TO BEING FORGIVEN AND GIVING FORGIVENESS
You’ve abandoned me;
You must be so lonely.
Love for you, crowds me.
And you cannot uncrowd it;
For it’s of God’s given grace:-
I’ve forgiven you,
God navigated me to:-
Can’t you forgive me?
I am sorry for my sins;
God’s forgiven me; can’t you?!
Four years old and short of breath,
in a tented bed at the end of the ward,
the terror of separation in check only
because Mother had told me she would be
there in the morning, first thing.
But she wasn't, and at last I just wailed
across the receding rows of sick children
and they, like sympathetic strings,
howled back in atonal harmonics.
The bulging matron shouted: "SHUT UP!",
and grumbled loudly about “that brat”.
Later, when Mother arrived,
the matron handed me a toy
with a smile,
that did not reach her eyes.
When I was young, you walked away from me,
and left a space no child should have to bear.
You never fought to be my family,
as though my life was less than worth your care.
But I remember when I was just a baby,
your arms were steady, your voice soft and low.
You said you loved me, your brown-eyed lady,
and swore you’d never let me go.
You found a wife, a son, a brand-new beginning,
and gave him all the things you denied me.
I spent years wondering what was so unforgiving,
about the child you simply chose not to see.
You spun your stories, one lie after another,
claims that stole the time you could not give.
Yet somehow you could stay beside another,
and build the kind of life I couldn't live.
You taught me love can vanish without warning,
that promises can fade before they're made.
I watched for you through every hopeful morning,
while every expectation slowly frayed.
So when I think of you, I think of what was missing,
the empty chair, the silence, and the ache.
Not every wound comes from a blow or striking,
some come from every choice a parent doesn't make.
Oh! The ambience.
Creepy enough to make a child
cry for its mother.
The dark night, a sky pitched black,
billion fireflies and no moon.
Lying on a grass carpet,
I kept gazing.
My hands then
shivered, mind enraged;
chaos echoed, bursting it,
aiding an end.
Thus comes the nightmare.
Dreams seemed a distant delight,
delight now experienced by
a folk unknown.
My cold feet yearn for the warmth
of a fairy, once acquainted.
I urged, shed the last dried tear.
My possessions lack
a little…
Make me feel alive, muse.
Though I am gone,
bestow a heartbeat again...
An embrace before my final breath.
I am not the poet
to keep me in your thoughts.
I am a spirit
who picked up the pen.
Now, I break the quill.
Is it wrong that I bore you in my womb?
Haven't my oblations mattered to you?
I know you want to send me to the tomb.
Have I become useless, as per your view?
Holding my hands, you walked once gaily.
You didn't fear stones or thorns on your way.
You longed for my loving embrace daily.
Why do you now want to send me away?
I know I've gone weak and become helpless.
I need you to hold my hand while I walk.
You know, I haven't changed; I'm still selfless.
I would never become your stumbling block.
Leave me, son! Leave me as far as you can.
Lest I come back and spoil your every plan...
when the pain faded i wanted you there
i left, but not for protection or abandonment,
i left to be seen.
did it end when the words left my mouth?
no,
you left when you decided that words were too much.
i loved you even when my body failed me.
my mouth said the wrong things and my legs lead me in the wrong direction.
but at least i thought i was getting closer to you,
what filled your mind as you walked away from me?
these tears aren’t those of disappointment.
these aren’t regrets i hold, these are lessons dropping into my palms.
every tear is an opportunity for me to realize
how much of you is me
and how much of me is you.
will you let yourself forget me?
or have you already become akin to me?
are we living in the same world yet?
or has your ignorance already lead you to a greater bliss than i could offer?
how much more of my truth do i have to throw away to reach you?
his advice, hate none, results in his abandonment ~ truth is bitter
Childhood abandonment
makes you miss everyone
you've met and all of
the people you're
yet to meet.
It makes you hug
differently, and love
more passionately.
But on the flipside,
it makes you hyper-independent,
and it makes you push people
away when they get closest
to you.
I'd tell you goodbye,
but I can never bring myself
to do it.
Nobody important to me
has ever said it - not a single
one.
And so,
I linger,
in the spaces between
holding on and letting go,
waiting for someone to prove
they won't leave.
Though deep down,
I already know.
You're already gone,
and you haven't
been listening.
I hope he makes you feel at home
hope it’s sweet when he’s singing you songs
I’m sorry I choked chewing on
my own tongue for too long
You’ve moved out
and moved on
Making vacancy space inside my arms
but there’s something I’m still clung on
Vagabond who can’t wander on
or let go of that glimmer of home
I wasn’t living in love
but I was somewhere so close
Does he listen when you’re silent?
Does he watch you as you sleep?
Is it everything we were supposed to have?
I can’t help but feel like the trick’s on me
You said
he makes you feel
like magic.
and I transcended, disappearing from the picture
as I imagined your passion
watched
my love story
col lapse
in
to
trag
edy
in a second
and a half.
Limericks X
This is a more serious limerick:
The Abandoned Child’s Complaint
by Michael R. Burch
I hoped you might have loved me,
but you pushed me out to sea
like Moses, for some other
strange Egyptian mother:
Isis, Nefertiti.
Keywords/Tags: limerick, child. childhood, children, child abuse, baby, abandonment, unloved, love, unwanted, mother
I have been abandoned,
Left as a baby,
The main person you want around,
Is the mother figure,
No cards, no letters,
No visitations she made,
Just left me in the world,
After delivering me,
On what should ave been a special day,
My father not around,
To busy with another woman,
Abandoned by him to be left alone again,
All grown up living my life,
Things seem to be missing,
Yes, just the abandonment parts right?.
Feeling empty,
Even when they come round again,
Nothing will fix the whole that was left,
Of feeling the abandonment once again...
my dog is loved
and that’s a fact
yet it lives in fear
of abandonment
why so i ask
you have a home
it’s never happened
you’ve never been left behind
you’re safe
why is it you live in fear
when I head out that door
your panic so intense
frantically pacing
your heart is racing
it’s a primal fear
wild beyond control
how can i put your mind at ease?
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
It was full of long stringy grass which had grown out, all over the back of the house. It hung over the bare walls. The briars were everywhere and they would prick you clean red blooded. The shed widows shattered and the door covered in heavy moss. the thick smoke running out from the chimney looked like it was about to go up in flames. The red ransomes lawnmower was rotted in rust and rooted to the ground by long grass.The clothes line had snapped in half. The tarmac laneway was cracked with weeds pumping out from underneath it all. Remodelling was out of the question. It remained untouched and there was no even sign that anything would change
A mark of scarlet was the first,
Fitting of inferior character.
He was associated of plagues,
The name given of a tragedy.
The dead made a bottomless pit on him,
Rendered executed, the title of foundling.
My spirit,
Incinerated.
Its ashes
Descend back into
That dark crater:
That inky opaque abyss,
Where the slightest din
Is swallowed,
Where that one fragment of light is asphyxiated,
Held down,
Stripped and raped from its alluring, golden iridescence.
It drowned in its own tears
And then scattered across its own grave.
They turn their backs
With apathy entrenched into their depths:
The reason for my oblivion
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