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Talia Izsak Poem
I was born into a world that does not see me.
My body tells the story of absence;
The hollow of my stomach,
The jagged outline of my ribs,
My fur, patchy and damp.
I learned quickly that to want is to be ignored,
And to ache is to exist.
As a puppy, I thought someone might see me.
I thought if I wagged my tail hard enough,
If I tilted my head just right,
The world might open its hands.
But it did not.
It only ever closed its fists,
Turned its back,
And left me with scraps,
Too spoiled to taste.
Now I roam alleys slick with rain,
My nose pressed against the cold pavement.
The air sharp with the tang of rust,
The faint sweetness of a bruised apple
Rotting in the dark.
Even the light avoids me
Street Lamps flicker,
Shadows curl against my skin,
Like they, too, are ashamed.
I am no monster,
Though that's how the world perceives me.
I am just a dog that takes up too much space,
Whose hunger speaks louder than it ever should.
And yet, I keep searching.
I follow the smell of bread I will never taste,
The sound of footsteps I will never reach.
I chase voices that don't belong to me,
Hoping they might turn and see me,
Hoping they might call for me.
They do not.
So I sit beneath a streetlamp that sputters and hums,
And I imagine what it would feel like,
To have the weight of a hand on my head,
The sound of love spoken softly in the dark,
A belly heavy with food,
The sharp edges of my ribs fading into softness.
I close my eyes and imagine,
And for a moment,
I am full.
Copyright © Talia Izsak | Year Posted 2025
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Details |
Talia Izsak Poem
I met her once in a house with no laughter,
where the wallpaper peeled like old regrets,
where the air tasted of dust and waiting.
She sat on the staircase, small knees to her chest,
counting the footsteps that never came back.
She spoke in the language of careful silences,
in the hush of a door never opening,
in the crack of a voice that forgot how to ask.
Her hands held nothing but air and absence,
and yet, they trembled as if they knew loss too well.
She was the kind of child no one looks for,
the one who learned to fold herself quiet,
who made herself smaller than the spaces between words,
who mastered the art of not being a burden.
And I, I did not save her.
No one did.
Instead, she wove herself into my bones,
threaded her sorrow into my skin.
Now, she walks when I walk,
sits beside me in empty rooms,
tucks herself into the corners of my reflection.
Some nights, I feel her fingers in my own,
pulling me back to a childhood I do not visit.
She still stands in doorways, waiting.
She still listens for voices that will never call her name.
And I, older, taller, louder,
am no better than the ghosts who left her there.
I tell her she matters,
but I do not let her speak.
I tell her she is safe,
but I never stay long enough to prove it.
She watches me with something like knowing,
something like pity,
something like an apology.
As if to say;
You are the one who left me now.
And I do not answer.
Copyright © Talia Izsak | Year Posted 2025
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Details |
Talia Izsak Poem
I learned to whisper to myself
when the world crumbled,
when silence stretched its wings,
wrapping me in a tender nothing
that felt too much like being forgotten.
I once feared the cracks,
those jagged, sharp breaths
that split me open like fault lines
shaking beneath unsteady hands.
I thought they would swallow me whole,
those wounds that bled into the earth like rain,
vanishing into soil too tired to bloom.
But there is grace in brokenness,
a quiet truth stitched into the seams of sorrow.
Each splinter of me trembling in the dark
was a vessel for light, unseen but waiting,
like stars aching to pierce the night.
I was the storm, the flood,
the wreckage left in their wake.
And then, the softening hush after the sky breaks apart.
The silence that is not emptiness,
but rest.
I lay down in the quiet,
where hope stitches its fragile thread,
where forgiveness is not a weight
but a breath catching in my chest,
an unfamiliar lullaby
that once felt too soft to hold.
The road was long, strewn with stones
that carved their names into my skin.
I mistook my scars for weakness,
forgot that healing is not the absence of pain,
but the gentle art of carrying it differently.
And so I learned,
to love what remained,
to cradle the broken and call it home.
I have always been worthy.
I just needed to remember,
how to listen to the pulse of my own name,
how to bend without breaking.
Now, I rest in the quiet that has grown within me,
a tenderness blooming slow,
like the first light of dawn
stretching over the horizon.
And in this stillness,
I am enough.
Copyright © Talia Izsak | Year Posted 2025
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