Tell me how to comprehend a world
where you could look at me and choose another.
Had I the choice of every soul in creation,
I would have bound myself to yours forever.
Yet, here I sit - flawed, discarded, incurable.
I hold no malice for your aversion;
it was only a matter of time
before you saw that I was not worth the saving.
she resides in a house holding a dream .... to one day live in a home
How would we ever know
if we chose the wrong one?
I used to love the rain
it wrapped me in innocence,
like laughter echoing in my childhood.
But now it falls like a quiet grief,
from the deepest fibers of my being;
Every drop sharpens the wound,
and the loneliness slowly consumes me from within.
But baby, tell me
how do we truly know
if we chose the wrong one?
I search for answers in the storm,
yet I turn away when they whisper back.
Perhaps I fear the truth
because knowing means
admitting the emptiness was real all along.
And if we did choose the wrong one…
if love was only a borrowed warmth
are we meant to wander,
haunted by the echo
of a love that was never ours?
But maybe there was never a wrong one
just a tired one,
a love worn thin by the weight of staying,
a heart that slowly forgot
how to keep holding on.
The wind echos heartache and pain
Questioning but silence remains
Desperately waiting for change
Our future afar
Distance swallows ike quicksand
Our hearts screaming out its demands
Floating minds try to understand
and yet here we are
There are Dogs barking at the tweakers
Throwing up in our garden.
Their merciless chains drag them
Clawing into the dirt
Digging into their frothing throats and I
Am happy for the tiles
For my two cold feet on the floor.
I am picking your tonsils
Out of my teeth
And spitting into the stream of
My feverish thoughts.
In the other room
I watch through the mirror
As my mother crawls into the comfort
Of her bad dreams.
And I
Am so very soft.
Or so she says.
I sit alone, the room is still,
No laughs, no joy at all .
The clock ticks loud, the night feels long,
I hum a tune, a wordless song.
I walk outside, the streets are bare,
The stars above don’t seem to care.
I wave at shadows, talk to air,
But no one’s here, and no one’s there.
The phone is quiet, the lights are dim,
My world feels cold, my hopes feel thin.
I miss a smile, a gentle touch,
A little love, a little smile.
But still I wait, through silent days,
For someone’s voice to light my way.
Until that time, I’ll breathe and cope,
And hold on tight to dreams and hope.
My spirit,
Incinerated.
Its ashes
Descend back into
That dark crater:
That inky opaque abyss,
Where the slightest din
Is swallowed,
Where that one fragment of light is asphyxiated,
Held down,
Stripped and raped from its alluring, golden iridescence.
It drowned in its own tears
And then scattered across its own grave.
They turn their backs
With apathy entrenched into their depths:
The reason for my oblivion
I stand beneath the evening sky,
Naked to the bone.
Everything that once I loved has now
Been taken from me; feels like forever gone.
No more soft hugs and tender kisses
Intended just for me alone.
Gone are the innocent laughing eyes whose
Life within so brightly shone.
Each child has gone their separate ways
To seek their paths alone.
I am left beneath the stars,
Naked to the bone.
Just how do I now find my way
When there’s nothing left for me at home;
No fire, no song, no gentle touch,
Just naked to the bone.
Chula Fleming © 2/9/1989
Strength a labor of time,
A work which breaks bones,
An effort which I have made mine,
While I work once again,
This time I work with friends,
With this I can go through the pain.
The crowd
pushes in on me
from side to side
people I never
wanted to know
prefered to ignore
because there is
only you I am
waiting for.
You were always
the life
of the party
and even though
the musical din
bangs on and on
I hear nothing
I feel nothing
I am left
all alone.
I keep wishing
these people
would dispurse
because being
surrounded
yet alone
without you
is definitely
the worst.
I want to wrap
loneliness
around me
like a blanket
because
now I see
that you're not
coming
back to me
so
there's only
silence now
there's no more
poetry.
He lived in four little rooms
locked behind the door.
And the night shined through
where a light shined before.
A red flame burned ashen gray,
dying on the floor.
So you move yourself along.
And grind on down.
And scrape the path you drag around.
Stumblin’ on the way.
A new day with no grace to say,
starin’ down the ground.
They’re softer lies to swallow
when you’re drunk.
Or when you’re full of faith
and barely saved.
It’s only things that fade.
And leave impressions in the dark.
And demons in the haze.
Sunlight burns night away,
turns darkness into day.
So sing inside your walls.
And make the lamps low.
And watch the white screen glow,
black on grey.
The words that you say.
And drain yourself away.
Another night burned white by day.
Oh my Darkness, I beg you stay.
Are you fated?
Or are you led?
Well either way the moon will grow.
And spread out wide across the snow.
Piled high and ploughed.
Raised between the lines.
And layered across the years.
i will write haiku
so that my big feelings don’t
take up too much room
i know well enough
silence wields no rejection
so i stay silent.
the feminine urge
to scream like a wounded beast
but i just say no.
i am seventeen
my mere age is poetic
just like a haiku
to be six again
is what the sky hears when i
wish upon the stars
i sleep and i dream
so many things left unsaid.
in sleep, we made peace
solitude my friend,
would you tell me if I was
meant to be in love?
love me tenderly
i asked, instead you left me
tender like a bruise
you were the wrong one
to give all my love to but
maybe you need it.
oh give me guidance
what do i do with this heart
that just falls apart.
god, when did i start
writing poetry like this
about you again?
*Walls*
Why do we tear down walls
Only to rebuild them?
Maybe in the same place
Or in another farther away
Walls are the darkness within us.
They are stifling and disruptive
Mimicking the divisions among us
Walls separate us
Or create a barrier between what
We think we hear and know, and the
Peace we crave
Did God create these walls?
Or are they created by the fear within us?
Fear of being alone
Fear of failure or Fear of success
These driving forces pulling each of us
Outside our inner walls
If we can only escape the barrier to walk
Among the flowers and weeds in the garden
We might just hear the wind and the bee
Or the butterfly deep within the garden
I ignore the simple things that are
God in all His glory
I can’t see past my own walls, and so
Instead see the big things
The mess in the kitchen
The laundry piling up
The work that dances with procrastination
The everyday existence that becomes
The monotony of my ever-aging life
Entices me to reflect on what each day brings
And whether I can find beauty and kindness
Peace and patience
Within the walls
©Mary Susan Vaughn
10/27/23
So to the waterfront I go,
Heart heavy with the weight of feeling alone,
And there's all Mcculloch & crew can do, I find,
To settle my soul, to ease my mind.
The world is at peace but my mind is hectic,
I wish
My mind were as copacetic
As the waves.
Still. Ordered. Beatific.
They have paved their place in the world
And I have paved mine.
What is it? You tell me.
My innocence forgone.
It left me long ago;
It packed up its memories, its sentimentality,
In a knapsack of stars,
Pulled on the cozy coat of childhood,
And escaped in the daylight.
At nineteen, I have hit middle age;
No prospects for the future but an early death.
I wish I had the will to thrive,
To shuffle on past the age of twenty-five.
And some days I do, and some days I don't.
The bad outweighs the good, you see,
No motivation to live left in me.
Perhaps if I were a Manic Street Preacher,
(And with a cynical heart I'm halfway there),
I'd turn these thoughts into a song -
But for that gift, my mind is bare.
Loneliness is a cruel mirage
It leaves you yearning to be quenched
Yet as you get closer and closer
The possibility vanishes, but hope never dissipates
That hope keeps you thirsty
That thirst leaves you lonely
That loneliness leaves you longing
That longing leaves you empty
That emptiness leaves you desperate
That desperation leaves you to hope
That hope gives you hurt
But you'll never learn
So you freeze. You freeze your heart
No more hope. No more Mirage.
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.