Best In Limbo Poems
[Verse 1]
I keep staring at the empty side of the bed
Wondering why you left without a word said
Was it the way I held on too tight?
Or did you just get tired of the fight?
[Verse 2]
You slipped out like smoke through my hands
Leaving me with questions I’ll never understand
There’s a song we used to play on repeat
Now it’s just silence that I can’t defeat
[Chorus]
Every moment’s a cell that I can’t break free from
I wasn’t there when you handed down the sentence, love
Caught between memories and what I never knew
This limbo’s a place where hope just won’t pull through
You were my lover, my closest friend
Now I’m chasing shadows that never end
Are we done? Or just frozen in time?
This waiting, this not knowing—it’s slowly killing my mind
[Verse 3]
You wanted freedom — maybe more than me
Took your Independence like a thief in the night, silently
I’m left in the ruins of all we planned
With nothing but ghosts and a ring in my hand
[Chorus]
Every moment’s a cell that I can’t break free from
I wasn’t there when you handed down the sentence, love
Caught between memories and what I never knew
This limbo’s a place where hope just won’t pull through
You were my heartbeat, my favorite sound
Now it’s just echoes I keep hanging around
Are we done? Or is this some cruel pause?
Girl, living like this is a slow, quiet loss
[Bridge]
If you wanted to leave, just say it plain
Don’t bury me in silence or leave me in pain
I’m drowning in questions, no lifeline in sight
You wanted your freedom — you got your Independence that night
[Outro]
Forever locked away, and I’m still here
Haunted by memories, haunted by fear
Longing for answers I’ll never get
In this limbo where I’m stuck — can’t forget
Encased in darkness
neither here there anywhere,
locked in misery
a reminder each day
the devil keeps his promise.
© Harry J Horsman 2012
I hear you in that limbo
in that place where the lost don’t land
where you’re begging for a lifeline
but life won’t extend a hand
Where sleep don’t ever visit
just memories that choke the air
and you lay there wide-awake
’cause your nightmares don’t play fair
Thirteen in a cell?
That’s trauma carved straight into bone
you didn’t break your mother’s heart
the world broke yours first alone
You ain’t “too much,” you’re haunted
and haunted hearts beat loud
you’re a storm they tried to silence
but storms don’t bow to crowds
If darkness is your only friend
then let me sit in it too
two shadows breathing steady
’cause I won’t walk out on you
You say you’re stuck in spirals
replaying every dread-filled thought
but sometimes the ones who survived hell
are the realest ones ever taught
So talk your pain, I’ll answer
I’m built to carry the weight
Your not alone in the fire
I’ll be right here…as I watch a strength
you didn’t know you had that I most admire
This was written in response to a 13 year old who could not see any light thru all her darkness!
So here I am - Reincarnated
No more keeping up with Joneses
Free at last ! ... forgetting though:
They love to eat frog legs for dinner...
I was given a challenge to write a short poem by looking at a picture of a frog... :)
Trapped behind these bars
I grow anxious and continuously scheme
For a way to get out.
But this cage is extensive
And its door is a long ways out.
I try to squeeze through, but they constrict
And ultimately I fail.
I am strong but these bars won't bend.
Its useless and I am spent
There is no more fight, my flame-extinguished
I am rationed-it keeps me weak
Eyes strained and muscles sore
I surrender.
With eyes closed, I give in to this abuse
Losing my conscious with every lash and lick.
Then I wake up from that nightmare
only to hit my head on an even lower cage ceiling
And it starts again.
But there is no door and I have no rations.
The claustrophobia sets in, and the air is heavy.
Like breathing in cotton, I struggle
And loose feeling; due to the lack of oxygen
My lungs stutter and protest but they can't be filled
Hardly the energy to produce a tear, I blackout instead.
Only to wake up, cramped in a stale box.
Its quiet and I can't breathe.
The only company I have is the sound of my heart.
The beats are slow and muffled, as it desperately tries to pump blood.
I still can't feel anything-But I think its cold.
I've been suffocating for what seems like hours.
Its been a week and my mouth is dry with dirt,
I can no longer open my eyes.
Its been awhile and no ones noticed.
The sound of my heart has escaped my ears,
I think its cold but i still can't feel.
I re-live death, Stuck in Limbo
By Nicholas A. Bello
If heaven were real,
We wouldn’t have third eyes;
We would have eyes that never closed
To see what was never plainly exposed.
If heaven were real, we wouldn’t have love;
We would have lukewarm touch,
Unsaturated veins.
We would get bored of storms and the end that came;
And I would drown waiting outside your gate.
If heaven were real,
You would look me straight in the eye
And realize that it was always me;
You’d see what all along I'd seen.
If heaven were real,
I would scare you every night with my quivering;
You would sigh at my lips upon your head.
If heaven were real, then god is dead.
But everything else is still the same,
All the angels salt out of the sky in vain,
As I sit on the pavement in a fit of rain.
If heaven were real,
Then who am I supposed to blame?
And how could I have made the mistake,
Of falling in love with that look on your face?
My dearest, if heaven were real—
I sure as hell would know my place.
Time keeps on moving but nothing has changed
I still am stranded in my eternal land of dread
Close consideration leaves myself to be blamed
I have almost lost touch and become estranged
Often times lost in thought, laying in a cold bed
Time keeps on moving but nothing has changed
I think if I had a leseer will I would be derranged
Occasionally I think I would be better of dead
Close consideration leaves myself to be blamed
No worries though, no easy way to be claimed
The road to happiness, I soon hope to tread
Time keeps on moving but nothing has changed
I don't think my stubborness will ever be tamed
A hard head makes a soft *** they have said
Close consideration leaves myself to be blamed
Someday all my affairs will be properly arranged
I will lead the existence I should have always led
Time keeps on moving but nothing has changed
Close consideration leaves myself to be blamed
For all you patriots, for all you who have a home to call, I both pity and
envy
you.
In my short life, I have come to find out that the realization of having no home is heart
wrenching.
And after so many years of licking my wounds, it seems they still bleed,
for as I write this my heart clenches itself in a tight embrace, and my
weary
eyes blink away the misty haze.
So I come to ask, how is it I find myself without a home, how is it I feel a flaming patriotism
towards Lebanon,
yet I know its streets less than some of those who would have it burn?
I was two when I left Lebanon, memoryless
I return, every summer, and sit in the houses of my grandparents, always: I feel out of place.
I am there, remembering the times of my past summers,
as I fell and scraped my knees on Lebanon’s rocks, as I fought with its children and ate of its
olives.
And still I feel Lebanon, its people and its cedars, have moved on every time I left in August, my
month of mourning,
and I am still two, with no memory of home, just a feeling of longing,
I am an anchor cast in a bottomless sea, truly, I am
in limbo.
© Samir Georges
2010
I Can't protect you from the course of life
But you know me
And you know I was born to try
It’s just the symptom of the middle age of time
Forever holding our hands up to the fire
Every hand that you hold
It comes back no one knows
Every word every lie
It comes back anytime
You can run
Because you were right
No more fears
No more trials
The frozen air
The screaming feet
Confusing you for letting me eat
I was walking through the forest of my mind
Never knowing where the path would unwind
Your smile surrounds me
when I close my weary eyes
The hardest whisper to hear
Is from the man inside...
Trapped in limbo,
Not moving ahead
Never looking behind;
Suspended in that single moment
of time.
Not moving ahead,
Suspended in that single moment
of time,
Never looking behind,
Trapped in limbo.
Note: this poetry form is an Ungalino.
Like it never happened,
we greet each other with
hugs and hellos.
I see you with mutual
friends;
we drive in
separate cars:
acquaintances.
Stuck between loves,
two halves of an unmade
sandwich,
that no one wants
to eat.
I don't want a divorce,
I don't want our marriage to end.
I would love to be by your side,
and when the whole world is against me have a place to hide.
I desire to see your face every morning when I wake,
it hurts me deep inside that I'm away.
Not by my choice but because you feel It's best,
you don't have the feelings for me that a wife should.
I'm not sure if you think you're doing me a favor by separating like this,
one things for certain that you both are truly missed.
My life is up in the air and when I fall I hope that you'll be there.
I know I'm sometimes rough around the edges but that's who I am,
committed, loyal but sometimes paranoid of how you do things.
Am I to be totally subservient to you if things work out?
Or will we both meet half way instead of scream and shout?
I wonder at this very moment if you feel anything for me,
I know I love you very much and never wanted to leave.
Stuck in limbo in every aspect of life.
What am I to do, when I still love my beautiful wife?
When we were young
Together we both followed the sun
I saw forever in you'r eyes
Made for each other
With so much to discover
A dream we thought would never dye.
Time took it's toll
As we grew older
Others tried to tear us apart
The fire we once had
Became just a smoulder
We became strangers of the heart.
chorus.
Where did our yesterday's go
Why did it have to end
Teenage sweethearts
Who followed the sun
As both lovers and best friends.
Too many things stood in our way
It was like climbing a mountain everyday
Although our love may have died
I still feel the pain deep inside.
Everything around me reminds me
Of her and haunting memories of loss
Still plague my mind
When you lose everything you had
Life becomes an existence
You live in limbo
And life is so unkind.
As I get older
Life becomes colder
And the sun no longer shines
Sometimes I can't bare anymore
I feel as I'm out of my mind
Chorus.
Peter Dome. Coyright.2016. Dec.
Written: May 12, 2025, for contest by Brian Strand
*************************
layers of my identity are—
deceptive
caught in
our
cobweb
shadows of
who i once was
hang
in
uncertainty~
stripping
my
essence
from palms of your hands~
suspended
in limbo
two
of us
who are we
If not a creature of our m a k i n g
sanity
deity
martyr turned sacrifice—
what am I now
other than
a
lingering g h o s t
OPEN FORM created by Brian Strand: in lowercase without grammatical symbols, uses spaces&breaks relying upon 'the one breath limitation' & as a 'happening' requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input &respond in a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood & thus is inherently variable.
waiting for that first snowfall
its blanket of glitter
and magical hush
looking for that perfect excuse
to build a fire, to lock the door
and blissfully hibernate
AP: Honorable Mention 2022