The Spleen: My Internal Tempest 

Sara Kumar || Fall 2024

A/N: This is inspired by Anne Finch’s 1709 piece “The Spleen,” and offers an extension to her original work.

I

What art thou spleen, where my inhibitions lie bereft? 
The unduly taxation of my proper disposition 
leads to my forged submission 
to your act of theft; 
From solitary confinement in my desolate bed 
hallucinations of hands reach out of my ceiling 
that stifle my wails about life’s misdealings,
and exacerbate the throb of my existential dread. 
A fabricated despair veiled by tranquility,  
The knife cut of a ship in a salty sea 
before dark clouds and lunar force 
drive sailors overboard, 
left forsaken from the promise of a merciful lord. 

II 

The corporeal cage in which you dwell 
is a ruse for the agency of your rebel– 
Leonine fierceness that lies confined 
in the subtext of shadows maligned. 
I turn to empirical distraction – 
A feigning puppeteer taking willful action, 
but nothing drowns your sullen fashion. 
It’s the illusion hiding the tempest,
waves of transient pleasure that then must 
reconcile with their ephemeral essence 
and pleasure returns to frantic unrest. 
The tempest rambles on in her persistent reprieve 
reminders of my forevermore aggrieve.  

III

So where art thou spleen, I summon thy answer;
Fleeting between remedies to become a recanter 
from your burdens that lead to anguish inscribed 
on my psyche, keeping me up at night.
I attempt to keep in mind the epiphany of sonder 
but know posers weaving tales of their ponder. 
It’s my deft observation that crafts my demise 
They don’t see what I do, 
yet cultivate their lies.
They see me as a mad woman scorned 
needing a husband to soften the storm 
but they remain grossly misinformed. 
The burden of brains, interminably alone, 
no doctor has answers for the wave crash of thought, 
The intangible shipwreck that remains distraught, 
a heart overthrown in the turbulence of reflection 
and a tyrant of a spleen remains my running affliction