Submitted for the alliterisen poem contest hosted by
Joseph May
Hurting hearts need tender touches
Sweet whispered words and compassionate care
Patient pauses loving looks
Devoted dressings with gentle jests
Helpful hands for broke bones
From morning's mist to night's nesting
Woundings wane as loving lingers
Love is a complex melody
a most divine soothing remedy
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
Broken promises, broken heart,
Deep within sears the pain,
I trusted your truth from the start,
Instead you tied me to the train.
Drowned in the waves of feelings chained,
Like falling leaves, I am tossed,
Washed upon the shore, colourless and drained,
Unable to reclaim myself, my freedom lost.
Now every memory feels unstable,
I played by your rules, never fair or just,
Your words now just a bitter fable,
Now my life lies in the dust.
Smile and pretend everything is normal,
Laugh so the tears are disguised,
Withdraw deep within the abnormal,
All my dreams are denied.
How do I rebuild for a future?
How can something broken remain?
Can it be healed with a suture,
Or are feelings hardened by pain?
My life is stripped of all meaning,
Each thought pulls me further away,
No comfort is found in dreaming,
As I disappear a little more every day.
He doesn’t bleed where I see it.
His wounds live quieter than that~
in the way he paces long after
the day is done,
mind spinning like a ceiling fan
that never quite shuts off.
He carries his hurt in overthinking,
turning small moments into puzzles
he feels responsible for solving.
He carries it in irritability too~
that sharp edge that appears
not because he’s angry,
but because he’s tired
of holding himself together.
Some days he moves through the house
like he’s wrapped in winter—
emotional numbness settling over him
like frost spiders on a windowpane.
I gently tap the glass,
hoping warmth will seep through.
Perfectionism becomes his armor,
each task a shield he polishes
until it gleams just right.
Relaxing feels dangerous,
like setting the armor down
might invite the world
to strike again.
But then in the softest moments~
I see the boy he once was,
the one who learned too early
to be careful with himself.
And I realize
he’s just trying to survive
in the only ways he knows.
And loving him
means noticing the wounds
that never maKE a sound.
There is a grief that whispers, not a cry,
A subtle ache beneath a practiced eye.
It does not shatter, bleed, or loudly break,
But shifts the self in every small mistake.
We honor storms that split the sky in two,
Yet miss the quiet fractures passing through—
A pause too long, a smile held too tight,
A dimming edge we overlook in light.
For wounds may bloom in silence, slow and thin,
A hidden crack that deepens from within.
No witness stands, no sirens claim the night,
Just inward fading, out of mind and sight.
So tread with care in every passing face,
Each soul a ledger time cannot erase.
The deepest pain may never speak, nor show—
It softens first, and no one sees it grow.
The smile was on, the grades were good,
I ate my dinner like I should.
No angry outbursts, no slammed door,
Just quiet days and nothing more.
Inside, a storm began to brew,
A tangled mess, they never knew.
Each day a weight, a heavy stone,
I carried it almost alone.
They saw the surface, calm and bright,
Not shadows growing in the night.
They thought I blossomed, strong and free,
While branches broke inside of me.
And then the fall, a sudden crash,
A whispered plea, a silent lash.
Too late, they saw the wounded soul,
The story I could not make whole.
A soldier,
wounded in wartime,
comes back home,
no welcome,
post traumatic disorder ~
life is living hell.
October
….. is mortally wounded!
It sways, strays
across the silken sky
quivering over rusty hedges
shivering through shouldered trees,
splattering, smattering
everything in blood-red.
On it stumbles,
On it tumbles
shivering over the valleys
spearing through the trees
smearing the water blood-red
while the ground offers no sympathy
just a hardened, frigid face.
On it goes,
On it flows
gasping and grasping
at clouds of bandages,
hobbling towards the horizon,
haemorrhaging life
in crimson splashes.
While winter,
no ceremony
nor propriety,
just the sly smile
of an Arctic fox,
coldly awaits October’s
shredded, dreaded last breath!
Written: November 13, 2025, for contest sponsored by Joseph May.
" Inspired by the song: 'Like a Wounded Bird Trying to Fly' sung by Kurt Vile.
*****************
Like a wounded bird trying to fly,
I flapped through a mellifluous sky—
not quite broken, not quite bold,
just chasing warmth over winds grown cold.
I strummed my soul on an equine red,
while ghosts of my father rode rails in my head.
My mother, shrewd, stitched up our knees—
with eleemosynary grace and teas.
Now I sit where the green ferns grow,
my kids disport in the woods below.
There’s an imbroglio in my chest—
a luculent ache I can’t arrest.
So if you find me, don’t ask why
I’m like a wounded bird trying to fly.
It is only my style of saying goodbye—
to the weight, the waste, the wondering why.
Wounded by the biting frost in my chest, the moon is my silver bandage,
My desires bloom in the night, like shadows on the wall of memory,
Only now, when I feel I've lost you in the boundless infinity,
I begin to love you; love is an echo that still resonates within me.
My wounds sing of the late encounter, like an old song,
And your name floats in the air like a forgotten perfume on dusty shelves,
I don't know your address, but I write my longing on the canvas of silent stars,
Suddenly, the world's waters absorbed you, and I got lost in the wind.
Wandering gestures, minus infinity separates us like an abyss,
I construct offenses against you, yet you remain a beacon in the fog,
When everything happens naturally, we opposed each other like day and night,
And in this play of lights and shadows, only now do I truly love you.
Our words are foreign tongues, frozen in cold silences,
At the border between yes and no, a silent witness whispers your story to me,
We opposed each other like the sun and the moon in the sky of lost dreams,
And only now, when I've lost you forever, do I know I've always loved you.
Wounded by the weeping north wind, with the moon in my hands I'd bandage my longing,
Only now does love begin, a paradox that becomes my flight.
In your absence, I find you again, my beloved vanished from the world,
And the wounds will always sing, welcoming you in silent memory.
The waters of the world have swallowed you, and I, wounded, remain lost in the cold,
Gesturing toward the negative infinity, a love grown in silence.
We resisted, the sun and the moon, in a dance of celestial shadows,
And only now does love begin when I feel you'll forever be missing from me.
Our words, frozen, are foreign tongues that no longer unite,
At the border between yes and no, a silent witness whispers that I love you.
When everything happens naturally, and paradox becomes our law,
Only now does love begin, when you, my love, are the blue star.
In the silence between us, a song is born, an echo of longing and dreams,
I've loved you always, in the night sky, a promised beacon of love.
And in your absence, I find you again, like a light that dispels my shadows,
When I know I've lost you forever, the love within me deeply matures.
Leukemia boys and
Leukemia girls wave
in hospital volunteers,
as the angels wave
them away.
What is
love?
Beyond
an overpriced
ambulance ride,
and an unnecessary
hospital stay?
The most beautiful things:
summer sweat,
and Rome after
rain.
Inside,
a child draws
a yellow sun
with trembling fingers.
The IV, taped
down like it’s trying
to hold him
there.
Forced positivity.
A heart full of
apathy.
I see that
same world you try
to see with substance sober,
and I’ll be the first to tell you—
it isn’t a
blessing.
God has a
hand-grenade
smile, and it’s
hard to find
the grace
in that.
There’s
6 dead, 4 wounded,
and one on the
way.
What an
unimpressive
collection.
I open my mouth
My anger spills out
I say things I don’t mean
And mean things I won’t say
Damage
Oh such damage
Strangers or friends
Words I can’t defend
Family is broken
From words that I’ve spoken
When will it end?
Damage
Too much damage
So conflicted
I’ve inflicted
So much hurt
So much pain
Words like weapons
Sharper than knives
Killing dreams
Shredding lives
Damage
Unjustified
Unspeakable
Damage
Bludgeoning words
Shattered spirits
Wounded hearts
Crippled lives
Killing words
Chilling words
Handful of syllables
Damage
In every thing he found a joke
at every one he took a poke
While himself hid deep inside
a fragile veil of wounded pride
One day the veil, ripped clean from under
his heart, rent in two asunder
Left behind 'cross dusty floor
to haunt and hunt ~ Why? Wherefore?
Leukemia boys and
Leukemia girls wave
in hospital volunteers,
as the angels wave
them away.
What is
love?
Beyond
an overpriced
ambulance ride,
and an unnecessary
hospital stay?
The most beautiful things:
summer sweat,
and Rome after
rain.
Inside,
a child draws
a yellow sun
with trembling fingers.
The IV, taped
down like it’s trying
to hold him
there.
Forced positivity.
A heart full of
apathy.
I see that
same world you try
to see with substance sober,
and I’ll be the first to tell you—
it isn’t a
blessing.
God has a
hand-grenade
smile, and it’s
hard to find
the grace
in that.
There’s
6 dead, 4 wounded,
and one on the
way.
What an
unimpressive
collection.
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