Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 Aug 2019 hillary litberg
Luke
I went out to find
Some value in me,
So I sold what I had
For little a fee.

My eyes for a penny
I sold to some fools,
They're blind and useless,
Mistook for jewels.

My lips for a nickel
To the sweetest sin,
So they'll know the love
That has never been.

My ears for a dime
I sold to a lover.
To hear sweet nothings,
And silence uncover.

My hands for a quarter
I sold to a ghost,
So that she might feel
What I've wanted the most.

Finally my bones for a dollar
I sold to the earth,
But as for my soul-
There was found no worth.
Vile, vile proteins corroding her brain
Synapses misfiring, ego down the drain

Heartbreaking to see her disappear
Bit by bit, especially the last year

Traces of her charm still come and go
Changing but dreadfully slow

First it was, “Where is my coat?”
Then, “How do you use the remote?”

Mood swings from laughter to tears
Eroding into halluncinatory fears

Angry transferences from caregiver to caregiver
What was an emotional ocean, now an unchecked river

No longer wakens with the dawn
Where has this lovely lady gone

We all want her back
But slipping through the proverbial crack

Alas, I know the end is near
Perhaps in this very year

She’s becoming paper thin
A mask over empty skin

I miss her and my fading memory of her
Now mere fragments and a diminishing blur
If
If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and a lie warn’t a lie,
Life would be delight,—
But things couldn’t go right
For in such a sad plight
I wouldn’t be I.

If earth was heaven and now was hence,
And past was present, and false was true,
There might be some sense
But I’d be in suspense
For on such a pretense
You wouldn’t be you.

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,
And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
Things would seem fair,—
Yet they’d all despair,
For if here was there
We wouldn’t be we.
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"
 Jun 2019 hillary litberg
t
hush
 Jun 2019 hillary litberg
t
no more speaking
i know you love to drown me in your words
but hush
breathe me in
let the silence fill the room like oxygen
embrace the nothing
let my lips tell silent stories
hold still and you may understand
 Jun 2019 hillary litberg
rebecca
do you have moments, where you can’t imagine a future?
you’re lying there, staring at the
same walls
same ceilings
same words
with nothing but the same feelings-
empty and pale,
like there’s no reason to go on,
when you can’t even do enough to fail.
the future is coming, but you don’t want to be in it,
can’t imagine yourself in it.
where you just want to stop.
everything.
and just sit there for a while.
maybe not death, as that’s too permanent,
but something close to it.
when you can feel the rope around your neck,
the razor on your wrist,
the way the pills taste.
you can imagine it, and you aren’t sure if it’s what you want,
or just the feelings you imagine it will give you
Is this depression?
.
Through a forest glade
and down a narrow path
there stands a sacred tree
with its heart torn in half.

Bramble clings to its trunk
ivy covers over its bark,
reaching up for the light
fighting against the dark.

Forgotten by the woods,
ignored in a crowded place,
for it yearns for attention,
just a little tender grace.



© Pagan Paul (27/06/19)
.

— The End —