She’s said one sentence to me
in the past 72 hours.
She hasn’t hugged me,
she hasn’t talked to me,
she hasn’t even looked at me.
What have I done?
She’s talked to other people,
everyone.
Except me.
The one who’s been there for her.
The one who knows everything.
The one who knows her days of almost committing.
Yet she’s not responding to me.
“I don’t want a hug from you!”
I am walking on a single thread,
I am running out of time,
I am sinking into maybe and once upon a time,
I am focusing out of a silver dime.
The city lights are blinking,
The memoirs are getting blurry,
The colours are running out together,
The world is drifting in motion.
Is this world only mine?
Are your tensions becoming vague?
Are you sinking into the light beneath the balcony door?
Are you craving the signs?
The desecrated smile on your face,
The mistakes are hazy,
My planet is losing shape without your voice,
I am trying to locate your gaze.
If I fall, is that called freedom,
Or just another circle made?
I am not lost or out of focus,
But I don't want to lose my grip on the strand.
The earth has many components
So is a human being
Unwrapping of a sequence
The moon has many faces
So is a lie
Unwrapping of a truth
It is a pattern,
Is it the memorandum?
Being played out
An amazement of characters
Is it the plan?
Being formulated
Eagerness of personalities
It is a norm,
The sea has many entries
So is the mind
Unwrapping of a soul
The ocean has many layers
So is the mountain
Unwrapping of a planet
It is a pattern.
Crying comes when I turn tender
for framed faces under glass caress-cleaned
while whimsical mind measures
shift sadly towards lonely longings
heart held for family.
Tears task their deaths to my well worth
with wee sobs shaking my gleaned grace.
One glance is enough
stranger summed with a side glance,
a total write-off—
before the case is opened
judge rejects the evidence.
A still life, unclaimed
canvas without signature
likeness left unseen—
what does not count slips away
in the glance we never gave.
Early verdict's in
worth already written down
sum of worthless parts—
guilty as charged, at first sight—
stranger, totaled, towed away.
I sit alone in the silence of the night.
With the light shining through.
Just for you.
The light stares at you.
If only you were here.
If only you hadn’t gone too soon.
Perhaps the silence of the night wouldn’t be so heavy for me.
A life with no pain,
If only it could be true,
That would be the day,
For sure, I felt nothing for you,
The pain was love,
In it’s on dirty form,
Never meant to rust,
Like silver with Time in the sun,
Dried up and bitter,
Disgusted and cruel,
That became our love,
When you made me look like your fool.
Which was the dream?
The sweet comfort I found
nested in your boughs,
or the shape you take now?
Some cold, unfeeling lot,
where I used to sleep in
the grass.
Light evanesced upon his leaving
with the final choke of dusk--
the fragrance of orchids wisping softly
and I shiver...vapid, empty
clouds swallowing the kiln of lamppost-
and into the restless clang
from winds booming,
the dirge of hummingbirds stutters
which makes noises louder
than my groans-- the ceiling of sky
breaking like splinters of glass-
and among incandescent stars,
our distant, intermittent rendezvous
withers as my peppered tears grate
the bitter tincture of night's burial
from all his trespasses,
a body language
coiled in stale cocoon...his words
barbed as jailed verses ...
unuttered ,unsaid.
The ocean of intelligence waves my faith
Between the horizon clouds fall asleep
The science of the mind shows my traite
Upon surrendering my soul no one must weep
Under the twilight merge the lamp of my dream
the silence have awaken my deep sorrow
With the sharpened moon the arrows beam
faster than the wind my mind will follow
Surrounded by boundaries of mental fear
the stars are awakened to challenge and fight
What happens to the old souls who disappear
all the answers in the future will come to light
To unveil the mystery of life is a difficult path
look for the sage who knows the silent art
Watching them leave
Holding my sister dearly
Trying not to cry
Why did they have to go?
But my sister seems dull
"Bye bye" is all she says
Bare minimum?
Yes, I somehow learned to settle for it.
But woe to the debt of sorries I owe to myself.
Woe to the promises I tore up with my own hands.
What a love, so full of sorrow and despair!
Oh, what am I still doing
in a house once filled with love,
now empty?
The love has gone,
but resentment has moved in.
-LilitaWaliWrites??
The tree
The flowers in the valley
Purple like fruit punch
I see Sandra by the pine tree
She’s crouched down talking to a little girl
The clouds above look like an elephant version of ABBA
Oh wait that little girl might be me
But a memory
Because I am not under the tree yet
I am still a leaf
Expectations
By Dustin Branum
And when my angel betrayed me
It was my demons that saved me
While the devil enslaves me
Although you might think I'm crazy
It was Lord thou savior that played me
My own flesh and blood's degrading
I thought I was Destined but maybe
Lost soul, and the death of a baby
Dark, cold, and angry they made me
The ones that loved me now hate me
One gun one bullet one shovel they gave me
Six feet down in a hole they laid me
Same Roof
We shared a roof, a table, the same four walls,
and still I lived on the far side of a door
no one had thought to knock on.
Their voices filled the house each morning,
familiar as the kettle, the taps, the stairs,
and none of it ever reached me.
I was in the room. I was not seen.
You can stand in a doorway for years
and be furniture to the people you love.
They were meant to be the ones who knew me
before I knew myself,
who could read the weather in my face.
Instead I learned to fold my heart small,
to keep it in a pocket
where no one would ask what it weighed.
I have grieved the things that happened.
That grief has edges. It has names and dates.
The other grief has none.
It is the hush where the conversation should have been,
the hand that never reached across,
the people I sat beside for years
and never met.
I was not only mourning what was done to me.
I was mourning the child who kept waiting to be known,
and the closeness
that never had its chance to exist.
Absence Categories
Definition | What is Absence in Poetry?
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.
Related Poetry Forms
cut, vacancy, hooky, absenteeism, truancy, french leave, nonattendance, awol, nonappearance, no show, deficiency, drought, lack, omission, dearth, privation, void, inadequacy, insufficiency, want, need, unavailability,