Author: poetryfest

I had just gotten back from my run.
The water filter was left
with just enough for a sip.

The shower was cold—
all the hot water
had already blown off steam.

Only my clothes were in the hamper.
All the drawers were pushed in.

The bed was made—just like at hotels.
No proof of visitors.
Ready for someone new.

Two minutes into our show,
you were asleep
before the intro finished.

Fresh from the barbershop,
you said I looked much older
without the beard.

You asked if I was hungry.
I was surprised
when the delivery man
rang the doorbell.

I said I just need
a moment to myself.
You asked
if it was about you.

You didn’t leave your keys—
just the one to the apartment.

The number I’m dialing
is no longer
in service.

He chokes me, I think I like it
I’m not sure
He asks me if I like it, I say yes
I’m not sure
What else could I answer
He keeps telling me how hot I am
not beautiful
hot, hot, hot
So hot he wants to keep me all night
Five fingers on my throat, two in my mouth
Choke, please choke on me
Why does he say please ?

No longer human, somehow martyr
He shapes me into the altar of his desire
Holy, acquiescent
hot, hot, hot
While I desperately try to feel something
If not pleasure, then pain
Physical
bite me
scratch me
Mental
let me kill myself through his lustful eyes
And watch myself turn into
Faceless, choking, crying thing

Suddenly
His hand reaches mine, embraces it
His pace slows down, soft kisses
My skin melts under him as I inhale
And sink back into my body
human again
Rare and swift instant, enough to keep me alive
I hold on to this moment to convince myself
of what ?
Soon, without fail, my head pushed back into the pillow
hot, hot, hot

I am so tired, please let me sleep
Why do I say please ?
Pretend I am yours with your arm around my waist
But let me sleep
a few hours
until dust
Dust is here,
Foggy mind, eyes closed
Does he know I’m not asleep
His hand traces my back, naked again
I don’t move
His again
hot, hot, hot
His fingers reach inside me
As to tear me away from Morpheus
Jealous of the freedom he gave me for a couple of hours

The rich rip the world open,
dig their hands into its flesh,
ripping coal from the heart of the mountains,
siphoning oil from the veins of the earth.

They do not hear the weeping of the willows.
They do not care when rivers choke on chemicals,
or air suffocates in smoke,
or when forests and oceans turn to wastelands.

They do not worry for the children stuck pulling cobalt from the dirt,
their fingers blistered, their lungs black.
or for the workers collapsed on factory floors,
bodies discarded just like their empty paychecks.
Farmers watch as their fields wither,
we all sit and observe as the water turns poisonous, the soil turns to dust.

While they stand in glass towers,
above the ruin,
watching as the world burns.

And when the oceans rise to swallow the shores,
when the land cracks open in drought,
they will retreat behind their walls,
drown in their wealth
as the world submerges.

But money will not buy air to breathe,
will not silence the earth when it finally
takes back what they stole.

They built this empire on stolen time,
on the illusion that the world is endless.

But when there is nothing left to take,
when the last drop is spilled,
when the last tree falls,
they will realize too late,
they cannot eat their money.

Just know that I loved you so bad
I let you walk all over me, so cruel
I was your willing accomplice
I crossed my heart as you crossed the line
Time and time again
Yet,I defended you to all my friends

Eventually I stuck onto your words to
Like like a fly in honey, stuck and spiraling
Bereft and reeling
I thought we had something special, but now I see
I was never really enough for you
But don’t you think I loved you too much
To be discarded and forgotten

Now I’m left wondering if I was ever meant
You left me tangled in the echoes,
Whispers of what could have been,
Every smile that turned to shadows,
Carved my heart beneath your skin.

I kept the secrets, locked away,
Never spilled the truth, to even my bestfriend,
Thought I could save us from the gray,
But every fight just brought the end.
Was I ever enough to make you stay?

Did the love we built just fade away?
Even on my worst days, I’d defend your name,
But inside I knew it was all a game.
I loved you fiercely, thought you were the one,
Now I’m left alone, watching love come undone.

I played a part in your play,
Cursed with the lines I’d memorize,
You wore a mask of sweet veneer,
And I fell hard for all your lies.
Behind my back, you’d burn the pages,
While I stood blind to every bruise,
Gave you my heart through countless stages,
Yet somehow I still lost you.

If we can find a why, we’ll face the how,
and persevere through what afflicts us now.
There is potential meaning in suffering to be found,
a lifeline that can save us when we fear we’ve drowned.
Suffering is like a stone, heavy and hard to bear,
yet through its weight, we find meaning to share.

Through love, we find meaning vast and true,
A light that cuts the darkness we walk through.
In love, we find connections through walls,
a boundless force that answers our calls.
Love binds the broken and mends the soul,
a healing force that makes what’s shattered whole.

Through tragic optimism, hope walks beside,
a loyal companion, ready to guide.

Resilience rests within the reactions we choose,
and through them, we transcend the deepest blue

The heart has locked for years,
with people passing through life like the wind.
A simple hello, you
change the tide and turn the key,
with listening,
What a valuable item
missing in lives,
Hearing,
Every word you didn’t remember,
Still, you listened.
It was the value you stopped to listen to.
Which turned my heart, dear friend.
I had never realized my heart had been so locked
until I heard you had left this life,
To begin a new journey in heaven,
Replacing you, dear friend, will be a journey,
For you were a true treasure.
I celebrate your new journey.

I feel like I never truly understood
Never knew
Never comprehended
That deep desire that everyone had
That connection that everyone longed for

It wasn’t like I didnt know what it was
It was just that i didnt know how it felt
I asked and asked
What is “love”

No one had an answer
No concrete answer for the complicated question
There were the more vague answers
“Love is just something you feel”
“You’ll know it when you see it”
“It just it”

Then there were the more creative
“Like a dancing sun next to the moon”
“As if you are breathing anew”
“Like the colors of the rainbow became more vibrant”

It all explained nothing though
Nothing I could understand
The sun was already dancing next to the moon
I have been breathing forever
The colors of the rainbow were already vibrant

I already feel
I feel everything
I know what feeling feels like
I just don’t understand love
At least that is what I thought

Suddenly the grass felt like the plushest thing I’ve ever felt
The animals sounded like a symphony
The wind, their harmony
The Earth felt like it could hug me
Everything just felt new and perfect
Like I could beat evil with one hit

Except love didn’t come from a person
It came from experience
It came from finding myself
Love was more than an association with a person
Love was the realization that it didn’t have to be romantic
Love was just there
Always has been
Always will

I will breathe in the fresh scent of something I missed
Something I ignored
And recognize
That love will be there forevermore

You stand in the light
like it’s holding its breath—
that hour when everything
bleeds gold,
then lets go

We don’t talk about the sky
turning—
only that the stillness stirs
in our throats
and it’s growing hard
to tell warmth from afterglow.

You touch my hand
like it’s something you’re returning
Not all at once,
Not enough to notice
But the shadow your thumb leaves
is longer than it was yesterday

Later,
I’ll try to remember
the last thing you said
before the sun slept
But right now
your sunset smile
makes everything look like home

Racing on bikes and letting me win at 4 years old
Playing NASCAR on the playstation
Doing donuts in the empty, frozen parking lot

Yelling and breaking the broom
Or was it the sink?
Daddy, I’m sorry I don’t know how to clean very well
I’m 8

Telling me you’re proud of me
Cheering me on at choir concerts
Giving me a dollar if I put your clothes in the dryer

Coming home angry every day
I’m afraid to shut the microwave too loud
Daddy, I’m sorry I got hungry before bed
I’m 11

I ran out of good memories
I suppose this structure of poem is all fucked up now
Just like us, right dad?

Dad, does it feel like you’re still in 1973 sometimes?
Your dad hitting you with a belt for existing?
Your mom drinking and hitting him too?

Dad, I know you weren’t dealt the best hand in life
But you can’t scream at mom over your court ordered anger management
When you’re the one who got into a barfight
Plus, she’s afraid you’re going to kill her one day

I don’t go home anymore
I won’t tolerate abuse from any man anymore, including you
I hate you, dad
I’m 26

Dad, why did you have to drink and then get on your motorcycle all of the time
You really thought it wouldn’t catch up to you?
Now there’s a cross on the side of the road that people drink and drive to once a year
I’ve never visited it

I don’t want you back

But I wish I could be the person I used to be before I saw you in a casket
You haven’t hurt anyone in four years
So I don’t hate you anymore
In fact, I love you now more than ever
There’s nowhere for me to put it
What do I do now, dad?

mother i was only a child
when you had ripped the stake in the shape of the
cross from the wilted weeping black
of the earth when first you had tried
to drown me in the holiness of your tears but
it had failed me and instead lit
a rage burning from within you that demanded
repentance of me and so you had
transfixed the cross through the center
of my chest stating how little i knew
of suffering mother i was only a child
coughing and spluttering viscous crimson
blood upon the cross made of the same
weak rotting wood as my own frame
mother i was only a child when your fingers
emaciated by the years had peeled
the bark strip by strip from my
form diminishing me down to distortion
of eidolon much like living epitaph
of love and light lining your home built
upon golgotha the epitaph which at
night stirs from slumber wailing
dissonant hymns of desire to be
bathed in the blood of the lamb mother i
was only a child when you had gouged
out with teaspoon the innocence of my
eyes and set yours of smog in their
place but mother they were too small
for my sockets and they fell
nightly as i bowed my head to beg
forgiveness of you for you with you
and mother here i stand now ten rings
older and you can see it bared upon what little
remains now in the absence of your smog and
haze long ago buried in a tattered shoebox
like that of which we buried small wounded
animals in welcoming the still bleak beauty
of blindness brilliant tiny stars stop by
from time to time and i am learning
to shroud myself in velvet black
and to greet specks of distant
light without shame as if
they were an age old friend