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Redding Worth Poem
Sometimes late at night, I dream of you,
Your soft touch, how your love caressed me
until all the noise, all the uncertainty would vanish.
The slow thump of your heart would be all that I heard,
a holy rhythm that rocked me to safety.
As my voice falters into only a croak of desperation
I can still feel the way you would trace my arm.
From freckle to freckle you memorized me,
a cartographer of my smallest truths:
I furrow my brow in concentration,
I rub my feet together in anxiety.
I had spoken about my mother,
but you held my broken soul in your hands,
staring at it while everyone else just nodded.
As I lay here trapped inside these
stark walls that gleam sterile and cold,
I am not thinking about the memories
whose alcoholic scent would burn my nose.
I lay here thinking about you.
I lived a life of laughter and soft mornings,
the clinking of glasses, the rustle of turning pages,
the swell of music carrying me through every chapter.
I stitched joy into the seams of my days,
waking up to a child's carefree laughter,
or the bloom of spring's first daffodil.
Now I imagine the warmth of sunlit grass beneath my feet,
your calloused hand slowly tracing my thumb,
the smell of wild honey carried by a summer breeze,
talking about the way the trees tickle our souls.
For you are the only one who sees the way
the earth sighs when kissed by falling rain.
Copyright © Redding Worth | Year Posted 2025
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Redding Worth Poem
Cleopatra
Each morning before the songbirds,
she sings until her throat bleeds crimson.
A melody to meet the cries of women before her,
their memories spilling like rivers down her cheeks.
Her siren eyes painted with kohl, had burned with hunger
for territory. She claimed kingdoms like a man.
She bent empires beneath her will.
She fought as men do.
But history, cruel and callous, dared not
let her name linger. Not even the Nile whispers her elegy.
"Join me, Mark Antony," she bellows each night
But the roots wrap around her lifeless body
tightening their grip, pulling her deeper into the earth.
Copyright © Redding Worth | Year Posted 2025
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Redding Worth Poem
My Mind’s Prison
The emptiness of this world tugs gently on my loosened skin,
sunlight slips through the crooked blinds,
a storm of restless chemicals clouds my mind,
some mornings my body refuses to rise.
Sunlight slips through the crooked blinds,
screams muffled by my Hello Kitty stuffed animal.
Some mornings my body refuses to rise,
the weight of others breaks my bones.
Screams muffled by my Hello Kitty stuffed animal,
my bones creak, memories that hold me prisoner.
The weight of others breaks my bones,
thoughts coil tight, a noose around the innocent.
My bones creak, memories that hold me prisoner,
a storm of restless chemicals clouds my mind.
Thoughts coil tight, a noose around the innocent,
the emptiness of this world tugs gently on my loosened skin.
Copyright © Redding Worth | Year Posted 2025
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Redding Worth Poem
Another Sky
Is there another sky,
where I could rest my heavy bones,
embraced, cradled beyond this ledge
The drop to hell is far too steep.
Running down a cloudy glass,
the crimson drip of mother’s wine
staining all it touches with a bitter, bloody red.
I measure worth in empty plates.
A parasite gnaws at my stomach's lining,
a relentless hymn I cannot silence.
My scars like ghostly constellations,
a haunting I carry, both burden and compass.
But there is a place where flowers grow in gravesites,
where mothers stitch sunlight into the fabric of grief.
I’ll trade wine for water and darkness for the Sun,
guided by stars that burn in another sky.
Copyright © Redding Worth | Year Posted 2025
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Redding Worth Poem
?If The Sidewalk Could Talk?
On July 4, 2022, a?? mass shooting? occurred during the 4??th? of July parade in? Highland Park,?? Illinois??, United States. The shooting occurred at 10:14 am, roughly 15 minutes after the? parade had started. Robert E. Crimo III killed seven people, and 48 others were wounded? by bullets or shrapnel.?
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The ground shakes beneath my feet.?
?Fireworks? My eyes dart across the crowd,?
?A tiny hand tugs at her mom’s skirt in panic.?
?Cracking sounds split open?
?my brain, trapped in its fortress.?
?
Suddenly, a silence clings to the air,?
?heavy and unmoving, settling in like dust.?
?My mother pulls me back with trembling force,?
?my father walks forward, his figure steady?
?starting to be swallowed by chaos.?
?
The screams explode, thick?
?like the smoke hanging in the distance,?
?it wraps around me, pressing into my chest.?
?I want to scream, to shatter the unbearable sounds,?
?but my voice is buried under the rubble of fear.?
?
Strollers, backpacks, a teddy bear, left behind,?
?the innocent litter of a moment never to be undone.?
?The sudden weight of a world turned fragile,?
?where laughter has fractured into fear.?
?
Mothers with arms flung out,?
?as if reaching can shield the sky.?
?Fathers grasping at the unprotectable.?
?
The sidewalk at 620 central avenue?
?forever stained red with organs?
?painting the sidewalk over smeared chalk?
?of an American Flag.?
?
A nation of storms, I am frayed under the weight of invisible wounds.?
Copyright © Redding Worth | Year Posted 2025
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