensity of this punishment,
a continued torture that ravages my body and soul
for decades, I have been condemned to aloneness.
To realize that I cannot be another adds to the yoke
as I am so thoroughly trapped in a life I am beginning to abhor
useless, ugly, unwanted, will it not end today?
Fabrice Poussin
Saragun Springs 
Powerful in its theme of isolation. They say in self help groups, “You are not alone,” but sometimes you are. The mark of Cain can come with or without God’s tattoo gun. Excellent poem!
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The underlying metaphor is not an obvious one; it could mean almost anything, from social or cultural estrangement to the embodiment of a literal statue. Which is what makes the verse so sublime; it can assume the trappings and take on the meaning of almost anything. Well done!
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Fabrice
This is a poem that states the existence many of us are seemingly damned to live.
“Aloneness” strikes beautifully. It hits the “someone for everyone” cliche where it ought to.
Leila
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Poignant and heavy with emotion. Looking forward to those to come.
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Fabrice
Being alone is a gift, and a curse. One is FREE to do whatever one wants whenever one wants to do it (which is mostly worth all of it, because I hate being told to do such things as mow the lawn, comb my hair or scrub the floorboards, I’ll get to it when I get to it IF I ever do get to it, which is unlikely) but at the same time one sometimes wonders what one is doing in a world where one so clearly does NOT belong. That is the point when one starts thinking that it won’t be a bad thing to leave this place, when the time comes. However, since the time IS coming, and much more rapidly than we all might want to admit, there is zero hurry on this. I don’t think I will shed too many tears when the time comes but I’m also not gonna help life kill me, either. Thanks for an authentic grappling with an issue that affects some people much more than it does others – big time. Saragun Springs is for the kind of people who can understand issues such as these – the mainstream media is for people who cannot.
Dale
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