He said he loved me,
yet still left me.
If he loved me, how could he hurt me?
Forever, I will love him
the way he could never love me.
Where ¦¦¦¦ the waters ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦
Spun ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ your dry ghost ¦¦¦¦¦¦
The dead turns ¦¦¦ its eye;
¦¦¦¦¦ once ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ your ice
Pushed ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ the dry wind ¦¦¦¦¦¦
Through ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ root and roe.
¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ your ¦¦¦¦¦ knots sank ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦
Into ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ cord, ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦
¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ unraveller,
His ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ knife hung ¦¦¦¦¦
¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ the channels ¦¦¦ their source
And lay ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ low.
Invisible, ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ tides
Break ¦¦¦ the lovebeds ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦
¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ love's left dry;
¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ your stones ¦¦¦ shades
Of children ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ voids,
Cry ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦
¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ tomb, your ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ lids
¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ latched ¦¦¦¦¦ magic ¦¦¦¦¦¦
¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ earth and sky;
¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ corals ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ beds
¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ serpents in your tides,
¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦
Wind chimes spinning inside a tornado,
their gentle jingle splits apart my tears.
Making a wasteland of all of my fears,
nothing but smiles remain when I let go.
Dealing hesitation a swift deathblow,
alters forever how the fervor veers.
Wind chimes spinning
skillfully unravel what is nouveau.
Dead weight disintegrates and disappears
rejuvenating you as thick fog clears.
This intake of cloying breath will echo
wind chimes spinning.
I’ve been hurt by the people
Who were supposed to treat me right
Telling me I’m getting better
But still will never be enough
They pretend care is control, and call it love
No matter how good I try to be
There’ll be something else to fix
Every compliment has a hidden knife behind it
I know who I am and what I’m worth well
They have so much to say about me
And I get confused and lost in it
That I started mistaking love for survival
Now I know survival isn’t all I am
Written: August 19, 2025 for contest sponsored by John Anderson,
***********
through the slack of spring
where orchids shivered, we met—
your hand brushed my sleeve
and the wind forgot its name
just to listen to our hush
I kept you folded
within a dusk-colored thought—
years passed like soft rain
and still, I never told them
how you lit my shadowed rooms
I speak your name, now
and the sky does not shudder
only the sparrows
pause mid-flight, as if they knew
what I had buried in bloom
A mind untrained to a state of exquisite harmony, he moves with careful awareness, yet boldly uninhibited.
She listens with ease, confident in his direction.
Grounded in solitude, her only peace is his presence.
Her sanity circles kin, while distancing her from Truth.
She plants seeds for them to season; for this, she smiles.
A continued closeness she seeks, with the hope it doesn't fade.
His essence, only she clearly sees.
What the hell is going on?
Do I know?
Hell no, I don’t.
I don’t care either.
I lie.
I do care.
I care very much.
I think perhaps
I care too much.
It hurts.
But isn’t it impossible,
Impossible to care too much?
Is it?
I know
It is possible to care too little.
Perhaps not care at all.
I’ve felt that.
I’ve been there.
No one cared.
No one.
Not even me.
But caring too much?
I doubt it.
Very much.
But what can I do?
I can do everything I can do.
Sure.
But even then—
Does it change anything?
But what the hell—
The world is coming to its end.
Unraveling--
Right before our eyes.
I can’t stop it.
Maybe I can’t even slow it down.
But I can help.
I can speak truth.
I can help.
I can speak brotherhood.
I can help.
I can speak healing.
I can help.
I can speak love.
I can.
Where do the colors we see arise?
Not from sun’s bright, light guise,
But from its white, split and spun,
Through raindrop prisms, one by one.
A spectrum forged in falling rain,
That spills color on Earth's domain.
Red blazes in autumn’s gaze,
In maple leaf fire and embers haze.
It's rouge in a rose’s velvet flare,
Smeared on dusk and dawn with flair.
Orange glows on apricot and fox coats.
On pumpkin skins and marigolds it floats.
It's the color of fleeting flight,
In between go and woe, out of sight.
Yellow shouts from nodding daffodils,
From golden zest of lemon's thrills.
The hue of bees and cheery canaries.
The lipstick of sand beside the sea.
Blue is ocean's hue and a sigh,
when mood is dark and wry.
Its Forget-me-not's, in gardens weeping,
Blue-jays leaping skyward sweeping.
Indigo beckons twilight to go to night,
To lift a plum to lips, and take a bite.
It's the regal dye of kings and queens,
For clothes fit for their royal scenes.
Violet haunts lavender fields at rest.
Whispers in crocus blooms, moon-blessed.
Lingers in bruises and storm-swept skies.
Closing the curtains, as scene of day, dies.
Wounds once buried beneath soft steps,
now echo through me, stone by stone undone.
Contest: Crystalline Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Nette Onclaud
Date: June 14, 2025
We were made to believe
that silence, for a man, is relief
so we bottle it all up
even when our heartbeats stop.
We were shaped into robots
sponges for the world's troubles
soaking in pain and problems
as if endurance was our fate.
But truth is, there’s no strength in silence.
It only comforts for a moment
so I’m unraveling this silence
to exist after all this absence.
I’ll start by speaking up
by unlearning what was taught
breaking the cycle
and doing right by what I thought.
Time, that silent betrayer of dreams unraveling at dawn,
Like an unseen knife cutting deep into the flesh of lost memories,
Speaks to you without words, a master of crimes hidden in shadow,
Raises palaces of hope at sunrise and buries them in the silence of graves.
It forgets its promises in a blink, turning "forever" into "once,"
Burns vows like paper, never looking back at its footsteps,
Gives you the whole world, only to watch it slowly fall apart,
Teaches you hope, only to mercilessly steal it from the depths of your soul.
It forgets your pain when you smile, but returns with cold and heavy hands,
Haunting you in the quiet dusk of thoughts lost to the wind,
Time does not destroy you, but watches as you silently shatter before it,
And when you plead for mercy, it answers only with endless, cold expectations.
Do not speak of traitors with hands stained by blood and regret,
For time is the master of endings, merciless and cold in its eternity,
It never forgets its place on the grand stage of unlived life,
An unyielding arbiter of stories that remain forever unfinished.
I was certain.
I was sure.
I knew what I knew—
until I didn’t.
A thread pulled,
a question I never meant to ask,
a whisper splitting at the seams.
The more I learn,
the less I know.
The less I know,
the more I understand.
I trace the edges of truth,
only to find them fraying.
I tighten the knot.
I loosen the knot.
I untangle it. I make it worse.
I follow the thread back to the beginning—
but the beginning isn’t there.
The fibers unravel between my fingers,
silk turning to dust,
logic thinning like stretched cloth.
I tell myself it makes sense.
I tell myself it doesn’t.
Both things are true.
Neither is.
I pull again.
The thread coils, writhes, tightens around my wrists—
or maybe those aren’t my wrists.
If I keep pulling,
will anything be left of me at all?
Paralyzed by an unexplainable grip
Left side blanketed in weakness
Levels off brimming with dread
Countless questions lingering
No answers just hoping time helps
Waiting for silence to soften the edge
But the static still crackles in my head
Hands shake like awakening memories
A battle my body won’t let me forget
Counting the hours in shallow breaths
Tracing the fault lines beneath my skin
Between surrender and restless defiance
I wonder if balance will come crawling back
It's one of those days when everything feels like an illusion unraveling at dawn,
Like a dusty road that fades into horizons without destination,
Each step seems futile, and the meaning of life dissolves in the mists of time,
It's just me and the infinite sky, staring aimlessly, as the hours flow like silent rain.
I lose myself in the blue of the sky, seeking no answers, never growing bored,
Like a dreamer caught between worlds, without anchor or compass, just drifting in the ether,
Breathing becomes an effort, as if my soul longs to escape,
To free itself from the cage of flesh, to soar beyond the body's limits.
It's one of those days when I wonder if I’ve ever been whole,
If joy was ever real or just a shadow dancing on the walls of memory,
And in the silence within me, unfulfilled dreams grow like wildflowers in the desert,
Awaiting a rain to transform them into gardens of reborn hope.
The air hums with the weight of whispers,
of promises broken before they were made.
Skies once endless now streaked with fire,
oceans rising like hands reaching,
asking if we still remember their name.
Cities pulse in restless hunger,
neon veins feeding sleepless bodies.
Glass towers stretch toward absent gods,
while shadows curl in alleyways,
where the forgotten carve silence into stone.
Somewhere, a child draws a sun
on a cracked wall, yellow and bright.
Somewhere, a soldier closes his eyes,
hearing home in the wind,
a lullaby lost in the noise of war.
We stitch borders into the earth,
call them laws, call them safety.
But the wind does not ask for permission,
nor does the rain know the weight
of the flags we raise like shields.
And yet, the trees still speak in green,
the rivers still sing their silver songs.
Hope lingers in hands held tight,
in voices rising against the silence,
in the small, stubborn light of tomorrow.
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.