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Sep 2022 · 154
what is real
Michael A Duff Sep 2022
What is real but now

What was real is not anymore

Chasing ghosts is pain
The only reality is now... what you had, what we had is not now it is then, painful as it is these memories in my head are ghosts and not real now
Nov 2021 · 153
cancer
Michael A Duff Nov 2021
Cancer killing me

Cutting me out of myself

Shake the dice of life
Nov 2021 · 958
time
Michael A Duff Nov 2021
I'm mining my heart

To understand my future

All I see has past
Right now is all I see the past haunts me like a nightmare of happiness abused by time
Nov 2021 · 635
escape
Michael A Duff Nov 2021
Everywhere I go

There I am I can't escape

Edit memory
Sometimes I want to escape me break thos shell leave this happy face for what is really inside the sadness in me I can't escape
Aug 2021 · 1.6k
Love haiku
Michael A Duff Aug 2021
Love is indeed art
Simple to see and embrace
A challenge erased
What is love and how do we know it, couple times found in your life, only to be lost and discovered like the rise and fall of the sun. Fooled and shamed into believing only to see clearly later it was game and Pons were topled for her pleasure. She is an island that is not reachable if it was you'd be stranded and slowly die.
Apr 2021 · 547
Terminal
Michael A Duff Apr 2021
If there is another thing beyond this one I shall meet it

Seeing beyond the futures of tomorrows not yet lived

There is a place I feel it I'll meet you there
I was diagnosed with a rare form of terminal cancer, I want to wrote my thoughts until I can't one day the right person will read them
Mar 2021 · 400
Haiku of life #3
Michael A Duff Mar 2021
She had all of me

Completely consumed by her

There was nothing left
We met like souls long separated lived like lovers and made plans together for a future that we would never realize. Years later I wonder how her daughters are, who is she now, what mask does she ware, or did she finally become herself the one I met all those years ago.
Mar 2021 · 184
Scars of the heart
Michael A Duff Mar 2021
Scars of the heart are the hardest to heal

Yet the greatest you can feel

To give yourself freely

To be released just as easily
Heatbreak can change your life
Michael A Duff Nov 2020
A small string of memory a connection to the soul still pulls at my heart

With each year that passes it recedes and reclaims space in my mind like the rise and fall of the tide

She left me to drown herself in tragedy and the tears of her childhood  looking for more of what broke her

We would've been a beautiful struggle a dysfunction to last a lifetime ironically I write about longing for what broke me.

We are the same
Some come to your life and make a spot that seems their were designed for, an other half of yourself lost and found... bit then they break you apart to leave you in that half for their own selfishness and dysfunction. Why do we still want more even after all they did and all you've done.
Aug 2020 · 138
She took more than my heart
Michael A Duff Aug 2020
I've got nothing to write

She took my words like she took my heart

Left my things on the porch and moved on to new problems
Loving someone that is so dysfunctional is a heartbreak a day a rollercoaster of ups and downs.. they love you for you issues and stability but cant help making it as dysfunctional as they are used to. She didnt want a partner or help she want chaos and disfunction
Aug 2020 · 253
Open book
Michael A Duff Aug 2020
Our love was an open book

It got dark and we lost our page

I really wanted to finish our story
Some loss is not anyone's fault but it can be just as hard to bare. Heartbreak is hard to repair no matter how hard or who or where... 78 to 64 just like that to 0
Aug 2020 · 187
Painkillers
Michael A Duff Aug 2020
She is a pain killer, she took me to the highest highs

Then abruptly she said shes through and left me to die

Now in a different time in my life, old me, new wife old thoughts creep into my life

I take painkillers but they dont help the pain in my heart

I wish I knew she was a pain killer from the start... but I'd probably still follishly give her my heart
Love is a pain a killer but the painkillers dont help
Aug 2020 · 257
Haiku of life part 2
Michael A Duff Aug 2020
I am different now
All has changed for me somehow
Cant see who I was
Time changes your perceptions of yourself and others, but it doesnt make the hurting stop or the memories fade
Aug 2020 · 113
Heartbreak haiku
Michael A Duff Aug 2020
She torments my passed

From my memories somehow

Why does heartbreak last
One is harder to get over than any one memories cant be undone
Aug 2020 · 158
Haiku just for you
Michael A Duff Aug 2020
Her life was a play

Comedy or tragedy

I could never say
She knows but no one else does
Aug 2020 · 285
Haiku in ink
Michael A Duff Aug 2020
Marked our skin in ink

Each one with secret numbers

Now just lines I think
I marked my body with symbols deep of our love, a code only we shared she marked hers with my number "74" she wore, circles for each of us children too. I chose a key, she'd unlocked a heart I never knew I wear "14364". She has a keyhole on her hip meaning so deep and now does it mean anything to her but ink in skin she wishes not to keep, perminate even if covered. I will wear mine to my grave together with my box of things she forgot to put the parts of my heart in. No colors gay, she chose to stare at the mirror because real life was too bright. Year Slater I cry winding if I'll ever know before I die.
Jul 2020 · 301
Forgotten words
Michael A Duff Jul 2020
All the best words have been written

Loved lived lost and forgotten in time

Only to be found by broken hearts
We are recycled of heart broken by time forgotten and replayed searching for happiness
Jul 2020 · 311
Chance
Michael A Duff Jul 2020
I could it have been chance, our connection so deep it could be seen by the blind?

Are two souls spilt searching for eternity to be reunited, I can say the moment it felt complete like none other?

Hold too tightly or too loosely jt slips away, eternity is long we will see each other again.

It couldn't have been chance.
I k we I was having fun but what I didnt know in my life was a connection so deep, finding my other half in a fiery painfully obsessed beautiful woman with a past to drown your soul.
Jul 2020 · 171
The haiku of life
Michael A Duff Jul 2020
Happy was a life
Intensely lived for a time
Changed to the end
Want is the enemy of happiness. Live and love easily, want too much or hold to tight and happiness will slip away to an unknown own place. Maybe in the next life we will meet again, It couldnt have been chance.
Jul 2020 · 237
Consciousness
Michael A Duff Jul 2020
Consciousness sleeps in looking to the past, blinding now and removing tomorrow

Wake up break the mirrors that show the past

now it is the only place to truly live
Now is all there is, we can not retrieve the past or recycle it.
Jun 2020 · 265
Scars of the heart
Michael A Duff Jun 2020
Scars of the heart are the hardest to heal

Yet the greatest you can feel

To give yourself freely

To be released just as easily
Heatbreak can change your life
Jun 2020 · 396
Clever Trickery
Michael A Duff Jun 2020
She was a beacon my soul was attuned to before I ever knew what a soul was.

She met me like a lioness circling its meal

She crashed over my life and my heart like a ship forced onto rocks by the storm

We mingled intertwined like plants from the same root marking ourselves permanently for eachother

She took a turn dined on dysfunction and tragedy in seven course form never looking up to see the sun

She tossed my soul my love out her window undone used up

She fooled me as many before used for only a time until she could wade back into the comfort of her own past dysfunction like warm water to her mind it was home
The greatest love followed by the greatest heartbreak still scars fresh in my mind down to my deepest parts. She broke me, tamed me and knew that she was unique to me in all the world, but to her I was a mere boy for the taking to be used for her mise until she felt through. Then blamed me for her lifes misery and walked into her darkness that fell like rain with her umbrella.
Jun 2020 · 357
Her gaze, a haiku
Michael A Duff Jun 2020
Her gaze touched my soul

I saw beyond all futures

A life of torment
Although she was one person that touched my soul deeper than any other, she was addicted to demons from her past. She seeked the chaos of dysfunction and ever changing ups and downs, it was warm water for her mind and the abused little girl she couldn't grow apart from.
May 2020 · 148
The folly of love
Michael A Duff May 2020
Realizing my time is short but my love is deeply engaged, in owning only sadness will be made.
The eternal struggle, my love was real, to her it was fun, a folly not to keep and feel.
When I am not present draw her near, I've come to the conclusion of my time here.
Apr 2020 · 155
Haiku of loss
Michael A Duff Apr 2020
Does she hear my cries

So far from our happy times

I still miss her touch
Lost love still burns my heart, recovery only death will know
Apr 2020 · 173
Dysfunction
Michael A Duff Apr 2020
She was a match , My other half

She was also poison , The kind you cant get enough of

Her dysfunction mingled with mine in strange ways that broke us both
Matched and missed dearly
Apr 2020 · 159
Completely
Michael A Duff Apr 2020
You know you had the one, She tamed your soul

You could speak in thousands of silent ways

She could find you in those small moments in between

She moved you without taking a step

She was a road to love and would have been home

Now we have lost our way
She was all I needed I was a match my other half, but she was poison, her dysfunction mingled with mine is strange ways
Apr 2020 · 134
Recycled words
Michael A Duff Apr 2020
I lay here and think to myself

the most beautiful words have been written forgotten and learned again

Whispered through time to embrace the moment for a thing that is not a thing; love
"But if you take me then we shall need eachother,  to me, you will be unique in all the world, and to you, I will be unique in all the world  -the little prince
Apr 2020 · 152
Love
Michael A Duff Apr 2020
Love is a lifetime of examples of how we can overcome our fears, worries, and doubts

invisible but can be seen

Intangible but can be felt

And inaudible but you know it when you hear it.

At times it can seem to be extinct, and at others make you as euphoric,

In the end it is we who choose to let it see, feel, and hear our love, push it away, or accept it.
Love lost does t always mean you have no love
Mar 2020 · 96
Scars
Michael A Duff Mar 2020
When I met her they was not obvious

As we grew closer she showed me

Her scars, each one had a unique story of disappointment, pain, or fear.

She hid them in the tiny minutes between happiness and everything else

They spoke silently but couldn't be ignored, the unseen damage inflicted from the past felt today

I tried my best to sooth the pain,  heal those scars, with all my heart

But I was too late, they over took her and now we are forever apart.
Mar 2020 · 78
Sore
Michael A Duff Mar 2020
Sometimes memories wear a sore spot onto my heart
Some memories seem unshakable
Mar 2020 · 281
Silent suffering
Michael A Duff Mar 2020
Her soul cried tears for a past none could see

They were transparent to everyone but me

Held as close as I could trying to ease her pain

She broke my heart as if nothing to gain

Simply so she could remain suffering in silence
People are consumed by a past that cant hurt them blinded by an invisible force of fear. Heartbreaking
Mar 2020 · 165
My other half lost
Michael A Duff Mar 2020
At times she had confidence and at times she felt as if she was a scrap of something used up

She felt herself to be unique not replicated alone in her problems

Although she had the power to break sadness in her words, a look or a touch

Ruin things with her smile like an artist ruins blank canvas with beautiful scenes

But in her silent struggles it became to much, she was consumed by her past

locking away her heart, and only letting it out for small moments in time.

I was captured by this girl like a ship crashed on rocks finding her in one of those rare times

She was my match, my soulmate, my truest love

Still today I miss her scares on my heart to my very soul, it will never be the same, three years later a new life in time. My heart crys to hear her name. 14364 is the number of love
According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”
Mar 2020 · 90
Confused haiku
Michael A Duff Mar 2020
Confusion today
For heartbreak from yesterday
Makes for a hard time
Why cant the past remain behind you, so hard
Feb 2020 · 245
Time
Michael A Duff Feb 2020
A mystery to us all, we all have it or not enough of it
Always saving it, but there is nothing to be saved
We all spend it daily sometimes spent wrongly or too quickly

All time is the same, trade it for memories to last a lifetime
Time is elusive and persistent nothing special today
Feb 2020 · 193
Roses on my grave
Michael A Duff Feb 2020
Is there peace in love lost when love is found again

It's not the same as the other was but just as real

The feelings are there but not like before

Did my heartbreak somehow break how I love

Did my heartbreak give me this cancer and lead me to my grave so soon

How can I love the one I do but still think of her so often
I have had a lot of relationships in my 46 years, only one can I say touched me so deeply I never recovered (so far) even though I love the one I'm with it is different my heart I confused I will go to an early grave never figuring it out
Feb 2020 · 166
A confused heart
Michael A Duff Feb 2020
Twisting turning through life sometimes seen through others eyes

Living in recovery, injuries that can't be seen, but felt so deeply, crushing my soul and deflating my heart.

Forgiving, feeling, thinking clearly, seeing light and its warmth touching every part.

To see you pains me like I was right at the start, thoughts creep in weaken me like fall leaves under a strong breeze.

I tell myself I'm better now far from those days when you had me on my knees begging and pleading like everything's my fault.

That's over now.
Love that touches your heart so deeply you drown in it gasping for air to find it your left with a confused heart destroyed torn apart... rebuild yourself make it new... what else is there to do?
Feb 2020 · 153
What was what is
Michael A Duff Feb 2020
I was worn like canyon walls shaped from generations of weather, just a shadow of what i once was
All I had was hope like the faintest of faint light distant stars provide on a moonless night
To me she was bold like how the dawn breaks though a dark sky.
We were suns burning brightly together Hope's of a life a family
She extinguished the light and dashed my dreams with her scared past and disfunction
Like a poison she had infected me to my core.
Two years later bad new not long to live I'm dying and I never got to tell her what she was to me.
Unfinished heartbreak maybe I'll finish this maybe I'll delete it
Feb 2020 · 102
Paradox
Michael A Duff Feb 2020
Two years and 17 days ago we had our final words. She struck me down like lightening directly to my soul.

She was found in a strange place by chance but matched my soul like I had never felt before.

My other half complete I felt, but I didn't know she was a mirror, matching my moves, playing a game.

Just the same in the end it hurt to hear her name. I had drank love's elixir deeply and been only seeing a reflection.
In love to my soul those are my recollections
Found a real love sudden and shocking in a war torn place. We both returned to our lives not knowing wed meet again but were drawn together over time a space. 2 yrs later in different place with a different life her name and thoughts of our shared time still makes me long for my other half, maybe in the next life. I'm terminal there is not much left.
Feb 2020 · 249
Tears of the heart
Michael A Duff Feb 2020
Tears are words that my heart can not speak
The pain felt are the cracks of my heartbreak not seen
Years later and everyday they feel fresh to me as a sunrise not shared
2 years and 4 months ago after three years she told me to pick my things up never to be seen again, I loved her girls like I love my own boys 2 each we have. I shared parts of my life none knows about she shared her secrets too. we read, laughed, cried, and grew together I shared some her toughest moments, when her dog died on mothers day. Made special things for Grace so she could be the coolest preteen on Halloween. Then just like that and suddenly its was done.
Michael A Duff Jan 2020
She was my everything until she said I ment nothing to her
Like a passage in a dream remembered
Being that the best are forgotten and relearned like lessons from our past

She had scared my heart and that will last
Shes a stranger to me now just as she wanted it
Like an old book urning to be read but forbidden to be opened
Lonely thoughts of an emptied heart are all that's left
How sad is it to be broken and not repaired
She was my other half the one I was certain I was with for life no distraction no strife then all at once she closed her heart and never explained a thing.
Dec 2019 · 202
Keep your heart soft
Michael A Duff Dec 2019
Keep your heart soft even in hard times

Keep it well but give it often

Live like it is the key to happiness

Even thought it will get stained and mostly broken what is ha ing an untouched heart if it cant be shared
Broken as it is still stain from loves past, I give it freely until there is no more me left to give
Dec 2019 · 432
Seriousness
Michael A Duff Dec 2019
When a man crys for her it is no ruse

It means his heart is broken not bruised

He may struggle silently in plain sight

He may withdrawal from all light

At any time it is for sure, she has has damaged him for ever more
She left me with a heart in shreds and a confused soul and my things in a box.
Dec 2019 · 200
Silently
Michael A Duff Dec 2019
I closed my eyes and spoke to you in a thousand tiny ways.
I loved you so deeply your memory plagues me to this day.
I cant escape these thoughts of why we lost our way.
It was a certainty laid clearly the way it would be.
Then one day to my crushing heartbreak inside of we it was just me.
No words, no it been nice just a box with some things and the remains of my shredded heart.
You destroyed me and tore into my core.
My safe guarded places where I never let any before.
Diagnosed with not long to live, will I ever hear your sweet words or is that just a wish to give.
She made me fly in the clouds reach highs never seem before just as quickly she crushed me and showed me the door
Nov 2019 · 305
Seeing you
Michael A Duff Nov 2019
Seeing you hurts me
Tricks my heart into old ways
Makes old scars new now
Those in your heart are sometimes no good for you but it hurts the same
Nov 2019 · 1.5k
Kintsugi for the soul
Michael A Duff Nov 2019
Broken is renewed
Honored for its damages
Better than before
I love the idea and crafting of the Japanese custom of Kintsugi, it is the repairing of pottery that has broken with gold. With this custom things broken are preciously repaired with most valuable gold, honoring the items for their repairs and broken pieces rather than discarding them for their flaws. People are to me this way, we should honor them for their broken hearts abuses from the past, respecting their healing and recovery. Because that person is unique in all the world. Even though they may have pushed you away broken your heart or vise versa, you may never know how hard the battle is that they are waging in their mind and soul.
Nov 2019 · 437
The haiku
Michael A Duff Nov 2019
Five seven five you know
Tells you secrets for real
Or a game may be
A little fun with haikus
Michael A Duff Nov 2019
Draws you into her
Go don't return we are done
Closed up her heart     burn
What at one time was the greatest love of my life was also the greatest tragedy of my life. She regulates her love, pulling you in dot keep. Then pushs you out off the cliff into the cold water deep, ice in her eyes frozen seems her heart, I saw it melt when her defenses were down that was before she ripped mine apart.  Some can repair breaks like this but to her she shutdown forever to be missed, hope she is well I dont know why, I should a mean and spiteful guy. But that's not me I never have been, I have too much love I cant give in.
Nov 2019 · 352
Haunting haiku
Michael A Duff Nov 2019
Memory is deep
You haunt my life and dreams now
Will you let me be
She is tiny memories sometimes on my mind there is a link I camt break thatakes me sad and is hard to cope with
Nov 2019 · 217
Fogotten and learned again
Michael A Duff Nov 2019
I lay here and think to myself, the most beautiful words have been written, forgotten, and learned again.

People have kissed and loved deeply only to forget their devotion and feelings seperatly they live together.

She lives as a comfortable prisoner doing hard time in her past wishing away the present and forgetting the future.

We will all relearn these lessons so many times over dont make the past your future
Some people one I loved was haunted by her parts so much so it ruined our love
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