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Rebecca Kiser Poem
<Playing with words is like playing with Play-Doh for the first time,
mixing colors
messing with structures,
feeling it's designs between your fingers.
All five of them.
And then delicately stroking its surface with the others,
learning to comprehend the difference between smooth and rough,
and that the difference between them defines beauty.
It's like wiping the floor clean with its sticky skin,
and seeing van Gogh and Picasso
in the lines that separate red and yellow.
Really, it's just like being a kid again,
and experiencing the awe of simplicity,
the excitement of creativity,
and the gravity of curiosity
Copyright © Rebecca Kiser | Year Posted 2025
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Rebecca Kiser Poem
The day they kidnapped you
Was the day I found myself lost.
I found myself mostly numb
In a frosted layer of my own tears --
My eyes now dried out from
Years of overuse.
I've never missed something this badly,
Even after losing my own dad.
Sadly this takes the cake.
I almost feel inhuman for feeling this way.
But isn't that what I am now since you fled?
The monster under my childhood's bed?
One of a total of eight -
One for every forsaken flame
That kept the fire of my childlike zeal burning -
And eight years of work still can't raise the flame from its slumber.
Forgive me
In the chill of loneliness' cavern
I've forgotten the fondness of a smiling heart,
Or the levity of laughter's luxury.
I have lost the grail of passion,
And a passion for people.
People --
Love
People laugh
People listen
People link arm to arm
And lean closer
Eye to eye
Bonded by the light transmitted between them.
I am not people.
I am not persons.
I am but deserted versions of
burdens long forsaken,
behind the curtains of sermons sung
and versus not forgotten,
yet buried under the misery of betrayal's semblance
Remember
Meekness
Patience
Temperance
Gentleness -
These are healing balms
From the palms of Gilead
In symbolic remembrance
Of the one whose palms hold the bonds of light
Which people transmit -
Who submitted His will
And became Grace itself.
These are sermons sung
And versus not forgotten,
And my shaking soul
Left lifting its melodies
In search of the harmony that will
Someday heal its scars.
I am the lamb
written into each palm.
I am the woman
who draws from His healing balm.
I am the human
whose imperfections only grace can heal
into sacred psalms of eternal calm.
I am
the lamb of
I am -
The only way
the only truth
the only life
the only one.
Copyright © Rebecca Kiser | Year Posted 2025
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Rebecca Kiser Poem
Sometimes I fear I've
never known you
Like a leaf might feel
It knows its mother tree
Until she sheds its crispy remains,
Only to let its pieces wither
Into the same substance
That gave them both life
I wonder
Is this life?
To live,
Only to languish;
To love,
Only to lament;
To long,
Only to lose?
To render,
Only to revoke?
This is what I fear you have become
It is what my body understands
But my blood refuses to accept
My blood -
Engraved upon the palms of
Your hands -
The demands of justice
Cleansed by your grace
That transformed me
But not before my bandwidth snapped,
And the strands left beating
Forgot how to feel
Who am I?
A shepherd's lamb?
Or a damned soul -
My sole purpose for servitude?
I haven't known what to believe,
Weaving in between the lines of earth and water -
A dangerous place to be,
Where crocodiles lie waiting
For the one who lingers a little... too... long...
Snap
I've never really believed in fairytales
I used to believe in love
And I long to believe in both
I suppose the one thing waiting has taught me
Is that belief is a choice,
And sometimes choosing burns you,
But that doesn't necessarily mean
You were wrong in the choosing -
Maybe fairytales were written for a reason
For reasons beyond human reasoning -
For seasons come and seasons go,
Just as the sun rises
And the sun sets
But
If I am set on believing
In eternal winters
And immortal nights,
Then spring will never come,
Neither the sun rise
Maybe that is how hell has come to be -
By choosing to disbelieve that which is real,
That which is truth,
That which is light,
That which is life
That which is written
Into each chasm
Of our inner and outer shells,
That which dwells in the very cells
Of our existence-
For to deny life is to deny oneself
How could that not be hell
Itself?
So
My choice?
Truthfully,
I don't know you,
Though
I know I need to
The real you
I'm not confident in what I will find,
But I know what I must do
And all that's left
Is trust
And the choosing
Copyright © Rebecca Kiser | Year Posted 2025
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Rebecca Kiser Poem
I write because I am full
of feeling
Fumbling through the labyrinths of my soul,
A path only my blood could find
As it courses through the jungles
Only my veins could breed
Truths my blood knows better than myself
As I delve into moments -
Made into lifetimes
With each passing word
I write because
I never learned to swim
And I fear to drown
In the depths of passions
I can neither reason with
Nor contain
I write because I know better
Than to let my blood wither
As a dried reed,
Or to watch it burst,
Devouring myself
And everyone else with it
Copyright © Rebecca Kiser | Year Posted 2025
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Rebecca Kiser Poem
I celebrated my father's birthday this last April 4th, 2025
He would have been 75,
Yet 7 years ago, a white butterfly laid him to rest, with the rest of his family around his casket,
And my face playing masquerade among the living corpses giving me their condolences,
Not of any fault of their own,
Just that, my own brokenness could never be seen,
And between the layers of tears that covered my mother's face,
I knew,
I must be the one to carry this family's weight.
That was my state of mind back when we laid my father to rest,
Amidst the cries of those who grieved, and the white butterfly who rested its wings on the polished crimson wood.
That's what I believed would keep my family functional.
And it worked, for a season, by the grace of God, I felt His hand cocoon me from the demons that laid wait to weaken and ruin me.
And then it left - that beaconing presence that suppressed depressed presences within my soul,
Setting demons free once under control
And lessons once freeing felt stifling under the boulders that now crushed them.
I could no longer carry the weight I once bore,
Yet my stubborn spirit refused to let it go,
As if I insisted on doing 4 sets of 100 when I could only do 2 sets of 50
And I got hurt.
When we laid my father to rest, a white butterfly flew by my mother's face, and rested on his casket.
Yesterday I learned that butterflies rest during rainfall to protect their wings from damage.
Could it be,
A message spoken so subtly,
Softly whispering between the gentle flutters of each wing:
Sometimes seasons call for rest, and
OUR wings must rest.
OUR bodies must calm
And our minds need to decompress
From the raging waters within
And that's okay,
For it's just for a season,
Just as tulips shed their petals, and slowly wither into winter's cold, hard ground, they'll soon bloom again when spring finds its way around,
So, there is no shame in resting our wings,
For these are the very seasons God Himself gave His life for - the life that resolved impossible demands,
Through a love fixated on bringing me home through every season,
And He sent a white butterfly to remind me He is my reason to rest.
Copyright © Rebecca Kiser | Year Posted 2025
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Rebecca Kiser Poem
Galaxy, heart
erase, gaze
tender, cold
How do I love thee --
I cannot count the ways,
for there are none.
Not because the sun doesn't
grace thy face with its brilliance,
leaving the rays reflected back in a trance
and even the shadows dancing
as they trace thy golden reflection,
guiding thoughts through galaxies
tenderly gloved within thy gallant gaze
no imagination can erase.
Nor because the wind breathes traces
of divine intelligence
as thy tender breath reaches my wearied face.
No
Not because there is nothing to love,
but because love had left my ice-cold presence
long before we met,
and my heart was left alone
with no shadows of my own to dance
as they traced reflections of light,
for there was no light to trace.
Copyright © Rebecca Kiser | Year Posted 2025
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Rebecca Kiser Poem
I'm not sure when you left,
but my guess is, it's been a process
from the beginning.
Maybe the moment you left heaven's presence
you longed for its essence,
and left unnoticed?
Or was it when your freedom fell,
taken from the grips of hell,
and all it taught you to believe about yourself,
and life?
Or maybe when the one you
felt could change all that,
did change all that,
and left himself?
So, so did you?
Or, was it when your dad left?
Or maybe when the very definition of God
was crushed under betrayal's menacing vengeance?
Your dependence on yourself was your downfall,
you know.
And now, there's no feeling left at all.
The more you left,
the more I was left wandering,
left wondering,
how to find someone who desires to remain in the shadows
Copyright © Rebecca Kiser | Year Posted 2025
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Rebecca Kiser Poem
I have a confession to make.
I don't know the first thing about poetry.
I don't know about the rules
The rhymes
The euphony
That add to its glory,
Its beauty.
I don't understand each category
That determines where each
Beautiful body of voice belongs,
Bracketing each expression of speech
Into a home.
I wonder where this one fits in.
Will it be accepted by its kin?
Or a distant echo
Of what could have been
But never came to pass?
No imprint, no trace,
To leave behind
And make an impression
On the minds of mankind.
My soul's strongest hope
And its closet fear -
To never be heard
Nor remembered
For what it holds dear.
Copyright © Rebecca Kiser | Year Posted 2025
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Rebecca Kiser Poem
Every time I try to get around you
I end up strangled in lies of tungsten memories.
You're like the seal I can't break,
The song I can't take,
The bonds I long to make.
You stole the ground from underneath my feet,
And the heart that kept them standing.
What kind of a gift would a heart be
if it's not beating?
Who else am I supposed to give it to?
Who would accept it?
Copyright © Rebecca Kiser | Year Posted 2025
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Rebecca Kiser Poem
Forgive me
I have forgotten the fondness of a smiling heart,
or the levity of laughter's luxury.
I have lost the grail of passion,
and a passion for people.
Here I sit at time's old impasse
Huh
It seems I've never truly known faith
until I had no reason to believe.
Please Lord, help thou my unbelief.
Copyright © Rebecca Kiser | Year Posted 2025
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