And I’ll lie on concrete floors
Gathering strength
To climb onto silk sheets
Thinking about dropped beats
Fight off the sleep deprivation
To circle the block, check the house and the yard
And I think of your handwriting and the lines on your face and trace your back like a map to the place
Where it’s warm and it’s dry and it’s safe
Tucked away
Every day
And maybe there’s more than we’re given
But when I just sit criss cross and listen
I’m Mary, daughter, John on a mission
Knowing what I’m meant to
Feeling like He felt too
I ran into you last week
It felt like wearing wet socks
I would’ve asked to come home
Just to dry off
I want your carpet between my toes
And the door on lock
I’d thaw by your fireplace
You would make tea
We don’t have to talk
We could just blink
I’d leave before sundown, it wouldn’t get bleak
We don’t have to talk
We don’t have to speak
The memory of loss
alive in her cries
More despondent than sad
each flashback conscribes
What denial can’t lessen
or grief will abstain
Recalling the heartache
— reliving the pain
(Dreamsleep: April, 2026)
Bleeding Eternal
The human condition
flows through my pen
Not cherubs or tulips
or wistfulness then ...
Each word like a bullet
that strikes at the heart
To bleed there eternal
— with truth to impart
(Dreamsleep: April, 2026)
Denial will get you no-where, a dead end road
A false belief, hanging on untied string
It keeps you from uplifting and living fully
It prevents genuine care, not the fire burning
It restricts truth and contiuously badgers your soul
When it all caves in, there is no use complaining
- Denial built the bridge that fell -
Heidi Sands
4/12/26
(C)opyright
The words I played in my mind like music.
I wanted to hear all the melodies they could sing.
I played your words like music in my head,
And the vague ones sounded more beautiful.
I've had them bouncing off the corners of my mind for the past day.
I don't want to have any thoughts of you saying words that might hurt me.
I just figured you always meant to say something better.
Then you smile, and that confirms it.
I play your words in my mind, searching for the melody that suits your smile.
We had the way sent from above
then kept the parts we like,
and handed back the rest and now
we don’t even think twice.
It’s like it never happened yeah,
just like it never even was,
but there is no escaping it.
It’s coming back because
He’s coming back yes, it is true
then how will things play out?
In one day can we just adjust?
We know that life’s about -
having the opportunity
to learn to live his ways.
So then how is it possible
we’ll change in just one day?
We won’t, don’t fool yourselves
because we’ve played this all so couth,
we’ll someday have to face the fact…
we can’t handle the truth.
songer.co/song/g9i13kvktuxlhrn3fy5r2bqi
Verse 1
I told myself you were background noise.
Just traffic through the blinds.
But I still pause the song when your name fits the melody —
like the air’s in on something I’m not supposed to feel.
I leave the lamp on. Not for light,
but because the dark remembers you too well.
Pre-Chorus
You said, “You’ll call when it doesn’t hurt.”
I laughed — I said I never do.
Now every ring sounds like a dare.
Chorus
I don’t miss you.
Except always.
Except in the mirror,
in the hallway,
in that half-second before sleep where I fall toward you —
then stop myself,
pretend I’m dreaming of the weather.
Verse 2
You left your scent on my winter coat.
It bloomed again in July.
I told my friends I washed it out,
but I still wear it when I want to feel alive enough to lie.
Bridge
What if I said I never stopped hearing you breathe?
That I keep talking over silence just to drown it?
That I’ve built my calm around pretending?
Final Chorus
I don’t miss you.
Except always.
Except when I’m fine,
especially when I’m fine.
You’re the note that never fades —
and I keep telling everyone
it’s just feedback.
My legs feel poor in an unkind way
I don’t want to talk about anything
I don’t want to talk about anyone
Hoarseness will ingest lungs
Loss will be learnt from rot
I [will] have no eyes
I [will] have no tongue
I [will] have no heart
You’re not here with me tonight
But you haven’t been in awhile
I believe you’re coming home again
That’s the beauty of being in denial
That ship has long ago set sail
Any bridges burned and torn down
With my shattered heart and regrets
I’m a failed king without a crown
I turned a love so amazing and pure
Into this loneliness and heartbreak
With out of my life is falling all apart
I caused more pain than I can take
I’m searching for any sign of hope
Stuck between denial and reality
Praying you will knowing you won’t
Some day come back home to me
This feeling is complacent,
it just doesn't feel adjacent,
too much or to little,
reciprocation is unrealistic,
your stupid but unforgettable,
unattainable and unavailable,
there's a bond hard to break,
I want to escape,
but isn't that a mistake?
We could’ve been something just as much as we were nothing,
you were a boy but I wanted a man,
I was a woman but you wanted a girl,
two different people,
two different worlds.
-popular_loner
when light fractures into noise…
I embrace the outburst
with emptiness chewing up my nerves.
The void softens the impact—
can’t break what never arrived.
His equilibrium was off
Unbalanced, unsteady gait
Forgetting words for truck and grass
His wife refused to see it
Ignoring his Alzheimer’s for four years
Until her life was endangered by his erratic actions
in denial
but pacing while room is on fire
motion capture fail to paint his emotions
"I'm fine"- a product of his illusion
litany of reasons but pain stuck under his skin
too afraid to pen about, too afraid to scream it out
demons are his rulers, will demons be the winners?
help! he is drowning he can't put out this fire
Two beginners here
Speaking softly
Relationship to steer
Both thinking loftily
Never lack of boundaries so *****
Denial of the highest sort
Never excepting emotions
Each barrier a impenetrable fort
Yet still going through the motions
Only success comes through the truth of court
The answer does not take a sleuth
They like each other you see
Open questions are uncouth
Answering to no fee
Oh the strangeness of youth
Darkness surrounds me
I can no longer move
The flowers you once gave me
Now entraps me in its roots
How could kindness turn so rude
Yet I will never stop loving you
I watch as these flowers now black
Suffocate me
Wrapping around choking out my breath
Keeping from me air needed to survive
Voices whisper in my head
This is no longer a friend
Yet I cling to these roots for dear life
Wishing it wasn’t right
We went around in circles,
yet the truth lingered right between us,
smirking as if it had already triumphed.
You labeled it complicated.
I called it chaos.
There’s nothing beautiful about pretending—
about trying to bridge a gap so vast
that you can taste the deception in your mouth.
But we went ahead anyway.
Sat there.
Grinning, as if we didn’t already realize
this was the beginning of the end.
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