Survival Poems - Poems about Survival

I remember the night he tore me from light, From the home of a friend to the jaws of the night. A grip like a vice, no mercy, no grace, My head in a whirl, blood drained from my face. He cursed as he dragged me by handfuls of hair, Shoved me toward steel with a murderous glare. He swore...

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Please don’t hate me Don’t debate me And you damn sure won’t underrate me Cause I’m here now Gonna show you how I can rise above What you dish out You call my name Play that blame game But I don’t hear you Cause nuthins now the same You showed your true face Left me in disgrace But I rise above Your endless chase I know I hurt bad I’ve been so...

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Dead, Dead. Decay and rotten flesh, melting beneath the scorching sun. Worms, maggots, and flies- a parade in time with the vulture's drum. Teasing, tearing, ripping this way and that, dashing, splashing like an artist painting madness. Bumblebee, whisper to me: Am I dead...or just asleep in the scariest dream? No... I can't be dead. I refuse to be dethroned. Oh death, you have no...

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Many years have slipped beneath the tide of time, yet still I remember. I was just a youth, standing high above the world from Ocean Towers in Downtown Kingston, gazing out toward the pier, when my eyes caught sight of her. A woman, moving with eerie calm, made her way down Duke Street. There was something...

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Sometimes it’s hard Do go on trying– To put my soul into my work, Only to have it torn apart– Discarded at my feet Sometimes it’s hard To go on dreaming Of better things to come When so much of what’s happened now Has left me hurt and hollow Sometimes it’s hard To go on smiling Like everything’s okay, Not knowing if I’ll still be able To feed...

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I know that silence you hold in your chest, The scream behind smiles, the ache in your rest. Where love means walking a thin wire line, And his “I’m sorry” feels like a red warning sign. I know all the lies and the secrets you hide— what would they say if the truth got outside? You map every bruise like it’s...

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A eulogy for the me I had to kill to survive She lay in a casket I was the killer But was it really me? When the world gripped her hand and told her to kill her blackness She stared in a mirror Full of sadness Knowing she would kill her last bit of innocence So did I...

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Is heaven real? Maybe. Or maybe it’s just another myth— like love that stays, like people who mean what they say, like pain that disappears when you’ve earned enough of it. They say everything happens for a reason. But all I see is the bleeding you have to call “growth,” and the silence you have to pretend is peace. God, I loved. With everything I had. With parts of me I...

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(The rose you dropped ) Roses are beautiful, ain’t they? You see them once, and for a moment you believe in softness again. In something that won’t leave. But beauty tricks you— it draws your hands close before you notice the blood. No one tells you how much it hurts to love something that was born to wilt. He smiled like safety. Spoke like a promise. And I believed, like I...

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Love takes pain— it bleeds you long before it dries you out. Only those with blood to spare survive it. It takes so much to live through that bleeding. A needle— that’s all it takes. Love finds an infinite number of them. Like thorns beneath rose petals, it hides in beauty and pierces without warning. It won’t ever leave you alone until it drains your...

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Your car fishtailed in the slush that was already beginning to freeze, as if you couldn’t wait to get away after dropping me off at the library on Christmas Eve. I had just started reading the books I checked out when the librarian flashed the lights before closing and I found myself back on the street again, at twilight, waiting for you. The snow was falling faster...

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It was a ghostly orb obscured by smog— glowing faintly yellow at the center and fading to amber, then ochre, raw sienna, and finally umber— as if the light itself were turning into smoke— and I couldn’t breathe. Even my crib was hazy beneath the poisonous congregation of vapors roiling and swirling near the ceiling and descending lower, like tornado clouds, brown and black— and I wondered where was my...

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My parents didn’t teach me love— I learned it from the silence. My mother never asked why my eyes were red. She looked, but never really saw. My father only noticed me when I made a mistake. Love, in our house, was conditional. Thin. Breakable. Absent. So I taught myself how to hug my own shoulders when no one else reached out. How to whisper "it's okay" when the shouting outside made the inside...

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Hanging on By a thread Trying to remember What to believe When hope is gone And only dread remains You strike a match And let it burn The candle flickers at both ends For any respite the heart still yearns Before the darkness again descends Striving Straining Stumbling Falling She has forgotten how to fly Forgotten how to try Forgotten how to cry Her...

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I crawl through darkness — small, scared, biting at shadows to keep my life, to keep my fear away. I hold my breath, keep still, hiding trembling beneath the strike, trying not to break, trying not to pour my heart out. Everyone sees the fight — the flash of scales, the flicker of anger — but no one sees the fear that claws beneath the surface, the quiet battle I...

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