There’s nothing more moving than a poem, except for a free-verse poem with spacing so erratic you can’t help but feel something when you see where one line ends and the next suddenly begins. Today we’d like to share a poem that’s exceptionally feel-worthy. However, be aware you may sob while reading it, because this poem’s gorgeous line breaks made us feel more than the shitty words around them ever could.
Titled “Rebirth,” this poem was written by an artist whose identity remains anonymous:
i died
-and then
i knocked myself up
i got knocked up
with myself
now there are two of us
mo
mmies
me and/hello!!! me! again!!!!!!!
i weigh 8 lbs.
& 5 oz. – the size of a nor
mal hu
man baby
i am my own mom.
Wow. We can’t tell if it’s hurricane season or if we’re just crying at 70 miles per hour, because the unsupervised and frankly irresponsible line spacing in that poem has us feeling so much more than the shitty words do. The way the word “mommies” randomly has a huge gap in the middle of it is just devastating, and has inspired everyone in our office to call our own mothers and apologize for everything. It’s clear that this poet knows that the most important part of poetry is where you put the line breaks. The content doesn’t matter, as is abundantly clear in the above work!
The real cincher, however, is the way “normal” and “human” also aren’t spaced the way words should be. In a sentence, they would be part of a complete thought that flows continuously and ends with a period. However, in this poem they were chopped in half seemingly without reason, and now we’re crying through our teeth.
So please, pass this poem along to someone, anyone. You never know who might need a collection of meaningless words organized around blank spaces to make them feel something, anything.
