POEM
Exploring Estella’s Complex Persona
Insights into Love and Temptation
Liam sat at his desk,
drumming his fingers
on the table’s edge.
He’d written opinion
pieces for several publications
and people had questions
about a woman he wrote about.
Estella, that’s her name.
But her hidden meaning
had an obscure agenda.
At thirty-four, Liam
had bumped into
his share of Estella’s.
Dark clouds swirled
in to hide the sun
from the pity party.
Liam stroked his beard
and noticed the beige walls
with art framed for the faint
of heart to find hope
in the colors spread across
the scenery and valleys
with pine cabins spaced
far enough to play the stereo
loud enough to thump
a person’s chest without
nosey neighbors hearing a peep.
A river flowed in the distance,
and evergreen trees grouped
in thick stacks.
Liam batted around whether
to write about Estella’s origin.
The name drove a wedge
in his bones.
But Estella was who she was.
Liam’s fingers hovered
over the keyboard.
Liam thought he’d let
his readers know
and slam the door
on her future roles
in his stories.
Cutting Estella off would take
little effort but destroy
the woman he’d loved
for years, but she didn’t know it.
It surprised him that the readers
misunderstood the meaning
behind her name.
Estella’s meaning.
Who was she?
Why write about her?
And why so often?
Liam shifted his eyes over
shifting conclusions that split
down the middle of his mind,
overlapping with the sound of time.
But the other half of the cracked
rearview mirror was dim,
like two angels warred over his soul.
One good.
One evil.
The storm brewing within him
revealed his capability
of the wickedness that burns
a crush to lust, to love.
The other half starves
for the will to course-correct.
Liam pecked a sentence, highlighted it,
and deleted the words mid-thought,
like a collage of strangers written on a page
without numbers.
People, people like his readers
thought Estella represented
a person he knew
and that was partly true.
Liam hurdled the damaged phase
of his life and refused
to pick at the scars
stinging his past.
Estella represented people
who were familiar to most men.
Liam had no choice.
He’d write about,
a girl representing the women
men observed
in a bar that he couldn’t stop eyeing.
He chokes on his words
before approaching,
her crossed his mind.
At his best friend’s wedding,
Estella was the bridesmaid
never yet married.
Of Estella, Liam knows one.
She sleeps next to him
without a hint of irony.
Estella reflected the women
who get what they want at all costs.
And what these women wanted
wasn’t too different from the men
fretting over dating.
Still, her heart yearned for a lover.
Estella loved forgiveness
but bathed with bubbles in her sins.
When he gave up on himself,
Estella settled for nothing less
than the best of him.
And he was alive, chilling by her side
and he’d want nothing else for you.
Liam refused to fold to the pressure.
He had more words to spill on paper.
Liam writes about Estella,
hoping other men will find her one day.
Estella is the light in the dark
corners of your life.
(© 2024 AC)
(Amazon Kindle, Spillwords, The Writers Club)
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