FREE VERSE Poem: Dearly Missed, by Anabelle Lee

Fresh flowers wilt,
Footsteps fade,
Childhood home,
Mother’s jewelry
In someone else’s will

Years have passed
In some forgotten yard,
A stone etched with names–
A whisper, once loud, now lost.

On some day
In some august
Some girl walks past, reading
‘Dearly missed’
The rest is empty.

And I decided.
As I walked past
that my life would be
something worth noting.
To a devotion so deep that
the stone remembers.

Under some fluorescent lights,
at some empty desk,
a woman’s gaze drifts,
as the clock ticks,
watching hours slip away.

Her hand tracing
papers that weigh too much,
holding no meaning.
Flowers on her desk
dance with more purpose.

As I sat at my desk,
staring at the glaring screen,
with endless majors.
I decided that my future
will hold more
than heavy papers.

So when my flowers wilt,
And footsteps fade,
Some yard, some year
Will tell some girl
I danced.