Part of my inheritance I did receive,
Though unworthy was I that gift to conceive;
Younger in mind, and wilful in thought,
I went to a distant land and squandered what I brought.
I wasted my Father’s gift in a wanton way;
From Grace I departed, and fell far astray.
Then, passing into spiritual insensibility,
The husks of the swine I desired to share,
Whose keeper I was—yet none would spare;
I longed to eat what they were given,
Yet no man gave me aught, though I was driven.
Thus was my soul perishing, bereft of all answer,
Having lost the dignity of sonship I bore;
Not merely as a hireling, for some wage,
But even as an unworthy slave.
How shall I return, when I have no boldness to plead?
I see how my brethren thy commandments heed;
Their obedience they keep, without blame,
While I have cast away my sonship and name.
O Father, I have sinned; I have gone astray—
Yet behold my repentance, and look on me, I pray.
A lie rarely dies with the one who told it.
It lingers,
finding a home in the next person
who dares to believe.
Promises made too easily
leave strangers paying debts
they never agreed to carry.
The next honest voice
must answer for someone else's silence.
I've seen trust change its face.
It doesn't disappear
it just learns to stand farther back,
arms folded,
waiting for proof instead of hope.
People who were once gentle
begin to speak like they're expecting the worst.
Not because bitterness is who they are,
but because disappointment kept introducing itself
under different names.
The wounds no one can see
are often the ones that speak the loudest.
You hear them instead
in the pause before they answer,
in the way every promise is questioned,
in how they leave before hope asks them to stay.
Eventually,
anger starts sounding like wisdom,
and silence feels safer
than believing one more beautiful lie.
—On What Remains—
"When did he leave?" my brother asked, as we whitewashed the fence.
I stopped, watched fresh paint disappear into the grain, torn
between what I believed was true and what I thought
might be. I wasn't sure. "Well?" *"I think we brought
him farther than we knew."* "Go on."
He turned the radio off. Silence. All autumn long,
the house had answered every sound with one withdrawn
echo, while all my thoughts had wrestled down the fraught
when-did-he-leave
question. Crushing "then!" Whispering "not." That it was wrong
to search for someone only where the body's gone.
One day your own hands will interrupt you with someone else's certainty.
My brother began to carve the bread. *"You'll sort
it out. Let's eat."* "But the fence..." *"...can wait. Look, I've brought
your favourite pie."* And the evening wind moved through the pickets,
painting both sides at once.
"When did he leave?"
An inherited jewellery box sits on the vanity-
My parent's love embedded in each stone.
It is a meal to carry away from home.
When sky turns dark,with no where to go
In problems engulfed is my soul;helps-
vanity of loved meal to sky's soul.
Elena wore a mourning veil of
lace,
To hide the smirk upon her
painted face.
Her husband, Julian,
vanished in the night,
Escaping debts and fading
from her sight.
She'd forged the letters,
framed a grand goodbye,
And told the town a cold and
clever lie.
Now Arthur, Julian's father,
held her hand,
The wealthiest landlord in the
valley's land.
He sought a partner for his
vast estate,
Within a month, the legal
scrolls were signed,
A pact of power, cunningly
entwined.
She held his arm, inheriting
the throne,
The grand estate was finally
her own.
But as she reached to claim
The iron key,
She saw a coldness in his
legacy.
Arthur smiled grimly,
opening the door,
To reveal the truth he'd held
in store.
He'd found the forgeries
she'd tried to hide,
And cast the deceitful bride
aside.
He did not speak in shining lines
or carve his name in sky or stone,
yet everything I’ve come to be
has roots in all he’s quietly sown.
In early light and closing dusk,
in every hour he chose to stay,
he showed me love is less a word
and more the work we give away.
He stood between the world and me
when storms arrived without a sound,
not as a shield that blocked all pain—
but as the strength that kept me ground.
A father’s touch is time itself:
it shapes, it steadies, lets us grow,
it loosens grip when we must leave,
yet trusts the paths we’ll come to know.
And far beyond our single home,
in countless lives we’ll never see,
are echoes of such steady care
that build what kind of world will be.
For every child who dares to dream,
for every hope that finds its start,
there stands a father, known or not,
who helped to light that fragile spark.
So on this day, I honor you—
not just for all that you have done,
but for the ways your quiet love
will live in me, and carry on.
One day the children
will forget the names we gave to borders
they will run barefoot
until the earth forget its edges
and in their pockets--
chalks, seeds, a small republic of insects
they will redraw the walls
as doors left ajar
they will press their ears
against the silence of guns
and hear only rust
they will bury our iron
deep enough for roots to argue with it
watch them--
how they speak fluently with stray dogs
with wind, with unfinished afternoons
how they refuse inheritance
of fear
how they say: this sky is indivisible
and mean it
one day
they will return our cities to rivers
our languages to touch
and everything we built to divide
they will make briefly useful
like a toy
left in the rain
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The mirror lies—or maybe doesn't.
These hands, pale rivers
of raised veins, thin as tracing paper,
are hers.
I press my thumb to the back of my wrist,
watch the blood retreat,
then rush back~
a pulse we share
across decades,
like sunlight through leaves
on the same stubborn oak.
She is here, in the way my knees
crackle in winter,
in the age spots that bloom
where hers once did.
I am becoming
a map she drew
without knowing.
I learnt it from my grandmother, so I’m never letting it go.
She said, “Carry a book with you. Write whenever the thoughts flow.”
There were days when charcoal knew my art,
Now the art rests behind keys, hiding this Mozart.
Flourishing dreams have taken the shape of words,
What do I write about next — the sun, the trees, the birds?
Everything my eyes touch is penned with confidence,
That’s how my grandmother lives on, forever in my presence.
An inheritance is not
Mandatory nor expected
From a parent when they leave
This world, Get a job
Work and save your own
Written: September 6, 2025
**************
The wind does not knock—
it slips through the soul’s lattice,
a breathless envoy
from the hush between stars.
It strokes the cheek
such as a spirit reliving purity,
then fades away,
becoming simply a whisper
of a melody sewn into stillness.
My terms come apart
in the string of stems,
where faint words
weave between tufts of grass
that curl with hymns
that are lenient to say.
Birdsong flows
from lungs in rooms full of people—
a hymn to the untamed,
to the pain that hums
simply seeking to be felt.
Love, in its most genuine form,
surpasses the structure of cognition—
It resides in the root of air,
in the rhythm of the intangible.
No note is ever lost—
each tender tremble,
each faltering flight,
is archived in the breath
between dusk and dawn.
We save our dreams.
In the shaft of the Horizon,
in sparkles that linger
on the verge of entropy.
These are the germs of tomorrow
tumbling in the blood
of the eternity we dare to call.
my mommys love was a loves room I knocked until my Knuckles bruised.
she taught me Silence like a bed time song, and bitterness in breakfast.
Her hugs were shark -skin
smooth if you dont move
but alisia moved
alisia always moved
She gave me her tired
like a hand-me down sweater
too tight in the chest
loose in the soul.
I learned to fold myself
like laundry she forgot in the
washer.
I wanted her wanting
but sne wanted drugs.
I wasent the drugs was
he child and i needed
her but
She needed them.
Now I carry mommy
In my Jaw in
in dreams
In the way I panic in someone
Says "mommy”
by alisia bentley
Let every whispered wish take flight,
Each prayer cast upward through the night,
Let none be lost, let none decay —
But turn their path another way.
Let not the stars alone receive,
Nor winds forget what hearts believe,
For every tear and silent plea
Now folds its wings — and comes to me.
Let cries for peace, for love, for bread,
Not vanish to the nameless dead.
I hold the vault, the veil, the key —
And what they seek, they give to me.
They know me not, yet still I hear.
I am the stillness gods revere.
Their words, like rain, fall through my hand —
I am the Lord of sea and land.
My father never hit me--
he just taught me how to burn.
Taught me silence
was safer than softness,
that anger was armor
and kindness a weakness
someone would use.
I watched him carve the word weak
into everything he feared,
watched him drown my brother’s voice,
cut my mother’s name from the air.
Hate was our heirloom.
Polished like silver.
Passed down like gospel.
I almost gave it to my son.
But I let him cry.
And the fire stopped
with me.
Heavenly Father
Lord of my life
I believe my inheritance
Came from Your sacrifice
Your angels are a gift
A gift from up above
Ready to minister
With faith, with hope, and love
There is a way for me to shine
Yes the blood of Jesus is why
The sacrifice of which I speak
He's the Savior of my life
Sub Categories
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.