As you move, I see the falseness in each stride,
A puppet of deceit, with nothing left to hide.
Every gesture, once genuine, now feels forced,
A facade crumbling, revealing your true course.
Your words drip with venom, leaving a bitter taste,
A sharp sting that lingers, hard to erase.
Your voice, once soothing, now grates like nails,
Each syllable a dagger, a story that fails.
I watch your smile, now twisted and sly,
The deceit in your eyes is impossible to deny.
Your touch, once warm, now feels like ice,
A chill that spreads, devoid of any vice.
Your laughter, hollow and false,
Promising kindness, hiding the malice it scrawls.
The warmth you once radiated now feels cold,
A presence that darkens, making me fold.
~~~
woe, to my woken, winter's sleep
dark shadows chilling my hollow
springs well up, orbs forever weep
winter rings...no spring will follow
bitter is the cold, bitter so old
bitter for just...one last, first start
sprinklings of springs, so young and bold
now, ice-slick sickles, sever my heart
oh, bitter is the winter of my death
bitter keeps ring, ringing, my phone
bitter is...the hindering of breath
bitter is...my winter alone
for a moment
I close my eyes
and wish you well
like a balloon
I let in the sky
that will never come down again
a bitter brain such as mine
contains no remorse
so I am sorry I have nothing
to give to you
and a running nose
I cant stop from running tho
and for a moment
I am back to black
and black and white
monotone
and envious
a bitter lung
no air
so I am empty
with not much to breathe for
besides the winter that
haunts the house
across the street from
where I grew up
my livers life
is shorter than my own
deadly
but I love
the admiration you give me when I smoke
hello
hello
can you hear me from the trees
from the trees
you call me
but I will never suffice
for a perfect lover
and I blame my bitter brain
food fit for palaces
prepared with expert chef's care —
served to a small child
gets an instant revulsion
they're so brutally honest
nature hard-wired tongues
to guard against bitter greens
which could be poison
like veggies appear to be
to a child with veg decree
one bite - that's the pact
then child can eat another
food morsel they like
each taste an invitation
to get braver by tasting
For long who’d been my better half
Has now become my bitter half--
Bitter, my autumns sing
Of fantasies of spring…
To bull has blown a benign calf
Who feels (or feigns) she’s tired
Ever since I retired,
To smirk has turned a vibrant laugh.
_________________________
Happenings | 24.07.2025 | humour, life, wife
Note: She has, I would like to feel, nothing against my poetic journey as such, but that my poems fetch not a penny.
Here's a thought or two for you
and it's not that I am bitter
but when around and about a look I took
it ground me down to see such litter
tourists travelers neighbours too
please let me remind
think what you do I beg of you
and only footprints leave behind
but when it comes to living things
if the foot were in the other boot
would you like being polished off
therefore only photos shoot
I often struggle to make peace
with nagging relapses that,
like endless tides, come
then I need to chase away.
Intrusive rekindlings of loss,
of wanting to resurrect the past,
each time needing to go through the motions
of convincing myself it's pointless.
Confined, trapped, buckled in,
I ride this live rollercoaster
that leaves me feeling disillusioned,
frustration having a bitter rancid taste.
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
You take joy in seeing my heart bleed,
Because of your avarice and greed.
The pains you caused come with no reprieve,
Yet you’ve the audacity to leave.
I invested every ounce in you,
Your ponderings control all I do.
My bitter cries you heedlessly sought,
Yet you’re blind to the hatred you brought.
How can your mind ever be at peace,
When the sadness you give does not cease?
You bury my joy far out of reach,
When your love is all I ever preach.
Away from you, joy will surely flee,
Though it seems arduous to foresee.
But so long as breath lives in your lungs,
Deep grief will lace the words on your tongue.
I don't know why.
I added the same sugar,
poured from the same tin.
But it reminds me of farewells
those spoken casually,
like we wouldn't miss each other.
Like love could be scheduled.
This bitterness
it's not the coffee.
It's remembering your face only through photos
your voice buried beneath children's laughter.
You turned your back
and cut me loose
not caring how I felt
cast me aside
and left me hanging
as you just walked away
Orphaned discarded and rejected
wondered how I would survive
but I somehow from within
summoned the strength
I needed to forgive that treachery
to become the Me I am today
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Submitted on May 18, 2025 for contest ABANDON sponsored by CONSTANCE LA FRANCE
With these rings, we said, "I do,"
Never planned to play the fool.
Too young to grasp loves weight,
Too blind to heed its rules.
We were D—drifting, never devoted.
We were I—insensible, inconsiderate.
We broke our Vows, splintered trust.
We were O—reckless, outrageous.
We were R—tangled, bitter root.
We were C—careless, never committed.
We were E—estranged, unraveling fast.
A word we swore would never be ours
became the silent sentence:
Divorce.
Too immature for love’s responsibility,
we fled into goodbye.
bitter
acerbic, unpleasant
sneering, alarming, unwelcoming
acidulent, caustic, saccharine, confection
tasting, appreciating, fancying
pleasing, tasty
sweet
The pains of those ailments that grab us at will
Once better, like stalkers, can linger on still
But it’s patently true that life’s bitterest pill
Is the pain when it’s someone you love that is ill
When struck down, bedridden, we try to be brave
Though we feel our survival might be a close shave
But we’d gladly accept our God’s beckoning wave
If that keeps our loved one away from their grave
*
And so when I hear that slight tremor of fear
No hug and no words for the one I hold dear
Can bring forth a smile full of genuine cheer
And that forehead kiss… conceals my own tear
At night, to the God in whom I don’t believe
I sheepishly say, “I don’t want her to leave.”
I snuggle up close, I’m not ready to grieve
And I smile in the morning as I hear her breathe
The doctors I’ve trusted I must trust in still
For they’ll mend her again; I’m sure that they will
But it’s patently true that life’s bitterest pill
Is the pain when it’s someone you love that is ill
In a field of bitter thoughts, where sunrises drown in shadows of silence,
We are often surrounded by faces sculpted from the clay of boredom,
Heavy heads like potatoes forgotten in the barren soil of banality,
Perched on shoulders wearing suits of shadows, tasteless, lifeless,
And their lives slip through like a thin thread of sand in the hourglass of indifference,
Not even pity finds its place among these drifting souls,
There is only a murmur, a chorus of discontent fading into echoes of nothingness,
Beyond this landscape, hope glimmers, a flicker of meaning,
There, where masks fall and truth seeks its voice among forgotten whispers,
There, where dreams take root and grow beyond the ashes of apathy,
Let us not be deceived, for within every soul lies a story waiting to be told,
Even in the humblest hearts, there is a spark that could ignite the sky.
I ate a bite of bitter chocolate.
Only I could survive.
The biting wasteland.
Feeling some feeling.
Like bitterness.
I swallowed that.
I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed.
The sweet flower.
Which smells strange.
Like how chocolate tastes.
Horrible.
Can’t remember why.
I ate a bite of cake.
I was bitter for no reason at all.
I feel unsettled sometimes.
Brushing my teeth.
So I can escape.
Eating more types of food.
Which have different textures.
But turned horrible against me.
I ate a bite of some sort of food.
There’s no way to know.
What is candy, or pasta, or something evil.
Take a bite.
Throw it in the trash.
Take a bite.
They told me to.
Bitter.
That’s all we have.
I ate a bite of the monster’s skin.
He howled and smiled.
I cried and hoped.
That there is more.
The monsters run away for now.
But the taste remains.
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