Author: poetryfest

I don’t think I forgive,
And I certainly don’t forget.
That makes me impossible to love.
When you hurt me, I took that pain, placed it in the center of my chest, and wrapped my arms around my body.
I held everything in. And I didn’t let it go. I screamed at you from that dark room in my heart. But you couldn’t hear me because no sound left my lips.
Can’t you see what you’ve done?
Tell me you’re sorry.
Tell me you’re sorry.
Tell me a million times.
Tell me until I start to believe you, so I peek my head out of the doorframe,
So I loosen my grip.
But you know apologies will never be enough to knock those walls down.
I’ve trapped myself in a prison with concrete walls.
And the truth we both have to face,
Is I like it here,
And I feel safer here than I ever did with you.

Narration by Steve Rizzo

Produced by Matthew Toffolo

You always find a way of crawling back into my poems
Always find a way of breeding its meaning
Even when your name is never meant to be written
The words dye the paper with the color of your eyes
And in the sentences, there’s the reflection of your soul through mine

You always find a way of coming back to me
And I don’t know if it’s a sign it’s not over
or me sabotaging everything
Your touch is as light as my words but just as deep as the ones I refuse to write
You are so deeply rooted in my poetry that if I wanted to sell it I’d have to ask
you for that right

It’s always about you even when I’m writing about someone else
It will always be about you even when you’re no longer mine to write about
I don’t know how to write about others
When you were so painfully obvious born to be written poetry
When you are so painfully obvious born to be loved eternally

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The atom bomb. It rolls off
your tongue
like the name of your great-
grandmother. Her white linen scarf wrapped
around your shoulders. Dead
when you were born. Dying
when your mom was pregnant. What makes a good
cocktail? We ask each other. I never
wash my glasses; you rim yours in sugar
water. You know I never wanted
to be beautiful just cause I never
wanted to be hooked on something. Of course, I’m lying
just a little. I started my day by oil-pulling mercury
out of my teeth. But doesn’t the mercury still enter
your bloodstream? You ask. Ah, don’t be silly,
have a drink. Take a sip. The glass
sloshes and spills into the dirt.
ants wash up. A caterpillar crawls
on a nearby leaf. What an evil little
world you say.

I smeared blood over my body when you wept,
I scratched scars upon my skin,
I painted my hands blue
to match the colour of your face
when it was stained with tears,

I listened to you,
I listened so much
that I turned myself into a character in your story
and when you closed your book, you got better
and I got trapped.

An imagined missing soliloquy from Act III of Hamlet.

I crave return to the earth.
I who bore that boy
now must abide his destruction.

Whose image is it in this dark mirror
shadowed, candle lit, framed by white roses?
A lone woman, but not one waiting
for a sign from above,
from You,
the One who makes no signs.

For You
I have no explanations,
nor for my husband,
nor for my son,
though You and I both see him
in the doorway.

I think we see him the same way,
his mind wobbling, his dagger golden red
looking for a place to plunge,
as I hear a storm of empty thunder rising outside, spreading
to my bedchamber. Like a heavy oak with clumsy limbs,
a fool falls from behind a curtain, run through by fear.

The end would now be so different
if either one of us cared more about it.
I am a mother, but not
like You are a Father.
The world is Your body, but for all the world’s noise
I have found You mute.
My body has been my voice,
You have seen to that,
and my voice falls silent by my choice.

I have shame. You,
the Playwright of all this,
You have just Your contempt
for all of us, giving us
only loss
to show Your power.

You will never be the light I call out to,
but only the blackness beyond.
I dismiss you,
as I will be dismissed.

A few pieces of love,
today I picked from the garden of my heart
Some dreams that I had threaded for you
Today I will pick up the pieces of those dreams
from your path

This heart is sad because of your departure
I’m keeping eye on the road, maybe you will come
You are away for some reason but no relationship
is special even after being close

When the strings of hearts are connected then
there is no feeling of distance

They said they would die if I didn’t meet you
Letting my love go to ashes today

Why did you come into my life, you ask?
I’m still there now
You came to leave

I took all your pain to my chest
I treated every sorrow of yours as mine
Still you are angry with me
Don’t trust me

It is possible that you may forget me
But I will remember the ink on your pages
Everything that bothered you
And, you added it to my name
I will remember everything

You have the right to leave whenever you want
Your love will always reside in my heart
I’m sad that you considered me unfaithful
You always considered me a stranger in your heart

What have we not done to keep this flame burning forever?
You created darkness, you did not let the lamp of love burn

You will remember me, when you will be lonely
Think again, what you got by losing me?

…… Puneet Maity

Off to the left, not fifty meters
from the bunker busting bomb site,
they protruded from the Gaza dust,
tank track treads bisecting them like
scalpel-sliced, surgically impaled remnants.
The arm seemed to be that of a child,
perhaps due to what appeared to be
a cartoon-charactered image still
visible on what might have been a
shirt, but rags rarely tell stories clearly.
The head wears a bloodied cap,
maybe Kippah, maybe Taqiyah,
but religion disappears under
rubbish and wounds take precedence
over Torah or Koran like angry pages torn.
The leg, a stump of a hump of flesh,
torn and raw, red and ragged, toes
blackening, might have been a man’s,
but who knows what gender becomes
when bodies are insulted by the cost of war.

It is neither here nor there that I truly care,

for someone to see me so bare.

Since I am someone who loves me most,

yet I am never one to boast.

Though if a prince comes into my life,

he better stop to make me his wife.

And treat me like the kingdom he owns,

for if not he will be thrown with stones.

How do I stop these tears
bleeding through my soul,
dripping off like dewdrop
from the extent of heights we reached
only to end up alone.

Waited for you forever
but you never showed up
when love turned to resentment,
flabbergasted that you didn’t exist anymore.

Only if I could relive
for this sorrow knows no bounds,
though I’d still choose you again
no matter the immense pain to endure
just to be with you anew.

Could we be together
even if we’re not together
for amatory doesn’t last forever,
would there be a peaceful Nirvana
where this ardor would remain eternal?

~ Ananya Sharma