MY FEELINGS OF LONELINESS AND ABANDONMENT HAVE METASTASIZED THROUGHOUT MY BODY.
THE RUSH OF EMOTIONS AND SORROW FLUCTUATE EVERY DAY, SOMETIMES EVERY SECOND.
I STAY AWAY FROM MALIGNANT RELATIONSHIPS AND ATTEMPT TO CREATE A SAFE SPACE TO COPE.
IT'S HARD TO LIVE WITH POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS AND BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER.
I AWAIT TO SEE WHAT THIS DAY HAS IN STORE......
Categories:
metastasized, addiction, analogy, anxiety, beauty,
Form: Free verse
CANCER
It began as a swelling
Localized swelling
Painless at first
Then painful
Then came a period of recession
Oh!
What a sweet relief
Wellness reigns again
Then again the swelling
Only bigger now
Persistent
Bigger
And bigger
They say its cancer
And it has come to stay
No cure, they say
The cancer has metastasized
Through lymphatic vessels
To distant regions
Where it eventually
Commits apoptosis.
The conqueror
Has conquered itself
Relief for the conquered
Succour has come
Finally.
Categories:
metastasized, cancer, death, health,
Form: Free verse
Crucible
Peer into an unpredictable universe
Of ambivalent depths
A calyx cul-de-sac tipped up
Into a crucible of the unexplainable
Where curiosity strides into pure moments of mystique
Fields of glory in bluebells
Rusted milestones
Hail ravaged wheat.
Echoes of the prophetic tongue
Swirl in chanted brews and prayers
Mists, parted by potions,
Bleed new horizons rising like cities lost
In hundred year mists
Brewed in a grail uncovered from eon’s smothering dusts
Tasting ego and humility
That knows its need for divinity.
Mercy metastasized in every grieving limb
And through the organ of the soul
Led through foreshadow’s chalice
Into unfathomable days yet to be born.
5-1-23
Contest: Up to 20 Lines
Sponsor: Sotto Poet
Twenty lines.
Categories:
metastasized, fantasy, future,
Form: Free verse
Mesmerized by phantasmagorical flames
brandishing cerise, fuchsia
and crimson-colored
tongues of fire;
I marvel at the beauty of the beast.
I see the chard smoldering underbelly
of the flames, cloaked
in bellowing blankets of thick smoke;
its flames lapping at the coating of hope
someone had amply applied to their dream home.
I hear the glass windows
screaming as the broken panes
shatter the illusion of a quiet death;
and the house, no longer a home, crumbles.
I witness irreplaceable memories
melt like plastic soldiers
stationed at the gates of hell;
with little chance of rescue or survival.
I smell the acrid stench of fear
clinging to the hopelessness
of a devastated family;
like an inoperable cancer
that has metastasized.
I grasp the stark reality that confronts me;
and a tear trickles down my cheek.
Categories:
metastasized, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Free verse
Hiding in the middle class,
I made my way through life
Looking like I had it made,
no struggle and no strife
Others couldn’t see it,
as it metastasized inside
A terminal metamorphosis
—hidden from your eyes
(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2020)
Categories:
metastasized, irony,
Form: Rhyme
O-Outward she seemed fine and healthy
R-Really it was a dagger in the heart to hear!
P-Penetrated through the ovaries was a cancer cyst.
H-Happened that it was the size of a grapefruit before we knew
A-And it had metastasized so that numbered her days.
N-Now both of my parents have passed on, and I at the age of 43 am orphaned.
Categories:
metastasized, cancer,
Form: Acrostic
The last students you've loved slip out of the room
Their chairs ghostly, enshrouded, urns overturned
Your eyes survey the wreckage, the whisper-less ruins
Vultures and jackals lips lick, poised for their turns
This sinking treasure, deserted way-station
Empty hull, barren deck -- unrepentant ablation
Once-inspired platform and forum, so grand
Pitilessly metastasized to crumbs of sand
While the gay voices of those
Who've abandoned ship with such glee
Ring out to shores distant, eternal, carefree
Categories:
metastasized, education, grief, loss, sea,
Form: Rhyme
Oh, Babe
Pitched for the price of infamy’s name
Springtime sold
For the tempest of a bambino’s bane
Oh, Babe
Stadium-made gregarious grin
Pinstripe promises
Playing for shoddy orphaned kids
Oh, Babe
Squeezing pine tar calloused veins
Slugging sunshine
Into brokenhearted pennant panes
Oh, Babe
Champagne on championship ice
Swinging splendor
Diamond dames batting bullpen eyes
Oh, Babe
Sultan of summer-simmering swat
Brawny blasts
Feasting on Yankee dugout brauts
Oh, Babe
Slumped over metastasized mic
Scratchy soliloquy
Imbued on replayed records of life
Oh, Babe
Pointing to ostentatious October sky
Homerun heaven
Where George Herman Ruth resides
Categories:
metastasized, inspirational, people, sports,
Form: Narrative
When Phyllis canned her peaches
just two months before she died,
She did it for her family,
she'd done it since a bride.
She canned the summer sun for them
and sealed it in a jar.
Next winter when they shared her gift,
she wouldn't seem so far.
She always did her canning when
the fruit had reached its peak,
But this year cancer sapped her strength,
and chemo left her weak.
Despite the many mutant cells
which had metastasized,
She did what she had always done,
she peeled and sterilized.
She left behind this last fine gift,
and one more memory
Of Phyllis canning peaches
out of love for family.
Categories:
metastasized, family, cancer,
Form: Narrative