The Metaphor
The Metaphor
by Zachary Cavanaugh
In my opinion I think you wouldn’t be able to remember the moments that your hearts stopped or your breath has been taken away – But in honesty I remember them the most vividly.
Among all these other thoughts that fly around my head they’re nothing more then an argument, my head is nothing more then trench warfare I’m never making progress.
I’m still trying to make sense of some days for hours at night
I now understand your metaphors about pain; you’ve never looked more beautiful.
Seems like the poet is talking about all of us (“hearts”)in moments of intense excitement or pain, or both, that he remembers “most vividly” but we don’t. The metaphor used in the poem relates thoughts to “trench warfare…never making progress”–an ongoing internal “argument.” This is what “I’m still trying to make sense of some days for hours at night”–a great line. What “your metaphors about pain” are, we don’t know, but he equates them with beauty, probably because they embody some truth made vivid, heart-stopping, break-taking. This is what poetry is about, which may enrapture the poet (forced on his own to create them) but lamentably no one else.