PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

We thought it was LOVE

When we busted the facade

I learn it was lusted affair

I only wanted to win your affection

Yet you pin me as imperfection

I rush the the threshold, pausing at the gate

Heart rate pounding, your hate rising

This angry tide consuming, pushing me further

I want off this insane ride of yours

Our luck is fucked

I look down at my phone, silent now

The shattered screen, like my busted heart

All bucked up, cracked

You did a number on me

Your mean love made my spirit lean

Cleaning you out of me

Rattle my beans

As I battle the poison

You breed in me

The greed of your kisses

I piss myself when you hit me

Now I hiss your name in vain

I wouldn't play your game

So now I drop my cape

Tape my busted heart

Heal best as I can

Peel off the exhaustion

I cannot rest

My chest constricting

Anxiety at head lights behind me

I asked for kindness, not blindness

Rightfully, that would be love

What was our marriage

What was our dream

I scream at the greyness

Smashing the madness

The badness, ripping your hooks out

Now I look at my cracked screen

Reminding myself what is left of my heart

Touring empty halls,

Thirst for the darkness.

The deadness staling my heart;

I have no tears to weep.

My gutted head is putting me so far away.

To keep safe from your toxins.

The poison deep, the medicine awakening.

On the hours, I need you; I was left with sour sorrow.

Borrowing from the night, I begged you for light.

Now, I am in flight.

I seen righteous, to find it within the self.

From you, I escape your tightening grip.

I tour these blank spaces,

I thirst for my Earthly medicines 

My fight mode easing to allow me to rest.

I have bleed the best for you.

I have no tears left to cry.

I place all my might,

To keep us at a distance.

I burn the warm, all the pain.

I burn as my spirit rises from the cold ashes.

My eyes are dry from sorrow.

With boldness, I stand from our fall.

Broken wings like a fragmented plate.

Shattered heart, banding rings to contain the chaos.

In the gathering flames,  I rise with no tears to cry.

What if he didn't think like he did 

About that ungrateful kid?

Would he change his life

in just a day? 

But the answer isn't easy to say,

Or to know for that matter.

You don't know how life will grow.

It could blossom like a flower, 

Or wither with the frost. 

Decisions affect more if you are lost.

If life goes as slow as moss, 

Then maybe there is a reason 

For logic or love 

so take a break, and pray to up above. 

The child was chosen to go through a task,
This specific task would give her a mask.
A mask of darkness and loss of hope,
Where she could be and no one else could go.

She was young,
A girl of just eight.
Adult issues and drama,
Would declare her fate.

She closed off her heart so no one could see.
And she felt locked like a bird that couldn’t fly free.
In this cage, she felt lonely and had been frigid like frost,
Self-pity, despair, and that the war was just lost.

There are moments she
Finds her wings feel broken.
Grueling with feelings
And words left unspoken.

Little did she know the war was not over,
And victory was right around the corner.
She peered to the sky that was full of light
No longer lost, she yearned to fight.

Days into months
And months to years,
The pain remained
With fake smiles and tears.
She flew to the ceiling and into the door.
When she thought she was done and could fly no more,
She pushed one more time for one last hurrah!
The door crumbled down to the floor like she thought.

She found solace and light
Along paths she walked
She felt strength and peace
Whenever she talked.

Glad that she fought with all her might,
She flew high and fast past billows of white.
No worries were with her to the great heights she flew.
No more consumed with the feelings of gloom.

With streams of red and rays of gold,
Her heart light again broke free from the cold.

“Oh my God,” I said aloud as I sat on the toilet with a positive pregnancy test in my hand.

            “Is everything alright in there?” asked Dan, my husband, in a more annoyed than worried tone.

            “Yeah,” I blurted out. I don’t know why I said that.

            Dan’s parents are coming into town this weekend. We’re supposed to break the news to them about the divorce (my own parents are dead). I know what you’re thinking – this just got on a whole new level of complicated. I know – trust me. I really do.

            I glanced nervously at the clock – it was 10:38. We had to pick up Dan’s parents from the airport at 12:00. Just great.

            I heard the door rattle and I quickly chucked the little stick into the trashcan. “I need to shower,” Dan said as he came in. I looked frantically from the trashcan to him, trying to figure out how to tell him.

            “Dan I –”

            “Whatever it is, we can talk about it later,” he cut me off.

            As I stepped out of the bathroom, I racked my brain for a way to tell him. What would he think? Isn’t telling his parents about the divorce enough already? I just didn’t see this ending well. I lay down on the bed and dwelled in my thoughts.

            The car ride to the airport was dead silent – the kind of silence you can almost hear: a tiny buzzing sound lingering in the air. I tried over and over again to tell Dan, but the words escaped my lips as soon as they got there. Fear and uncertainty rendered me unable to speak.

            After what seemed like forever, we got out of the car and made our way to my in-laws’ terminal.

            “Dan! June! How are my two favorite newly-weds?” Dan’s mom, Marie, said as she took me in for a warm embrace. Yes, you heard right. Newly-weds. We’re three months married. Left that small detail out.

            “Dan, my man!” exclaimed his father, Richard, as they almost violently patted each other in the back and hugged. “It’s great to see you again, June!” he approached me for a hug now, much gentler, of course.

            We engaged in small talk about work and our lives as we walked out of the airport. Every now and then, Marie would throw in a “Love-birds” when referring to Dan and me. They really had no clue.

            We got home and started prepping for lunch. “Dan and I are going to head out for a bit and get some things from the store,” Richard called out from the front door.

            “Sounds wonderful honey. Hurry back; these steaks will be done any minute!” Marie chirped in her sing-song voice.

            “Won’t be long, m’dear!” he replied in his charming southern accent. I really was going to miss them.

            We were setting the table as the sound of explosive laughter and the creaky door filled the house. They were back. “We brought some wine! I hear it’s your favorite, June,” Richard beamed. Oh no.

            Soon, we all gathered around the table, Richard filling everyone’s glasses quite generously. I gulped anxiously before he got to mine. I proceeded to stuff seasoned potatoes in my mouth.

            “Darling, you’ve barely touched your glass. Don’t play with me, I’m not ready to be a grandma yet,” laughed Marie. I choked on a thick piece of steak and started coughing violently. I looked down, unable to make eye contact with anybody.

            “June, you’re not –” I looked up at Dan, my eyes giving it all away.

            “What’s going on?” inquired Marie.

            “We’re getting a divorce.”

            “I’m pregnant,” I said at the same time he spoke. This can’t be good.

            “Divorce?” cried out Marie.

            “Pregnant?” said Richard and Dan at the same time. I felt that piece of steak in my throat. My predicament had really come full circle. 

            “I found out this morning,” I said, hoping to ease the tension. It didn’t. Marie and Richard looked heart-broken and disappointed. Dan looked like he was either about to punch a wall or cry. Maybe both.

            Nobody said anything else all through dinner. We ate in silence, nobody looking at each other. When we were done, I helped take the plates into the kitchen, and was surprised to see Dan follow me all the way to the sink, his countenance relaxed. “We’ll figure this out,” he said as he stroked my shoulder.

            I wished I could believe him. And for a second there, I really did.  

A lost art in words, gains a million new voices.

As a generation splits and folds and divorces.

Its parents who broke up the families of millions.

And created a single-parent driven decision.

To raise up a brand new multi-generation void of.

Fathers who work with any aim and mothers who

Care for any gain in the prosperity of their youth.

Short term gains for long term losses, a new generation.

Is killed by their losses. While Wall Street profits rise and increase.

On the backs of the slaves with broken families and no tolerance.

The corporate enterprise lobbies proliferate the special interests.

Whose wealth fails to obligate them to the

Sins they portray as okay and applicable and seemingly doable.

But the sins of the wealthy are way too expensive as they

Obliterate the families of the working poor and middle class.

Drugs, Sex and Violence, expensive sins whose effects cannot be mitigated.

Slavery to debt, and oftentimes at the hands of someone else, your neighbor, digging a pit

For you as they sin.

Eyes closed.

The distant sound of lazy, rolling waves caresses your ears. You're no stranger to patterns and repetition, but the predictable noise of the tide is somehow different, somehow comforting.

Inhaling deep breaths of salty air that carries the song of no responsibilities or cares, you revel deeply in the foreign sensation of utter tranquility. 

A bird calls from somewhere nearby and it shakes you only slightly from this dream like reverie.

A perfect escape.

You find yourself humming along to the tune of the breeze as it playfully ruffles your hair; the thought of sangria crosses your mind for a brief moment, but drinks are best for leaving the office behind.

And right now, you're in paradise,

no liquor required.

You stretch sore muscles, still stiff from sitting in that damned chair for what feels like days on end. The warm tropical air seems to breathe life back into a weary body.

Your shoulders momentarily shudder. The weight of your normal life unexpectedly seeps in like an unwanted visitor.

Guilt.

You fumble and struggle to push it out of your mind and refocus again on the warmth of the midday sun against your face.

Outside of this place, there's a storm. A relentless hurricane that batters against stability; torrential rains pound against buildings and flooded streets keep you trapped in that  office.

It's a dreary and abysmal existence.

If you think hard enough, you can recall a time when the sun would shine bright, and the sky was an endless sea of the richest blue.

When birds chirped melodies and the trees gladly borrowed  shade with leafy green palms.

Yet what once was life in technicolor gave way to dismal greyscale, and soon the rains came. What was supposed to be a season stretched on for uncomfortable lengths, and one day  you realized the storm was here to stay.

The relentless showering of water upon rooftops, and the continual howling of angry wind was enough to drive a man mad.

Yet you'd caught glimpses of the sun a few times- the briefest moment when the blanket of sullen grey cracked, and for those few seconds, hope was renewed.

Hope that the sun may yet shine again, that the birds may return; the only memories of the storm now collecting in raindrops rolling off their feathers.

It wasn't much, but it kept you holding on, and that's when you stumbled upon the secret place. A hidden corner of the world, somehow untouched by the storm outside.

It was the best and worst thing you could have discovered.

Each visit was a small slice of paradise, a break from watery misery, but your footprints tracked muddy reminders of bleak reality every time you entered. You feined ignorance but couldn't turn a blind eye to what was happening.

White sands, gradually staining with the murky darkness of the storm.

So often you mused to yourself if this place was your savior, or ultimate damnation.

For as pleasant and relaxing as it was, the nagging guilt of leaving others outside  as you indulged in relief left you walking back into the downpour with your head down,  and heart heavy.

It was impossible to tell if this tropical escape was necessary for staying your sanity, or if it was only a matter of time before it too fell prey to the swallowing blackness looming on the doorstep.

Only the roaming hands on the clock face of life could know the answer you searched for. And if you were honest with yourself, nothing else could quite compare to the way this beachy escape could make you feel. It stirred a long dormant part of you awake, and to lose this secret cove could feel like severing a lifeline.

You needed this.

For a man can only take so much mud and water squelching in his shoes before he slips under the same floods that have claimed so many before him.

"Perhaps, just perhaps, ignorance truly is bliss"

With renewed clarity, you dig your toes beneath warm sands  while the seagulls call, and a smile of contentment settles on your face.

When the breeze blows just right,

and the waves crash in tune,

you can nearly drown out the sound of the wailing winds behind you.

Is it as though I died,

And do they reminisce?

Or is my name forbidden,

To pass from their lips?

Do they think of me,

And wish I were there?

Do they miss my presence,

Am I even a passing care?

Does a tear ever drift down,

From within' their eye?

Are they aware how I miss them...

Of how much I cry?

Do they hold me in blame,

And such utter contempt?

Because I took control of me,

Or is my happiness exempt?

Will they ever accept me again,

And be involved in my life?

For I never stop being their mother,

...Just stopped being, the wife.

I dared to finally confront,

to take that walk of dissolution

-away-

from all I ever knew

including the pain,

the desecration,

the hurt, the sadness,

the empty lonliness.

In letting go,

I, in essence, actually,

held on even tighter...

tighter to me,

to my sanity, my heart,

to-my-very-self

in a sure and certain life-grip

that whitened my knuckles.

The emotional and verbal

pummeling of my soul,

was tantamount

to a literal bashing

that left scars only I

could internally see,

and still always felt,

their constant bruising.

I was left feeling a worthlessness,

a total self-loathing

and such utter desire

to cease the pain by ceasing to be,

that my only other choice

finally was strengthened 

by my newfound will-

newfound desire,

to survive.

For sometimes to heal,

to live once more

and breathe on

a fresh air of dignity,

to begin anew,

to give life and self

to loving once again...

something first, must die.