I wanna touch on your c) for a moment. I look at this poem, and because I don't have a SO, I imagine it as a date, no tied up relationship. Are you in a long-term relationship, and do you think that's why you see it as a long-term relationship? I'd love to see how other people conceptualize what type of relationship the narrator has with the person they're writing about. Maybe for most people it directly relates to if they are having that type of relationship in their real life, or maybe it doesn't connect at all.
See, that's the funny thing. I haven't been in a long-term relationship for a long time. Nothing that got to six months in the past almost-two-and-a-half years. That relationship was exactly 6 months. (I also never wanted it to be permanent.) Before that, remind another year or thereabouts, and that was my last "long-term significant relationship," I guess. Usually, I can date someone for about a month. Right now I find it pleasant I am seeing someone who is just about to pass that mark. I think I find the level of detest(-ment?) and animosity in this poem to signal me more towards long term than one bad blind or first date. "When you learn to shut up" - sounds like the narrator knows the other person well enough to find their incessant speech habitual, not momentary. I also wouldn't probably feel so resoundingly negative about a first date unless it was truly awful. "I can't fathom/where you're finding the air," to me implies kind of that the narrator wishes the other party would choke on their words and die for lack of oxygen a little bit. I don't usually detest first dates that much. But at the end of a relationship? Oh yes.
You bring up a great point with the detestment of the narrator towards the other person. Re-reading though the poem I'm constantly questioning the level of cynical-ness in the narrator. I think our determination of the mental states of both of the characters can dramatically change and alter how we percieve the poem. It's freaking awesome I'm having such great conversations and being introduced to cool insights on something I created. Definitely a neat feeling
Trust me, I can talk all day about poetry :) I would shoot you a link to posts-refugee tags=poetry to show it, but for some reason my attempts to make that link work aren't, well, working. I can talk about words and writing all day long and be really happy! I was really pleased when I read your post. It was better than I (a cynic) feared. It surprised me. And that's great, and makes me happy. Everyone will interpret your art differently. My brother once read a poem where I thought the narrator was clearly female. At the end he said he was confused because at first, he assumed the narrator was male. That's literally just a factor of his own life experience impacting how he approaches a story. Can't control that - but gotta be aware of it.