Immediate Reaction: Very Intriguing.. Dark and disturbing..Haunting, with both savage imagery and broken beauty. Tearful.
I love every part of this poem for your talent is undeniable. Its topic also crushing, heartbreaking and alarming.
Your extremely talented use of symbolisms has shed a threatening light on this dismal portrayal of addiction and self-mutilation.
There is no question that you chose your title as perfectly as you chose your descriptive character..Sweet Mademoiselle (one of many defintions: a polite term for an umarried worman sometimes considered offensive) her moral fiber having:
“A white butterfly's wings
are as soft as tissue paper
delicate as virgin skin”
I was extremely saddened and moved by this butterfly, because in your first line:
“She used Razors”
For the obvious reason: To Cut Herself. This mutilation mixed with the idea of a butterfly seems to be a definate indication of a desire to change…but rather than finding change, whereas a butterfly's mutation is considered to be beautiful, breaking away from its own cacoon meaning freedom; so in this concept of mutation, you propose that you cannot escape your own skin, and so you resort to the most severe action, cutting yourself out of the trap of your skin…stating this is what temporarily makes the pain go away (temporarily because you cannot escape yourself) and so, in order to forget 'Madem’s' pain she has chosen to cut into something lovely and from the wholesome ‘virgin’ wings of “her” butterfly, the clothe is cut, and the image of innocence changes and the perception tears into an excruciating decision, and we learn the once wholesome butterfly, so “delicate”
*noting your incredible description~and your astonishing visual image of a feminine angel;
resembles your idea of life: perhaps "she" believes she can escape it, for it can be easily torn by anything that arouses emotion. Either the severe temperish side of life with its given pain, or love, *or lack of love, or brutality.. and she seems to now only believe that the severe cut of sharp tool (a razor) can bring relief.
Your next verse/body:
As she stared her eyes filled with bitter tears
angry tears that strangle men and beasts
again: that strangle men and beasts.
So is there relief? Not apparently.
I’m thinking about the fact that there is two sides to a butterfly, two sides to this woman.. Sweet Mademoiselle, Bitter Tears. She knows the taste her own blood and feels the duality of life’s ever changing heartbeat.
I must add, in truth, this poem really affected me in such a way, I can barely focus.. I think that is a tremendous statement about the intensity of this piece. It actually hurt me to read this and thunderstruck me…I’m not shocked, I’m just completely worried. But my role here is to say to you what I felt- so do I remove myself from all this emotion or just jump in like I’m diving into a giant crimson pool where I might sink with such a bold and captive mood written from your heart…
You have written this so well, one can easily find themselves caught inside the net...
if the butterfly could escape this dark, dark net..perhaps the man you mention in this poem, “his realm” of addiction, in which so much resentment, anger, hatred and sadness lies, this particular man seems to cause so much pain… and the butterfly is still caught in this horrific net.. the net perhaps being the skin as well?
Perhaps the net might either be an exposed shield for which there is no escape, the result is she seems to be trying to cut herself out, out of her own skin, perhaps out of "his" grip on her, and through her bitter/sweet tears-she knows that:
There is a constant fury, you cannot escape yourself, but if the wings of a butterfly meet, then the two sides become one.
so the young captive woman cannot change, she seems to believe pain she can flee through the sliver of white pure skin, but even that does not stop the pain, so your reference to something illicit, appears to be an option,
a second use of the severe and brash notion of a razor's edge.
what blew me away was I looked up "Hic et ubique" - I understood that in Greek it means "here and everywhere" as in your last line…but I wanted to know what the words meant in their separate parts:
--and I found that not joined by its mates, the words
mean,
hic: join
et :extraterrestrial
ubique: a derivative of a compound that acts as an electron carrier in reactions that occur in mitochondria during cellular respiration.
Essentially, I am not a science major (I was a brain surgeon, but that was “borrrrinnnngg”)
If I were to bend this as far as I could in interpretation, I found a strange combination that brought this thought to me:
alien-something outside our realm, or being, or planet,
and then there is also:
ubique: I read it to mean, (breaking it down to simplest form): a derivative that carries reactions within the body during respiration..oxygen representing the very obvbious, What we need to live…and if you combine something alien to our pure needs, then the chain reaction might be death.
Of course, your poem states simply here and everywhere. Where there is also death, chaos, and where there is love, there is also its opposites, pain, misery, life vs. death. Happiness vs. Sadness.
There is so much pain and power in your hands.
this is a frightening release of emotions by you...
Sweet Mademoiselle are you the butterfly?
In this very tightly wrapped poem, you have unleashed a world of pain upon the page and though I could say a million things about how incredible this poem is
for it's "sheer' influence",
Dear Writer,
to say that every word, every thought placed perfectly here, a display that taunts and invites the reader back to look at this piece again and again, and the obvious capacity you have with the written word, I also hope you have a
place of safety.
sincerely,
JaimesenChayse
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