Author: poetryfest

Somewhere,
In the fleeting moment between relaxed awareness and all-encompassing sleep,
There lies an instance of opportunity.
A small window in time where the dreamer is freed from the confines of reality-
Free from extra weight around the waist, free from unpaid balances, free from politically driven division.
In this moment the dreamer becomes the creator -with the option of limitless scenarios
bound only by the extent of imagination.

Knowing this chance will come and go,
I waste no time on extravagant settings.
I silently step on a simple sand path, beckoned by the sound of distant waves.
The way is lit by the light of the moon and a spectacular set of stars.
Completely uninhibited by clouds.

My heart begins to thud in anticipation as I draw nearer to the waters edge.
The path opens up to a wide shoreline where my eyes meet the pinnacle of the vision.
My love. My love. My long-lost love stands waiting with extended hand.
Untouched by time, unburdened by loss, unaffected by the savagery of death.
I run forward with everything in me, while the periphery of the vision starts to blur.
Your arms wrap around, we crumble to the ground
I exist solely for this embrace.

The strength of the vision is waning, my mortal body craves the rest of REM.
First the moon and stars vanish, next the waves and the sand of the shore.
All that is left of the vision is you and I.
The catalyst of my deepest desires.
You and I.

Gripping with all of my strength
I desperately fight an inevitable truth.
That I can’t keep you here, that you’ll still disappear,
that I lose you more each year.

My love.My love.
My long-lost love if only I had a choice.
I would choose this feeling over everything.
I would exchange this moment for the remaining years of my life.
In the final seconds of our union, you place your hand upon my heart.
It emanates a warmth that permeates the ribs, and every tissue hardened by scars.

Until tomorrow, my love-
I guard the warmth you left on my soul.
I anxiously await our next embrace
down the path of a dream by the shore

You saw me take my first step into life, I held your hand as you took your last step of strength. You held my hand when I was small, You taught me the value of perseverance, In right from wrong, That’s why I’m so determined, I saw you stare adversity in the face, Without fear, A compassionate heart stopped beating, Tireless hands finally at rest, Twenty eight years of selfless love, Taken in less than 7 days, You taught me to be fearless, And protected me when it
was needed, I’ll never be the same person I was, Because of you, I am a stronger version of myself, Even though you are gone, I’ll forever hold you in my heart, The unconditional love you showed me, Will forever be etched on my soul.

The weight of grief
has the pressure of the sea,
compression on all sides
until I feel like I can’t breathe.
Grief is drowning alive.

The time here is over, and the time for the great unknown begins.
Alas, the soul may never die.
It lives in the heart of those who remember.
Those who smell your cologne when walking through the street,
Those who see you in a stranger passing by,
Those who keep your picture up in their house,
Those who remember the good and the bad times together,
Those who are reminded of your nature through others,
Those who would ask what you would do when they need help,
And by those who hold their grief close to their heart.
Allah yerhamo

(In the Aftermath of PK’s Suicide)
By Lorie Adair

We snow maids
are idle angels terrified
to plumb the depths
of icy woe.

Suburban wives with sapphire eyes
thick with wax, and smiles
of startled artifice,
we are but shadows on the lawn,
roosters savaging along a distance
no lover can repair.

In therapy, we drone
I shall be well again dreaming
someday it will ring true.

For now, we lie
in bleached valleys
of waste and shame,
so many fractured mirrors,
and aborted stars.

We awoke.

The first drops
Were mistaken for tears,
But as more crashed down, yellow and bubbling,
They ate through the stone of our beloved’s rest,
Bones refusing degradation peeked through
The blinds of this day; We saw
its jaw barely clinging to solidity,
Nestled below chewed vertebrae thrashed
beneath a pillow of rat fur—
An eyeless skull transfixed on the surface
left in an inaudible scream. I can still hear it.

What yearly remaining reverences were now barely stems,
In a week dead like the remembered,
thirst clutching its snipped roots. I recall the In-memoriams ripped
from the ground melting against
a purpling, tritone sky.

There is no gravestone anymore,
Only disturbed earth.

Children wandered to pay respects for what lay buried:
Their name a forgotten
cicada song
echoing
in the bleeding chambers of the forest;
They do not know why they came;
they don’t know why they’ve stopped—

Once, the rain hung thick like a promise:
Wisps of cloud broke, but they never fell—

Before the downpour
our mothers and fathers crafted
brick from sticks and hope, A house a firm home for their children
and children’s children, Telling cirrus
stories of dreams by candle light—
They believed the clouds would pass, that there was
Still life beneath the corpse shade
casting blackness on vibrant reds and blues.

On the other side of the world, it’d begun to rain;
It was an endless supercell for
those who saw beyond the clouds—
They knew better—

The freshly dead floated by in the flood,
Carrying stone stories in their chests, dead air shouting
in static mumble,
Each syllable an exposed femur coated in hard ice,
Freezing, melting and freezing again—
Crafting a titan hidden beneath the water,
Dead and unburied,
Sinking unsinkable ships,
Another new, uncaring god.

Gathered in our homes,
We saw the unlaid brick
in the yard, a wheelbarrow of concrete
now stone—we waited too long to build anything
Strong enough to hold us.

I began to tremble as the ground below shifts,
Beneath my feet, I tasted the ruin.

We awoke.

The silence heavier than any nightmare
the walls around us cave in—
There never was a dream—
This waterlogged grave
merely held the facsimile of
a long dead memory
too broken to recognize,
A name falsified called “hope.”

The clouds burst open like a fresh scab,
The wound spilling out a reckoning.

A lot changed in a moment; nothing is the same.
The hush in my room is a scream,
I closed my eyes to a fractured dream.
Dreams and peace have long been gone,
I sleep for hours to seek someone.

A lot changed in a moment, nothing is the same,
afterall, I am just a pawn in the greys,
drifting lost in endless maze,
step by step but never free,
a silent piece- forgotten me.

Peace and happiness- ghosts in air,
standing afar with sinister stare.
They smile cold and I call them close,
I give a hand that never reach,
they whisper truths they never preach.

“You’re not the same,” they softly say,
I smile—was I ever, anyway?

It profits us little
to spill no blood at all
amid night birds of envy
and our
pervading desires.

By the end of each daylight
we are all as guilty as the serpent
lying in wait for its prize
no matter what.

Patience bears us little more—
perhaps a bit of virtue.

The virtue is gained
yes

but the people
want dramas and blood:

the child held for ransom
under the wicked burn
of the world.

II.

I too adore violence; and,
when I had shaved my head completely
and those of
a few men who emerged
curiously from their cells

I perused the odd stack of books
(which sat like rapturous treasure
on the wobbly library cart).

They lead me to Ezra Pound
and then dreamily to Ku-to-en.
Stately crows on my window ledge
block out a winter sun.
They bow their heads in sorrow.

My sentence for loving you

too strongly

is 161 days, 161 nights:

time enough to read these books

time enough to cry

They say that if you write it down,
it stops hurting.
So here I am,
sending words,
I know you’ll never read,
hoping they’ll leave my mind,
if only for a moment.

The truth is—
I’m obsessed with you.
Every hour, every minute,
every day.
I’m constantly thinking about you.
I wonder what it’s like
to hold you,
to kiss you,
to hear your laugh
not as a distant echo,
but as a warmth against my skin.

Do you ever think of me?
Even for a single second
On a busy week?
I long for the days
when I used to see you,
when we talked about anything—
everything.
Even though it felt wrong,
it felt so good
to have your counterfeit attention.
Was I only a joke to you?
Did you lose interest,
find someone new—
someone easier to love?
Should I do the same?

But how am I supposed to find
someone better than you?
When you’re everything
I ever dreamed of—
and more.

Maybe I’m a fool,
begging for a single glance
that may never come
I know we’d never work,
know you’d choose someone
simpler—
someone who doesn’t feel
like she’s cursed
with thoughts of you.
Someone who isn ́t me,
never me.

I try not to compare,
but I’ve never had a crush
so strong
it feels like a magnetic field,
pulling me back to you,
again
and again
like gravity to a world
I can never call home.
Now that I know you exist,
how can I love
anyone else?
You’ve cursed me
I’m damned
It feels like I’ll never stop
thinking about you

The worst part is—
you might never know.
Never know
how happy I wanted
to make you.

Maybe I’ll tell you someday,
when my heart
no longer beats
for you.
But I’m sure
you’ll find someone better—
everyone else does.

Still, I’ve never felt this strong
for anyone before.
I’m sorry
you’ll never know.
But I can’t help but wonder—
what if?

Upon these waning mountaintops I felt
the loss of you for the first time. Every
notion staggers below with dull, opulent
eyes flowing over the gravel and sands.

In each direction there remains what once
was, and still is, completely unfazed
by your removal from this Earth. Can I
truly accept your absence when nothing

around me has changed? Such resonant
feelings waver inside, it’s impossible
that no amount wouldn’t escape and affect
my surroundings. Those encompassed

in the journey look on with smiling teeth
and joyous cries, enraptured by the natural
world. Absolutely nothing echos what
you’ve done, and where you now sit;

hopelessly, I expect something tangible
to acknowledge my great sadness. With
no outstretched hand, I feel nothing
for the wonders that yesterday compelled me.

The looming colored mountains once
possessing heavenly oppression appear
as if a minor wind could topple them. The
aging ruins of an empire ingrained in this

Earth no longer feel essential; tattered
bricks strewn about during the onset
of a conquering. Lifelessness overwhelms
my sight and all I take in. Dead and vapid

is the world around me as it continues
to tread through layers of unaffected
time; beating no pulse and breaking
your memory, moment after moment.

The only extension I sense is heat,
radiating through our thinning air,
sternly holding me to the
ground with little room to breathe.

Always have I hesitated in the
warmth of the sun, now it appears
as cruel and detestable. Never more
have I craved the stillness of

a January Winter. How unfair that
you had to leave in Winter, while
I’m forced to endure the Summer.
I wish for the numbing cold to

overtake and force my thoughts to
cease, if only for a fleeting second.
In great timeless uncertainty, I
would forgo what compels me now,

and feel your absence for what it
must be… Perhaps I’m overly selfish,
concerned with my meager place,
while those nearest to you feel a

shared intensity hardly fathomable.
They must embrace your lifeless
presence, that inarguable truth making
up the whole of your death. Here,

I can only picture you abstractly.
I’m unable to make out your face
and shape. How you remain presently
I cannot know. To me, you once were,

and now, you are not. You’ll be missing,
the only consolation being the words
of those who knew you as I couldn’t.
I must accept them as concrete.

However, I will never truly know