Author: poetryfest

Did you ever make it to heaven?
Have you seen the gate?
If you did, is heaven such a beautiful place?
God make himself known and put you in an embrace?
Telling you that he loved you and assured that you were safe?

I have to know Dad did he say things were okay?
God tell you the reasons for your choices, decisions, and pain?
Did he tell you about me and how I carry the weight
Of you being gone because of the decisions you made?
Now, do you smile more?
I hope your lungs are no longer inflamed
Did God help you rationalize the thoughts in your brain?

When you ask God a question, does he reply?
Or did you know the answers because of his wisdom when you arrived?
Does God reassure you that you and I are really alike
Does that scare you? We will all know in time

I often look at the situations you had
The army
The PTSD
The struggle to feel intact
You watched over me in spirit, but you didn’t help me cope with my past
When you struggled, did you also push away everyone that you had?

I have to know Dad
Did you think you weren’t worthy?
Did you have little faith and think I’d die prematurely?
I understand you were sick
You didn’t show signs of it early
You tried to take your life away
On my birthday

Do you feel better and laugh more?
Is heaven truly what we asked for?
If I meet you when I’m up there
il no longer ask for
answers

Nobody is perfect because we all feel remorse
But this pain, I can’t carry it anymore
I hope God shows you love and you are no longer torn
I hope you feel loved because I remember that you were adored

I’m older now, and I can see a bigger picture
As a kid, I was angry, but if I could talk with ya’
I would probably hug you, and my tears would fall
Because no matter how mad I was at you
I felt love all along

I have a lot to experience
In life and my soon-to-be marriage
I wish you were here so you could tell me how to manage
But If you’re looking down, you can see me looking up
I hope you feel peace and strength
I love you, Dad

I waltz to answer the subtle knocks from the terrace
A man stands in the beauty of dawn
Lost? Stranded? How far has he journeyed?
The door is opened; It is needless to say ‘come in’
But O’ how polite this man is —
Standing still on the terrace, waiting to be welcomed in.

He dons a black cloak and I am left blinded
Whenever I try to peek at his face
He holds a scythe and I perceive he wants to play gothic,
And his hands so grey, yet his grip is firm,
In the beauty of the blooming red sun, he stands,
Come in, come in. Leave the terrace.

The door is wide open,
Just this midnight I blew the candles on my cake,
And I left you a plate, a piece of my cake,
My wish is to see ninety and chickens with teeth,
O’ I left you a piece of cake,
But this man doesn’t eat. Doesn’t celebrate with me.

What is it then you seek?
You smell of nothingness and your aura eerie,
Your cloak is ageless,
And o’ when did it get so cold?
This man I believe is meek,
He is waiting for me to take the first bite.

But I swallow more than my cake,
My fork has found its way to my throat,
Cough, cough, cough,
O’ how uncompassionate this man is,
Would he not tend to my discomfort?
My body lays cold, I suck in my last breath

He closes my eyes tenderly like I was his beloved,
Nihility was his face before my eyelids obey his grey fingers,
Is this what it feels like to be dead?
Dead? Who will tend to my visitor?
My deathly adorned visitor.
O’ how bad a host death has made me become

At long last I met you
My new reason for being
For the first time, I felt as my heart flew
A future with you is all that I’m seeing

Mistakes are made
And then they’re forgiven
Yet I still find it decayed
I really tried not to give in

But you still left
Like I didn’t mean a thing
You’ve been replaced with an ache in my chest
And you replaced me too in one full swing

The death of a connection
It started and ended in the blink of an eye
No room allowed for objection
Just leeched up and dry

This feeling is recognizable
Yet entirely new
I would never find this to be advisable
And somehow I am expected to mourn and start anew

Grief is a word too small to hold the weight,
A five-letter burden, too heavy, too late.
It’s love with nowhere to rest, nowhere to stay,
A wound that won’t heal, no matter the day.

They say it makes us stronger, but they don’t know,
Grief doesn’t build us; it makes us slow.
It drags us through life, numb and afraid,
Hoping for peace, but finding only the shade.

Time moves on, but we remain frozen,
Chasing something that was once chosen.
We walk through the hours with empty eyes,
Grief is the silence after the goodbyes.

It strikes without warning, a memory, a sound,
The scent of his shirt, his voice in the crowd.
And suddenly, we’re drowning in tears,
Wishing we could forget all our years.

We brace for the blows, the ones still to come,
The ache in our chest, the weight of what’s done.
Grief is the shadow that never lets go,
It clings to our hearts, and it pulls us low.

How do you live when the light feels so far,
When the person you loved is now a dead star?
How do you laugh, how do you breathe,
When grief is the thing you can’t ever leave?

It’s a thief in the night, it’s a scream in the dark,
A flood of memories that leaves its mark.
Grief takes what it wants, and it takes all of you,
And leaves you with nothing, but sorrow to chew.

Every moment is heavy, the pain is so loud,
Like a storm that’s always inside of the crowd.
We’re hollow inside, a shell with no name,
Grief has erased us, we’re never the same.

We want to stop fighting, we want to let go,
But we know we can’t, though we’re dying so slow.
We carry this burden, too heavy to bear,
A lifetime of sorrow, a life so unfair.

How do we move on when the world is too cold,
When the pieces of our hearts are broken and sold?
Grief is the scar that never quite heals,
The constant reminder of everything we feel.

So we carry on, half-living, half-dead,
With tears in our eyes and a heart full of dread.
We smile through the pain, but inside we fall,
Grief is the silence that says it all.

Arched stiffly on melting snow,
gaping nostrils and a steamy puff of air
might have been
the last glimpse
before a final apnea,
the maroon coagula jelled onto
the coarse gray-brown winter coat,
betrayed
the final blow that must have ended it.
The single gaping hole near the heart
was unexpected.
There were no tread marks,
no crash debris at the site.
Just another life,
anonymously disposed of.

t was a Monday or Tuesday morning,
right before we opened.
Nina sent us out
to go and see them.

We watched a thousand mayflies
out back at the museum,
their bodies, long and slow

quivered stupidly, they jumped around,
switching places for no reason,
just to die, like
tomorrow.

And I get it, I tell Louisa, who’s
putting her beautiful face
right up close to them.
I would do it, too.

Me, Janey, and Jack were in the backyard
When we saw a dead man hanging by
The neck of my jump rope up in the
Willow trees, and I looked up and
Yelled at him, “What are you doing
With my jump rope?”

And he opened
His yellow eyes and looked down at us
With a crooked smile filled with maggots
And said, “I needed to borrow it for a while.”
I looked over at Janey who got teary eyed,
And then saw some rocks on the ground.
I told Jack to hit the man where it hurts
Cause he’s a no good thief that needed
To be taught to not take things from people.
So we pelted him as he swung in the air,
And like a Piñata red licorice and gumdrops
Fell from his gashes and wounds, all while
Janey was crying like the big ol’ baby she was.

In comes the news of his death, a storm
unleashed, untimely and unwelcome.
I stare, appam and mutton stew in my mouth; Body
numb, soul frozen, I gulp down the pain; tender blobs
of meat tumble down my esophagus; Some linger between
the gums, the grieving few in the alley, uncouth,
untimely and unwelcome.

“He is just forty!”, I whimper; “Was” bellows the English
tutor in the mob. Lurid moments, bleeding hearts,
stinging eyes, hushed whispers among huddled bodies, sweat
down their temples; a dull scent of mutton stew permeates
a hole in our hearts; a meek rumble, a petite murmur,
a silent scuffle in my stomach, unforeseen
untimely and unwelcome.

Darkness descends; mourning cloaks the
moonless night; laments soaked in pain; a sea of
mutton stew in me, unsettling, untimely and unwelcome.
In the far distance, a howl, a sob, a scream, a whine,
slits the stillness of this stark, spiteful night; Heads turn,
feet shuffle, fears grip the soul; Eyes search the one whose
anguish is greater than ours.

A dark, lonely bat that lost its way? A scheming cyclone
seething on the western coast? The sturdy arms of the oak
writhing in the funeral pyre? the melancholy
maiden who lost her son in the village fair, unfortunate?
a beastly scoundrel striking his wife, unabashed? The silent
wail of the tender lamb inside, weighing me down, ever so
untimely and unwelcome?

We were out there looking for holes
before the rosy orange touched the sea.
With shovels and trowels, hands, too,

we dug deep in the rocky beach for
fine fellows to bake. Be careful,
don’t get cut, said Mum. We didn’t care

about a little blood, it was not
about the clam, but the discovery,
we were excited in that moment,

that time. We took our hod to the fire.
Dad was always there, in a red apron,
cooking with a smile. Smells of butter

overtook briny warm breezes.
I live there, in memory, at ebb.
Now my kids dig holes. If they get

cut, it won’t matter, they will still
burrow, search the froth, forever
this moment, waters unspent.

Grief is funny.
Usually we accept the things we hear when we’re told them
Gas is expensive… it sure is
I need you to work late tonight… so it goes
See? Pretty easy
Unless the news is bad. Then there’s denial.
He was driving home late at night… you know how high his blood pressure is… her cancer is back
You hear these words over the phone. First it rings. Perhaps your mind is playing tricks on you, but the tone of the phone is threatening.
It’s an awfully strange hour… why aren’t they texting me?… we just talked this morning.
You’re scared, but all you say is hello. They say hello back. Not how’s it going, or I hope you’re doing well. They just say hello.
All you can do is wait. Wait for seconds… or is it years?
Sometimes you’re on the edge of your seat, or waiting with bated breath. Not here, not now. It’s as if you’re hovering at the top of the Eiffel Tower, waiting to be throttled down to the ground far below
They’re gone… it was sudden… it was a long time comin’
You sigh in disbelief. You ask questions. You offer platitudes. Finally you hang up, and they move on to the next person
Disbelief. Denial.
Denial is disbelief you choose to embrace.
Either way, you go about your day. You meal prep, dust, or shovel your driveway. Over
time, the realization finds its way into the contours of your mind. That’s when it hits you.
That’s when you say
They’re gone.
Forever, from this point on. They’re gone.
What do you do now?
You remember.
You try harder than you’ve ever tried before to remember the little pieces of their lives.
You share these with others and in return they give you more pieces to remember.
You remember together.
Sometimes this is enough, but sometimes it’s not.
You’re not protected anymore by denial. The implications of their absence are
sometimes so apparent you can’t stand it.
They’re gone. Forever, from this point on.
But what can you do, but remember?
Grief is a funny thing. First you deny it, then you embrace it… then… I don’t know. I’m
not sure what will happen next.