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The Blame Game · Poetry Short Short ·
Organised by Anon Y Mous
Word limit 100–2000
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Black
Now I lay me down to sleep,
Closed eyes can’t see, stone heart can't bleed;
Tell me through these fever dreams,
What to believe, what suffering means.

Did I do it to myself?
Should I shift blame to someone else?
Should I live like I am "free",
No Light to see, no mind to grieve?

I can't pretend, no, I can't breathe,
If the Void's my sole reprieve.
Beyond the door, there must be more -
Exactly what I'm looking for.


...Where there's a will, there’s a Way
That I must walk until my grave.
No guilt, no shame, no fantasy,
Eyes open, rising to my knees
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#1 ·
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I like the mood of this. I feel like it's right on the edge of a lot of things. Structurally, it mostly has a rhythm, but not quite. I'm lost on whether any rhyme was intended. The first stanza has two lines that are a real stretch for a rhyme, to where I can tell if that was the intent, but the last two rhyme cleanly. Go to the second stanza, and the two line pairs are both a real stretch for a rhyme. Third has a kind of slant rhyme and a clean one, fourth has a slant rhyme and nothing close to a rhyme. It makes it look like all the rhymes that do exist might have been unintentional.

Thematically, it seems to be about prayer. It starts off quoting a popular one, then speaks to a hope that there's something more to life. I could see the last stanza meaning either that the speaker has reaffirmed his beliefs and is earnestly engaging in prayer again (nice seeming contradiction of rising to one's knees that carries a meaning to it) or casting off those beliefs and feeling freed by it, though it skews more to the former to me.