The never ending feeling of pain
As the giant ball rises up into my throat
Spiralling into an epitome of low
How can love be so cruel?
I watch as you take my soul, my mind, my everything, my nothing
Will I ever survive this cruel game we play?
It’s in the rites of passage
That we learn from
It’s in the rites of passage
That we grow
It’s in the rites of passage
That our soul becomes our own
I remember a time when life was innocent
Where we all got on and life was pure
But as the years passed by I soon realised
That life was what I had to endure
It’s in the rites of passage
That we learn from
It’s in the rites of passage
That we grow
It’s in the rites of passage
That our soul becomes our own
At this juncture in my life
I can’t help but look back
Wondering if the Whys and Wherefore
Were worth the payback
Living with never ending questions
Whirring in my brain
Knowing the answers to these questions
Were impossible to obtain
Learning through every hardship
Losing battles but not the war
And many times I’m left broken
And crying ‘what was it all for?’
It’s in the rites of passage …….
In every heart that opens wide,
there burns the flame
The beloved comes and goes,
but desire fans the flame.
They say that loss is grief,
but I have learned its grace:
Each absence is a prayer,
each memory a sacred flame.
Pour wine for what has passed!
The vintage sweetens with time
The years between us glow like embers of the same flame.
Your leaving carved a temple in the hollow of my chest
Where I tend the altar of what was, and bless the flame.
To love is to release
the bird, the season, the perfect word
And celebrate the flight,
the fall, the freedom in the flame.
In parting, we become more than we were in holding on:
The poet learns that loss itself can bear a singing flame.
She left no echo, made no sound,
Just folded time without a frown.
No curtain call, no loud applause—
Just grace departing without pause.
A hand once warm now gently still,
A final breath, a resting will.
And yet, her presence lingers on—
In morning light and dusk till dawn.
Soft is the way the faithful part—
A silent hymn within the heart.
No need for words, no need to cry,
Just love wrapped in a silent hymn.
In quiet grace, their spirits fly.
I didn’t ask you to come.
You came anyway--
like sympathy could scrub
the blood off my breath.
Don’t you see?
My grief is mine.
You’re holding tissues
like they matter.
You’re speaking
like you understand.
You don’t.
Not the burn. Not the echo.
Let me fall.
Let me break and
crawl through it--
I need the splinters
to feel like proof
that I was touched at all.
And yet,
if you leave now
I will hate you
more
than I already hate
everything else.
I whispered your name
into the bruise of the storm
and it whispered back
like it missed me too.
Your voice—
I remember it
like warmth
I no longer deserve.
They keep telling me
the sky is clearing,
but I am rain.
I am always rain.
And when I tried
to let you go,
my fingers bled
from the holding.
Why speak of love with tales so grand,
If you never learn to hold a hand?
Why make promises sweet and wide,
If you never intend to stand by their side?
Why is it truth, that only when gone,
Do we miss the light we had all along?
Is value found only in absence and pain—
Do hearts awake only in rain?
The world saw Shah Jahan’s love endure,
A monument vast, so bold and pure.
But Mumtaz, whose name the marble bore,
Never glimpsed the love the world would adore...
Alas to write of love and loss and death
Should cause us all to savor every breath
And yet we squander time and precious ink
Commenting on the thoughts that others think
For thoughts are woven from recycled thread
Rekindling the life of things for too long dead
Cause us to search for long forgotten tears
For thoughts of death awaken all our fears
So, is it better to be free from thought
For fear we may recover what we sought
Somehow squeeze the tears to streams of ink
To write with honesty the things we think
For is not joy the memory we seek
So give it voice, be bold, and let it speak
Love and Loss
Ghosts of missed chances, haunt my restless mind,
Regrets and what-ifs, leave my heart confined.
Yet I raise my glass, to hope’s flickering flame,
Praying for love’s revival, a second chance to claim.
So I wander through the city, with hope in my eyes,
Knowing love may come, in unexpected disguise.
For in this modern world, where hearts are easily lost,
I’ll keep searching for love, no matter the cost.
In the shadows where silence reigns,
Death's icy touch, no soul refrains.
A whisper soft, a chilling breath,
Steals away, the sting of death.
In the depths of night, where fears abide,
Grim specter lurks, where shadows hide.
With hollow eyes and ghostly stare,
It claims its prize, with little care.
A mother weeps, her child now gone,
In sorrow's grasp, she's left alone.
A lover's cry, a heart undone,
As life fades into the setting sun.
But in the darkness, a glimmer of light,
A hope that shines, through endless night.
For though death's grip may seem so vast,
Love's memory, forever lasts.
So hold dear those you hold so tight,
In love's embrace, find solace in sight.
For though death's call may come to be,
In love's embrace, we're forever free.
Oh, the ballad of love and loss
A tale that's oft been told
Of hearts that break and love that's lost
Leaves a heavy weight on one's soul
Once, I loved a fair maiden
Her beauty like the morning sun
But she left me, without warning
And my heart was undone
I wander now, through fields and forests
Searching for what I've lost
But she's gone, and I am left with
The ballad of love and loss
The wind sings through the branches
Of the trees that line the way
But all it brings is sorrow
As I think of her each day
Oh, the ballad of love and loss
A sorrowful song to sing
But though my heart may be broken
I'll keep on living
For one day, I'll find my way
To a love that's pure and true
And the ballad of love and loss
Will be but a distant memory, a hue.
I have never known addiction
in the way that I know it
when I feel you caress me
when I feel your lips touch mine
when I hear your voice in my dreams
you walked into my life as if you
were a force of nature
enchanting me from the moment I saw you
captivating my soul, my heart, my mind
enthralled by your ability to make me feel
I have never known desolation
in the way that I know it
now that you’re gone
Love and loss are a heaven and a hell;
a purgatory and limbo, a place
of sorting out: a place where lovers fell;
and drift into reflective, lonely space,
a realm that's not a lover's citadel,
but still a place where souls may yet embrace.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13JR1KYgV0eDFqxRYMj9ORmfHbWpmaZtt/view?usp=drivesdk
My debut Anthology Memoirs of Love and Loss is now available for download for free on Google Drive.
****************
since my youth I’ve been
motivated by passionate reveries
that the very essence of my soul sees-
family and friends seeking only kindness
from me, as I pay love forward ten times more
once, two roads forked into unknown paths and
with all my strength I followed the grey horizon,
then gifts flowing from my hands began to heal-
a tale of love and loss my life has written;
**wife ~ mother ~ writer ~ artist**
**************************
Story of My Life in Ten Lines Contest
September 27, 2019
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