Best Vulnerability Poems
dust-wearing-wind carries a feeble cry in its palm,
settles it near ears that can no longer hear.
Cries arise from hollows of your hungry face,
a pulpit of high cheeks bones— in sharp relief
to sunken skin-scape sallow and paper thin—
a preacher on the harrows of hunger.
Vulture keeps a still, silent vigil,
a patient witness to your starvation,
comrade and adversary
in a fight for your last breath and beat.
Your loyal companion, a symbol of death
where drones rain with flames on tents of refugees
and sky splitting missiles make shrapnel of the sun,
where dragon fire artillery shoots the moon
and shreds stars till they fate-fall
like the last nightjars from nocturne skies.
Dear child of war,
alone with nothing in your belly but a stone,
rib bones a famine cage,
thoracic fingers squeeze your soul.
Your heart a hostage,
flutters like a lost moth against your sternum.
I long to hold you and feed you
honey made from a million wild flowers
uncrushed beneath metal plates of tank treads.
I yearn to bathe you of collapsed concrete dust
cleanse you of your mother’s blood, her
rattle-boned, battle-owned, maternal body wrapped
over yours as they fed her Kalashnikov lead.
My faraway ache for your plight pales
against your tiny body’s black-rose-throes,
a pawn to thorns of soldiers
grown on rocket-torn-boot-worn streets.
War-zone fig trees bear no fruit,
hibiscus buds die as hornets knit nests into shrubs,
tomorrow but a diseased wheat field laid to waste.
Dear child of war,
deliverance will come when pall-bearer winds
carry your cries elsewhere…
I continue to feel
the searing pain.
ever constant.
so keen.
Not the kind
that heals fast,
open wound that closes.
But, the kind that stays vulnerably
with the passing years.
Three decades
and still counting.
Woe to this pain!
With laden anguish,
The heart's bemoaning.
Thinking it was born
without a name.
Only to find then
at a much later time;
giving in.
Oblivious now.
Unashamed
that my bosom groans,
complains.
A careful constructed system
that’s designed to lead to failure
few escapes, leaving the rest
to be taken advantage of
those who escape
reaches a certain level
then prey on the weak
by selling hopes and dreams,
hope and dreams
that rarely come true.
The game is being sold as
the truth remains concealed
while those continue to profit
off the ignorance and the pain
emotions get exploited,
generating energy curren-cy
that keeps the system employed
as it thrives on the sufferer.
Extortion and manipulation
hijacks the mind, turning
you into willing participants
of your own torment,
creating a tyrannical force
that’s impossible to beat.
Free-will in disguise is a
predetermined force
coering you to endure in
a careful constructed system,
a system that’s designed
to maximize human suffering.
She is a Pacific ocean
Tranquil from outside
tumultuous from with in
Shallow it seems from the surface
But deep, very deep it descends...
And what things it carry inside
Lively Coral reefs
And Volcanoes
Ready to errupt...
A world that can never be uncovered...
She is a cloud
Floating on air waves
Struggling to find a place
Where she shall shower all her gems
And those won't go wasted
But will reborn the dead soil
And the sleepy seeds
So precious, so full of potentials...!
And yet she is a butterfly
But with the heart of an Eagle
Standing like a mountain
Against the Tsunamis
That rise even with pebbles, when thrown in the sea
Fragile yet very strong...
Emotional but Taciturn...
She is a Moon
With different phases
That come out to roam every night
To enlight the valleys
To listen to the untold stories
And go back in the morning to burry them....
She is light, she is beauty
A food for thought, a key to imaginations
And there she is, a flower
Scared of taking hands of her face
For she will be cut, put in vase and eventually thrown away
Does fate has this in store for roses?
She exists but she does not
Like stars on a full moon night
She is there... Yet invisible..!
She lives, but mostly in silence...!!
*~°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°~*
Like the Pacific ocean she may look cool
But her heart and mind are like a bomb
Loaded with wild imaginations and deep emotions
Her heart finds solace in the stories of teleportation
Fragile and delicate like a butterfly
Yet strong like the mountains that stand high
She stays silent like the shy Moon in june
Though a 'Stream of consciousness' follows every tune
Afraid of people and the touch of time
But yearns to be worthy and bloom in her prime
She is beauty, only for the seeing eyes
And a food for thought but only if one realize
They say boys don’t cry.
They say it like a promise.
Like strength is stitched in our skin at birth
and weakness is something
you have to unzip your chest to find.
I was eight
when I learned that sadness had a gender.
That girls get tissues,
and boys get told to “tough it out.”
That scraped knees get band-aids,
but broken hearts?
Those just get buried under
“man up”
and “you’ll be fine.”
I was twelve
when my dad said,
“Stop acting like a girl.”
Like emotions were diseases
and I’d caught one.
So I stopped.
Stopped crying.
Stopped talking.
Stopped needing anything
that made me look soft.
Because being soft
felt like being disposable.
And you wonder why boys break things
before they break down?
Why fists meet walls before feelings meet words?
We are taught to bottle it up—
but no one tells you what happens
when the pressure hits the glass ceiling of your skull.
I walk hallways with a smile that’s a lie.
Teachers don’t ask.
Friends don’t see.
And the counselor?
Too busy with the loud kids,
the girls who cry pretty in bathrooms.
My silence doesn’t make a scene.
It just echoes.
Some nights I scream
into pillows
so I don’t have to apologize
for having a voice.
But no one sees bruises
when they’re on the inside.
No one asks
if you're okay
when your mask fits perfectly.
And I want to tell you—
depression wears cologne too.
Anxiety knows how to laugh at jokes.
Panic attacks can come
after touchdowns and straight A’s.
I want to scream:
Check on your boys.
Check on the ones who always say, “I’m good.”
Check on the ones whose humor hits too hard,
too fast,
like they’re trying to dodge their own thoughts.
Because we are drowning
in plain sight.
We are falling
but our hands look like fists,
so no one thinks to catch us.
We are breaking
in ways that look like silence.
And silence
doesn’t make noise
until it’s too late.
—Seeking Still—
The stars have lost the tremor of their fire,
the aspens, wind-wed, scarcely stir a leaf;
the sea keeps blue, yet azure's old attire
seems banish'd from the deep, past all belief.
The butterflies still skim the lucent air,
yet some lost eidolon of flight is gone;
the hummingbirds, once liquid choirs, blare
like brazen bells beneath a witless dawn.
I touch the rain—it glimmers, yet is dry;
the lilies breathe a wan, funereal sweet;
and honey, once the sun's own gold, turns awry,
lies rotting 'neath the noontide's brazen heat.
What if the world hath not grown strange at all—
but I became the stranger at thy fall?
I muse if mine own wits have wander'd wide,
or some eldritch derangement veils my sight;
for thou hast vanish'd, leaving naught beside
but all the world bereft of inward light.
The moon still climbs above the chimneys' smoke,
and weary men bar fast their doors at night;
yet every common thing seems somehow broke,
as though each thing had outliv'd its ancient right.
Perhaps thy presence was the secret art
by which the visible became benign;
and now the world still beats, yet lacks the heart
that taught its mute immensities to shine.
And shouldst thou never turn thy face to mine,
I'll call this ruined universe—divine.
Born into this world, my opinion never mattered
Had no voice yet today my tears flow like a stream
Born into hardship and poverty, its no fault of mine
No need to ask my pains... for the fast receding of my flesh showcasing my bones tells my story
Most times I feel its punishment for what I know not... but I look around and see thousands just like me
Without food nor water
Without clothes nor a place to call home
Without light in sight... I wonder if God exists
Holy books talking of His love for us and I wonder if i have been forsaken
If we have been condemned to hell on earth for reasons unknown
If we are being punished for breathing
Who is to blame; society or poverty
In a heartless society, a few of heart still exist
Not all take delight in the sufferings of others
Where as others choose to condemn, a few choose to redeem
Giving back hope and life to people rejected by all, they go the extra mile
A father to the orphan who society abandoned
A husband to the widow whose world came to a halt, still grieving, she was chased away
The only shoulder that old woman needed before being pushed to the wicked grips of camps supposed for witches
Genuinely on the course of humanity, he invests his sweat
An investment seeking smiles as profit
A believe in the betterment of life, an umbrella of love hope and care is spread
Society can never be perfect but none deserves its Cruelty
It doesn't take much to touch lives but only a few do
Cheers to the few
Having gone days without food, I know what it means to have a saviour.
Indeed you are a man of the people
A king for all and heart for good
It warms our heart to know;
despite being an orphan
despite living in poverty
despite being widowed and the pains of accusations
Our lives still means something
Giving us hope and a reason to live, we say THANK YOU
Thank You for not making vulnerable a curse
Naa Tia Foundation Without doubt is the reason behind my smiles and shot at life
Sweet apocalyptic frailty
seeps from weary sighs
Punctuated words we love
or love-words we despise
Body-rocking self-hatred
that drags us from the light
Idealism, perfection
thieves that rape us in the night
Car wrecks and too much sex
things that make us feel
taint of success, abject failure
things that make us real
vulnerability-
whenever disaster strikes
we need each other
* My heart and prayers go out to those in Moore, Oklahoma.
For Black Eyed Susan's contest, '1 Senryu Any Subject'
Ah, luminous white she blooms a deceptive ghost
lover of dark arts ripe in charisma and night
moon seducer logic diffuser defense reducer
user of dreams abuser of romance
tempter-serpent twines and vines
a tendril's slither …shh noiseless
vanilla viper— she’s a fever teaser
damn well make you a heartbreak believer
celestial and terrestrial she’s a territorial force
spider-vein-lightning crackles across neuronal nebulae
behind your glister eyes firework-fantasies flicker
desire— a brush fire— engulfs your cerebral star fields
razing you to burn red marrow to ash...
oh you long— you long to be the phoenix on her pyre
writhing to rise again and again
you yearn to pluck her play her possess her
place her in a solitary bud vase
share your lust of ardor with hungry admiration
resist the thirst of your hands to touch
resist the airy lariat of her buttercream-spice
resist the thirst of your taste buds to baste in her taste
as honey-whines drip from her summer-wine lips
poised in parted pout to poison you
physical and ethereal she wears an imperial crown
she steals your stars and flaunts them in her eyes
dare her when she unfurls— a swan against black satin
she’ll wrestle your heart from your chest
burst it with pin-prick-pupils of scorn
save it in her cat’s paw purse for her verse—
before she mousetraps your bleats and mercy pleas
within the mantrap of her parasol pleats
leaving you alone to skin your soul
and mend the hole where your old self ends
while your new self melts into moans you now own
VULNERABILITY
I Proceeded to face my vulnerability
it crowned me in a place of darkness
where I couldn’t find any forgiveness,
I was dwindling in all these pains
of a life unkindness.
Where people walk around in blindness
Oh, what a mess I was lead,-
that prepares me to walk in the weathering nightmare
where it has a rebirth in a place of thorns
that has ascended from wild roses in the fields,
oh, sleepy earth look what you have done
all beauty of life is disappearing in the shadows
where my spirit is vexed,-
I hear all the chattering coming from this old town.
It has a way of keeping me down
feeling there isn’t away out.
I watch how people grow more foolish by the days.
They tried so hard to control me from doing what I love
they have shamed my name, called me many things
watching me bleed away on those rainy nights
where I did procrastinate from my typing
Oh, I had always loved writing.
But when I am alone I have time to think
but when the silence makes its way in
my spirit soon sinks,-
I hear would hear all those nagging little voices
eating away all my courage to face another day
leaving me so vulnerable because of the abuse
leaving me feeling so used.
Poetic Judy Emery © 1980
The Queen Of Darken Dreams Poetic Lilly Emery
(softly)
There’s a silence that follows every maybe—
a kind of ghost that sits beside you
when everyone else has gone home.
I’ve seen people walk away
with my laughter still on their skin,
with my words still in their mouth—
as if I was a story
they outgrew too soon.
And it’s never the leaving that kills you,
no—
it’s the looking back.
Seeing yourself
in someone’s almost,
someone’s if only,
someone’s not quite.
They told me I was kind.
Gentle.
Understanding.
But not… enough.
Never the one they stayed for.
Never the name their heart whispered
when it had to choose.
(pauses)
So I learned—
sometimes love doesn’t end in betrayal.
It ends in absence.
In silence.
In someone forgetting
how it felt to hold you.
And maybe that’s my curse—
to be remembered softly,
but never kept.
To be missed quietly,
but never sought.
To be loved halfway,
but never all the way home.
(sighs)
But still…
I’d rather be the one who loved
and lost,
than the one who never felt
how deep it could go.
(pause)
Because even if love never chose me—
I still chose it.
Every time.
Have we had an experience?
Definitely while there’s life
We are prone to something,
To someone anywhere
Something vulnerable and unforgettable
The most delicate time
Is when we are young, full of energy
And beauty exudes like diamond.
Though not ready as yet
We are really a prawn at prone
It does not matter even age
Extinction stops the chance
At every dawn, falling in love is just one
It is vulnerable as an open pore
Oh, getting passionately in love
Carries the burden of risk to gamble.
However, we tend to make it an excuse
Offer a solution, a medicine
An ultimate remedy maybe a marriage
But the vow is an acid test
And goes with the time
If we can make a turn around to endure
Vulnerability is sweet, the way to live!
Although appear same
All hurdles cannot be same in
Vulnerability.
the more I say
the more I reveal
vulnerability increases exponentially