(“Cheek to Cheek”, 2024, original encaustic)
My first memory of my mother
Is of being unloved.
Since then I’ve had three wives
But I don’t think any of them really loved me either
I say that because they all left me,
Or at least tried to once with my current one.
It makes me think I’m unloved
Simply because I don’t know how to,
But somehow that doesn’t sit quite right
Or ring true.
For I know what it is to love;
My mother, my father
Those three wives, and my three daughters,
Not to mention all the dogs
And a few of the cats along the way.
It makes me think maybe we are all challenged
When it comes to loving.
Maybe not the dogs, but certainly the humans.
And maybe this is because we think we have a choice
When love is really something
That simply happens to us and for us
Like a blessing, like grace
Like Sun melting into our upturned face
The touch of something warm and soft
In gentle cheek to cheek embrace.
Sometimes I think I am unloved, unloving,
Maybe unlovable
But then I remember the feeling…
(5/17/26)
He does not beg for love at first,
Just quiet respect, soft and true,
From gentle hands he calls his own,
A mother's grace, a lover's view.
Yet love, he learns, comes priced in deeds,
In all he gives, in all he bleeds.
He molds himself to fit her dreams,
For fleeting warmth, for borrowed light,
For love, he trades his truest self,
Becomes their "should," forgets his "might."
In silent wars he stands alone,
And calls her chaos still his home.
He bears her storms, her fragile fire,
Her shifting moods, her distant gaze.
Yet in return, a breaking truth,
Betrayal wrapped in fleeting praise.
For though we curse in shattered pain,
Both man and woman seek the same:
A soul to hold, a life to share.
It's not the gender that's wrong,
It's timing that lies.
So he still loves with deeper ache,
With restless fire, with endless plea,
For none are wrong, just lost in need.
Learn his silence, hear his cry,
For unloved hearts don't live... they die.
Limericks X
This is a more serious limerick:
The Abandoned Child’s Complaint
by Michael R. Burch
I hoped you might have loved me,
but you pushed me out to sea
like Moses, for some other
strange Egyptian mother:
Isis, Nefertiti.
Keywords/Tags: limerick, child. childhood, children, child abuse, baby, abandonment, unloved, love, unwanted, mother
You don’t know me
You don’t know me
You believe you do
You don’t know me
You say that’s not true
You don’t know me
I hardly know myself
You don’t know me
I barely hold myself together
You don’t know me
I don’t know whether
You don’t know me
I walk the night
Can you even see me
I scream through the fright
Do you even hear me
Or I don’t understand why
You don’t know me
Or if I can walk another day
You don’t know me
Or should I go or stay
You don’t know me
If I go will you understand
You don’t know me
If I stay can you love me
You don’t know me
If I set myself free
You don’t know me
Walk past the mirrors
A stranger walks with me
Am I truly there
What is it I see
Best for me, best for you
You don’t know me
Best for us, best for all
You don’t know me
Best to take the fall
You don’t know me
No me.
By Imran Ahmed
When A Man Gives His Heart To A Woman Only For Fate To Intervene,
And She Finds Her Place Beside Someone Else Where He Should Have Been,,,,
Believe Me When I Say Each Night He Falls Apart In Silence,
Chased By Memories And Visions That Blur Into Quiet Violence,,,
She's No Longer His Yet Somehow She's Everywhere,
In The Hush Of The Breeze In The Weight Of The Air,,
He Swears He Can Feel Her Fingertips In The Dark,
A Love So Fierce Now Just A Fading Spark,,
It Cuts Through His Chest Like A Blade Without End,
Her Absence Too Sharp For Time To Mend,,
Love Arrived Fast, But It Refuses To Leave,
Turning Years Into Shadows, With Nothing To Relieve…..
Snowing-- a hiemal, deathly air
Their frigid, frostbitten fingers hold nothing
Uncomfortable silence washes over all there
A petalless, thorny rose someone is clutching
Her corpse, defunct, stiff yet motionless
Skin, once warm brown, now ghastly
Her grinning face, now emotionless
They thought she would die lastly
Life has limits, death endures eternity
From her loss, not a single tear was shed
She, a daughter, never within confraternity
No one ever cared to hear the words she said
So she lay, her arms crossed against her chest
No flowers were dropped upon her frail body
Instead, the thorny rose stabs her breast
Unhuggable cacti she could embody
On her prickly torso, blood streams
No one shall wipe liquid and spikes off
No one shall pay respect, it now seems
They simply do not really care; they scoff
So there she’ll lay, unloved and disrespected
With not blooms and gold, but many a thorn
Only snow showers her, quite expected--
That no one would dare to mourn.
the house was a cage,
not a home—
walls sweating whiskey,
floors creaking hate.
she was brittle,
like a cigarette burned too far down.
he was loud,
like an engine choking on its last mile.
they found their fists easier
than their words—
easier than love,
easier than silence.
the children wore bruises
like tattoos they never chose.
their laughter died
before it hit the air.
and justice?
it never came.
New days pass me by,
What shall I do when happiness reaches to me
When I have forgotten all the pain I've endured
When the past seems so shallow and uninteresting
Shall I smile to it or frown upon it
Perhaps a quiet life where distance makes me whole
Perhaps a new beginning to make up for a new ending
It's too late now, the flowers bloomed too early
The storm came and took away all the colors
It's time to accept pain with joy and gratitude
Because when the sun shines again
It shall be a warning for the keepers
Those whose flowers will bloom
Those whose eternal beauty shall shine
Those whose future is still bright
I don't feel love
or maybe
I don't want to feel it
I've become too attached
to so many people
then in a flash
a turn of events
I am let down
thrown to the curb
unwanted
unloved
once again
I never got to finish the poem I was writing for you–a pitiful ending in itself.
It lives on the shelf in the shadowy far right corner of my bedroom,
With an overflowing pile of other dusty junk that I will never look at
again but can’t bring myself to throw away.
Silently begging for a flood or fire to get rid of it for me.
I fall in love with the birds at my window; who end up taking flight
without warning,
Trying to find a better place to make their home.
They remind me of you,
And I finally unclench my cramping fists and let myself cry into the
palms of my hands.
How am I supposed to mourn something that I never quite held?
When does it stop?
How I wished that a road to your heart
Hadn't come to a dead end
You say you love me
Or do you just pretend
There's no feeling in your kiss
No warmth in your smile
You never tell me that I was missed
You turn your back on me in bed
Never listen any more
And you mess around with my head
I never know if I'm coming or going
If the sun shines or it rains
And there's no way of showing
I feel trapped choked and beyond control
A little lost child left out in the snow
You not only took my heart but you also stole my soul
I wish I'd never met you
But I can't find the strength or will to go
Chained and shackled to
Only you have the key
To unlock me
And set me free.
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.
UNLOVED 2 (EXPANDED)
The stinging is particularly painful today,
Needles of sharp cold burning blood stab and sear my heart
The jabbing jagged thousand little holes stay
And begin again tomorrow to flay each part.
Rejection is a drowning drunk
Gasping with each mouthful of pride
Another trophy now lies lifeless and sunk
Another screaming day that died.
For all the steaming dreaming part
I played in the capture of my choice
Flat failure is the guide of my loveless dart
And a choking silence is my only voice.
When the punished pillows murder cry
Silent clocks and secret swish
Of thick dark failing falling curtains fringed with notoriety
Rip the seams of a ragged wish
Until the spleen sheds its poison deep below
Swimming into the fathom of night and day
Where no tender fingers reach my depth
And only the claw grasps its prey.
Liar lord of loyalty the infidel of opera cloak
Sweep and cover a collapsing shroud
Leaving only the tomb and the weeping womb
For the remnants of the uncertain crowd.
Little Miss Unloved
walked into her school,
smiling from what little love she had to give.
Everyone was there,
all the much-loved kids
the well-loved teacher,
the tight knit circle
of the lovable.
Miss Unloved
considered joining them,
being them,
or killing them.
Quietly
she slid her pistol back in her backpack,
entered
sitting meekly at her desk.
As usual
classmates ignored,
sneered.
Miss Unloved sighed.
Opening her workbook.
she thought:
"One day."
God knew, and God sighed too.
He sits in the shadow of the street
Huddled against a wall of shame,
She wanders that same path with downtrod feet,
Different the two, but still the same.
What makes some in this world sink so low
Their lives forever dark,
While other with adversity grows
To sing the song of the Lark.
Though life is often hard to bear
and some will find it a chore
Others go where the Eagles dare
To spread their wings and soar.
©?Deborah M. Kelly 2014
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