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Meg McCluskey May 2011
Prompt: A place I would never want to go back to

My childhood was spent on these cracked streets,
worn and broken from the life they have seen. The air around them, stale and heavy, makes a body grow weak and tired, as though age can seep in through the creases of the skin from the atmosphere and take away its youth.

In spite of myself I look once more for a second chance, an excuse to stay. Instead I find  memories. Memories hidden around every corner, stuck between the cracks of a building, twisted among branches of a tree; melted deep into the sidewalk like a forgotten candy bar.

Once again I am eight years old, swinging through my backyard jungle; discovering a buried treasure beneath the apple tree; walking the plank of the patio.
Imagination created a shelter when the world around me had collapsed. Imagination became my place to escape; my safe haven.

Then it happens again. The heart inside my chest beats at an incredible speed, my palms sweat with fear; my mind trapped in a moment.
I can no longer separate myself from these ghostly memories,
they have become a part of my soul.
This place is suffocating.

There is no other choice. Staying behind would only seal my fate.
This town will poison me as it has so many others, it will mold me into its history. I will become another pebble on the road, a crack in the sidewalk, the strong breeze in the air.

So this is it, my bittersweet goodbye.
© 2011 Meg McCluskey
May 16, 2011
May 2011 · 1.1k
#9 Sinatra
Meg McCluskey May 2011
Prompt: Narrating a famous historical figure stuck in a traffic jam.*

Here I am, All Alone* in my car.
I’m stuck between a Thunderbird and a red light.
As Time Goes By, I get to thinking about that Autumn in New York,
when we were walking through the rain At Sundown.
I Didn’t Know What Time it Was, but
I begin to think about you, The Girl Next Door,
you know I’d Know You Anywhere.
And then You Kissed Me, I remember thinking,
For Once in My Life, I’ve Got the World on a String!
But Don’t Worry About Me, I Don’t Like Goodbyes,
this is The End of a Love Affair.
But next time you see me, Gimme A Little Kiss
and Try a Little Tenderness,
for you are The Gal That Got Away.
© 2011 Meg McCluskey
May 15, 2011
May 2011 · 1.0k
#8 Don’t Drink and Drive
Meg McCluskey May 2011
Prompt: Persona narrates what witnesses to a tragic accident do after the accident is over.**

Two days ago, Melody Nixon drowned after her car spun off the I90 Bridge and plunged into the water, trapping her inside her car like a prison.

She was hit by a drunken college student, who wrongly
assumed he was well enough to drive without any problem.

On that night, Melody’s death was witnessed by two others. The first was Susan Baker, a successful business woman who spent more time in her office making plans and making deals to remember she was a mother.

The second witness was Walter Price, a malignant *** who lived under the I90 Bridge during the summer. He had just felt the smooth familiar burn of his whiskey as it slid down his throat when he saw the two cars collide.

After the accident, Mrs. Baker took a week off work and flew her family to Disney World, her sudden epiphany warning her to spend more time with her children.

Walter Price took one last sip of his whiskey and smashed the bottle against the side of the bridge swearing it as his last drink; a hope for a different life.

Melody’s father; however, could not seem to shake away the anger and the hurt
from losing his daughter in such a tragic way. This was why the night of the funeral, he picked up a bottle of Captain Morgan and took his first swig of alcohol, starting his inevitable downfall, a routine pattern of crawling inside the bottle when reality became too much to bear.
© 2011 Meg McCluskey
May 15, 2011
May 2011 · 1.1k
#6 Riches and Rags
Meg McCluskey May 2011
Prompt:  Persona superficially apologizes to his or her in-laws.**

I’m sorry I’m not the same as you,
dressed to my best in Coco Channel, Ralph Lauren and Giorgio Armani.
I didn’t come from money, my baths were never in a porcelain tub,
my toilet was not made of gold.

I thought that my love for your son would be enough
to put my economic status in the past.
Yet, there is no disguising the thick line that is drawn between us,
the way the air congeals when we’re all in the same room.
I’m sorry that your eyes have been programmed to see me
for where I come from,
instead of who I have become.

It doesn’t matter to you that I have found a job worthwhile,
or that your son is not the sole provider.
You hate me anyway.
So this is my apology,
from the bottom of my heart.

Maybe someday those clouds will clear from your eyes
and you will notice that I am better for your son
than any of those stuck up *******
you call equals.
© 2011 Meg McCluskey
May 15, 2011
May 2011 · 595
#7 Forgotten
Meg McCluskey May 2011
Prompt: Describe how the persona misses someone.**

I can’t seem to get you out of my head…
The way you used to be, the way we used to be.
We were once friends, sisters, and now
look at us, look at what time has done to us.

I don't even know who you are anymore.

Who we once were and who we are now,
is not who we used to be—together.

Has my heart grown cold in your absence?
Or has your sudden absence made my heart grow cold?

I hate to place the blame on you.
Yet, it seems, all this started the day you refused
to return my calls. My heart began to freeze
when I begged for you to talk but got no reply.
Mostly, my heart began to break,
never understanding why you abruptly left.

Even now, that we are attempting
to patch up this mess of ours, I know in my heart
we will never be the same two people we once were
together.

Now, together, we are different.
It seems our best relationship now is one that is separate.

I don’t like change because it hurts, it is too painful.
Especially when people change, when you look into their eyes and see
a ghost of whom they used to be. When you look into your heart and wonder
if maybe it is you who has changed.
© 2011 Meg McCluskey
May 15, 2011

For this one, I reused one that I already had but made it shorter. Maybe it works better than the original?
Meg McCluskey May 2011
Prompt: Persona describes the place he or she fell out of love with another.**

You wouldn’t stop chewing with your mouth open.
All I could focus on were the bits of damp burger and bun,
rolling around in your mouth.

It reminded me of the way meat looked at a butcher’s shop
after it had been run through a grinder, so deformed from
its original shape, you’d never know what it used to be.

You also wouldn’t stop talking with food in your mouth.
Sometimes I was afraid that if you said a ‘p’ word too forcefully,
the soggy remains of your food would find their way to my face.

But perhaps the thing that annoyed me most,
was the way you made a gulping sound with every sip you took,
slurping away at your refreshment like a child.

It was at that very moment, between our meal of Whoppers and fries,
that I couldn’t take it anymore. Disgusted I shot up, announcing we were through.

I walked away so I wouldn’t have to let you have the chance to defend yourself.
© 2011 Meg McCluskey
May 15, 2011
May 2011 · 674
#4 One Last Hope
Meg McCluskey May 2011
Prompt: A Desperate Prayer**

The first thing notice is the stale smell of sweat,
like a shirt, stained with its sour scent after
being left unwashed for weeks.
The ground is cold as ice.
When I open my eyes, all I see is black.
I’m blind.
My eyes adjust to realize I’m blindfolded.
Aware I am not in a place I know,
I try to move only to find that my arms and legs have been bound tight together.
Where am I?
How did I get here?
How do I get out?
Panic runs with my blood,
my heart beats so hard my head aches.
My hands sweat and my body turns as cold as the cement.
I try to remember the last think that happened…nothing comes.
Fear and panic torture my mind,
making it impossible to find a clue to where I am.
Then through the panic a memory surfaces and I listen.
I am five years old, sitting on a church pew next to my mother.
We are praying.
Though life has led me not to believe in God,
a sudden urge consumes me and I pray…my last hope.
God, please help me get out of here.
I don’t know where I am or how I got here,
I just want to go home.
Please God, I beg, help me.
I pray for salvation in His kingdom.
I pray for forgiveness from my trivial sins.
I pray because it’s my last hope.
© 2011 Meg McCluskey
May 15, 2011
Meg McCluskey May 2011
Prompt: A place I would never want to go back to**

My childhood was spent on these cracked streets,
worn and broken from the life they have seen. The air around them, stale and heavy, makes a body grow weak and tired, as though age can seep in through the creases of the skin from the atmosphere and take away its youth.

In spite of myself I look once more for a second chance, an excuse to stay. Instead I find  memories. Memories hidden around every corner, stuck between the cracks of a building, twisted among branches of a tree; melted deep into the sidewalk like a forgotten candy bar.

Once again I am eight years old, swinging through my backyard jungle; discovering a buried treasure beneath the apple tree; walking the plank of the patio.
Imagination created a shelter when the world around me had collapsed. Imagination became my place to escape; my safe haven.

Then it happens again. The heart inside my chest beats at an incredible speed, my palms sweat with fear; my mind trapped in a moment.
I can no longer separate myself from these ghostly memories,
they have become a part of my soul.
This place is suffocating.

There is no other choice. Staying behind would only seal my fate.
This town will poison me as it has so many others, it will mold me into its history. I will become another pebble on the road, a crack in the sidewalk, the strong breeze in the air.

So this is it, my bittersweet goodbye.
© 2011 Meg McCluskey
May 15, 2011
May 2011 · 726
#3 Final Masterpiece
Meg McCluskey May 2011
Prompt: Describe a day in the life of a painter or artist**

Wake up. I tell myself for the millionth time.
I want to stay in bed, break away from the chaos I once called life,
but the crowd inside my head has been screaming my name for hours.
“We need you!” it continues to say, and although I want to fight back,
tell the crowd they are wrong;
that they are perfectly capable of living without me,
I know they will not stop unless I get up, they will not let me sleep.

So I get out of bed, slightly hungover from the night before.
As I slug my way to the bathroom,
I remember that even a celebrity
has the same ****** functions as a normal human being.
While I sit there, on the ***, the metal bar that holds my shower together suddenly comes apart, slicing across my neck as it break and falls.
Blood gushes from my throat and I gasp for breath through gargled pleas. Death takes me in the end and I sit on my toilet
until the maid finds my blood-soaked body.

The sound of a dog barking outside my window forces my eyes to open.  
I curse that this was merely a dream and not reality.
I flush the toilet and was my hands,
trying to avoid my reflection in the mirror.
I slither my way into my study and sit before my creations,
half finished and hardly something I would consider art.
Today is the fifth day I sit idealess,
unable to think as I once had of paintings to entice my fans.
The only thing I can remember is her…
how I have not been able to get the image of her mangled body twisted among the forgotten metal scraps out of my mind.

They had found her three weeks after she had gone missing.
It had only taken me two days to know she was no longer alive.
Since that day, I have not been able to produce a painting I enjoy;
no longer can my mind see colors for everything has turned black.

Frustrated I grab the sugarcraft knife that lies on the desk before me,
turning its sharp blade over gently in my hands.
For ten minutes I debate a decision that had already been decided five days earlier. I press the thin sharp blade against my neck and pull,
feeling no pain as it slices a thin pinking line across my throat.
As I await the sweet release of death, my blood becomes my final masterpiece.
© 2011 Meg McCluskey
May 15, 2011
Meg McCluskey May 2011
Prompt: Fill in the details of this phrase: “The place was boarded up seven days after Easter.”**

Vacant lots remain where hundreds of cars once sat, leaving nothing behind
except their deep tracks, proof that they had once been place upon the earth.
Where there were once beautiful reds, purples and oranges,
now stand deer bitten flowers, brown sticks that seep deep into the mud like a quicksand victim.
The place was boarded up seven days after Easter, taking the ticket office too.
Every building left just as it had been moments before, as if evacuated for a storm.
That’s how they do things here, forsake places that have become a nuisance,
disregarding a place because apparently it has outstayed its welcome.
I want to go in to take one last look around campus, but they have blocked off the road
from the public. Instead I wait by the wooden horses and look at a place I once called home.
I heard that they plan to tear it all down, leaving nothing behind but a ghost
of what used to be.
So once more, what has once flourished has now been forgotten,
but its memories will live on within the hearts of its alumni.
© 2011 Meg McCluskey
May 15, 2011

These are some poems that I had to write for my poetry workshop class. I know that I am not the best poet, which is why I took that class. Let me know if any of these poems are better.
Feb 2011 · 366
Colors
Meg McCluskey Feb 2011
Sometimes it is easier to see a person’s weaknesses
when they are less willing to show it.

Sometimes the only way to find the truth
Is to look behind closed doors;
Peer into the shadows of a hidden room
invisible to those around you.
They see you, but they see through you.
You are not there to them, you are merely a fly on the wall.

Beauty is truth.
Truth is beauty.

Sometimes the only way to grow
Is to accept what is
and forget what is not.
It is hard to get past what we think we know and
understand what is real, for contrary to what
others will have you believe

      There is no black and white.
Everything is a shade of gray.

But to see life and understand it…know why up is up and how down became down,
To see a color and understand why it is there...
No greater gift can be.
None.
To look past what is logical and understand what is...
If only the world could take on this idea.
If only others could see what is there.
If only.
© February 18th,  2010  Meg McCluskey
Aug 2010 · 685
If You Really Knew Me
Meg McCluskey Aug 2010
If You Really Knew Me
You would know,
That I have no ambitions.

I lack ambition because
I lack the trust and belief in myself
needed to achieve my
desired accomplishments.

If You Really Knew Me
You would know, that I
Live my life, jealous
Of what others have accomplished
Instead of making my own
Accomplishments.

I hate that
I cannot feel anything anymore
Except pain or emptiness.
Jealousy.

If You Really Knew Me
You would know that
People used to tell me
I was the sweetest person
They knew.
Now...there's nothing to say.

I am afraid it has been
So long since I have been
That person...I don't know
If she will ever come back.

If You Really Knew Me
You would know
I am terrified
I will waste my whole life
Wishing and regretting the
Things I never did.

I am afraid my fear
Of change
Will continue to consume me.
That it will continue to hold me back
From accomplish anything.
Instead, I will continue to lead
A spiteful life, sick with jealousy
For those who have the courage
I do not.

If You Really Knew Me
You would know that
I don't know where I want my life to be.
That I don't plan my future
Because I am not sure if I even have one.

I am afraid to die a nobody.
To leave this earth, having done nothing
Worthy of being here.

If You Really Knew Me
You would know that I want to be remembered
For making a difference.
I am tired of just sitting around
Wishing my life away.

That I long to be different.
That I pray one day I will
Be able to break that tight chain
My lack of ambition has on me.
So that I am no longer holding myself back
From changing the path of my future.

If You Really Knew Me**
You would know that I am
Simply human.
I wonder:
Why it is so hard
For others to admit that
To themselves?
© 2010 Meg McCluskey
Inspired by the MTV show, IF YOU REALLY KNEW ME.
Aug 2010 · 720
Desire
Meg McCluskey Aug 2010
Happy hearts.
Happy people.

Lives laced
With good fortune.
Nothing but bliss
Among them, consuming them.
A prophecy of peaceful lives
For their future.

They do not know she is waiting,
Jealous of their happiness.
Her heart spiteful of their
Benevolence.

She destroys them.
Taking advantage
Of their timeless trust
In her.

Never do they realize,
How she continues
To annihilate them.
That her empty heart
Is saturated with rage,
Thirsting for everyone else
To grip the pain of its emptiness.

It's constant jealousy
Leads her to
Destroy them,
Rip them apart
Until there is nothing left
Of what was once
Happiness.

In the end,
She is left with nothing but the
Heat of its hatred.

This frightens her...
For she cannot always tell
What times are intentional
And which are not.

The girl has become quite
Afraid that the pleasure she feels
From ripping apart such liveliness
Has begun to define her.

That getting her way
Comes at the price
Of her soul.

For as she has come to realize,
That although one way or another,
She always gets her way...

It comes with the cost
Of her humanity.
© 2010 Meg McCluskey
Jul 2010 · 671
Fire
Meg McCluskey Jul 2010
Though the pain from watching you
     walk away
has simmered to an intolerable
Scratch,
The fire of my love has merely been reduced
to smoldering embers, still wildly glowing
With my lingering love for you.

For I still cannot look at you without my heart aching
     just a little.
I still cannot see her face next to yours
without secretly wishing I were she.

I cannot think about your new life with her
Without feeling the cold, hard stab
    of jealousy.
Cannot dream about where your new life will take you,
without wishing I could experience that with you.

What upsets me most; however, is simply that
I think these things.
That even though its been almost a month now,
Since those "bells did chime",
I still cannot completely shove you from my mind.

Though I tell myself,
"Enough is enough, he has a new life now..."
My heart struggles to believe that it is over.

It is unbelievably irritating that the harder I try
to shoo you from my thoughts,
     The more you seem to appear there.

Memories of you, I didn't even know I had
Have suddenly emerged from whatever
Darkness they were hiding in.

Practically anywhere I go...
Anything I do leaves me with an old memory of you.
Something we once did...
Words you once said to me...
Secret love no one else seemed to notice.

Though I am doing better than expected,
Getting over you...
Forgetting you...
Deems to be a task I can hardly achieve.

The act of being strong, Is failing me by the minute.
Or perhaps I am failing it.
Or perhaps the issue
Lies with the fact that everything in my little world
Seems to be changing right before my very eyes,
Leaving me completely helpless, powerless to stop it.
© 2010 Meg McCluskey
Jul 2010 · 573
Dreams
Meg McCluskey Jul 2010
When I close my eyes,
What do I see?
What can I hear?

During the day,
I see nothing but blackness,
Behind my closed lids.
An endless sky of black,
Blurred silhouettes of
Whatever lighted shape
I last saw.

But at night...
Oh the wonders I see!
So many places
My dreams take me!
Sometimes they feel so real,
I can almost reach out
And touch them.

Such a strange and bizarre
World, they take me to.
Images in three colors,
Like that of an old
Television set.
Yet the detail,
So precise, to the very
Touch of a hand.

I never quite understand,
The world my subconscious
Brings me to.
A world where things I never
Imagined
Become reality.

A world that no one else
Can ever seem
To understand.

No one else can seem to find
Such strangeness
Behind their own eyes.
As if their imagination has simply
Vanished, leaving nothing for them
But vacant darkness,
Much like that of
My daydreams.

What a pity,
To not be able to see
This other world.
To feel as though you're
In a movie...
Part of a strange script
That only you
Could write.

I enjoy my dreams,
For they are as much
A part of me
As my beating heart.
They define me.
Make me who I am.

I enjoy that they are
Unique, as some
Might say.
Though, as I have known
For quite some time,
I am bizarre!

So might it be
That such strange dreams
Are merely representing
Me?
© 2010 Meg McCluskey
Jul 2010 · 2.5k
Forget-Me-Not
Meg McCluskey Jul 2010
It's hard to forget you.
The way you feel...
The way you laugh...
The way my heart feels when you're near...

Though time moves on
As will I,
I know that I will never forget you.
My heart will be forever tattooed
With your memory.

Though I regret not being
The one you chose...
I am blessed
To have met you at all.
I will love you
Until the day I die.

Even though I know that someday
I will love someone just as much,
Possibly more than I loved you,
That doesn't mean
That I can't still miss you.

Truthfully...
I am still in love with you.
And will probably always
Have a soft spot for you
In my heart.

Though we both know
You'd never admit it,
I know you felt more.
Simply from the way you touched me,
To the gentle words you've said,
I cannot be convinced
You did not at one time
Love me, even just the slightest bit
As I have loved you.

It hurts to realize
I am now forever without you.
Yet...
I know I'll be alright.
Just as soon as I can
Forget the pain.
Push away
This constant pull at my heart.
Which has been present
Ever since I realized
I'd lost you.

Please forgive me,
For being so weak.
Understand, I never meant
For things to be this way.
I never intended to fall
In love with you.

I never wanted to be the one
Sitting here,
Regretting never having
Taken that chance.
Never testing the waters,
Even though I feared
I might drown.

However, I pray
For your happiness.
That wherever your life
Takes you now,
You will find joy and comfort
There.

My only other wish,
My love, is that you never
Forget me.

*I miss you.
© 2010 Meg McCluskey
Jul 2010 · 566
Land of Innocence
Meg McCluskey Jul 2010
I'll never forget.

The times we had,
How when you were around,
Nothing but entertainment was
At hand.

But that was years ago.
We have moved on
Since then.
Now, we lead different lives.
Now, we are strangers.
People who once knew each other
So well
Have become clueless
As to how the other thinks...
Works.

I miss you.
I miss those days.
But life has moved on,
While my heart is frozen
In the past.

How I long to feel
That joy again.
How I long to spend my days
With you once more.
How I long to live life
So freely,
No longer tied down
By its sudden
Responsibilities.

Wouldn't it only be fair,
If we never had to give up
Our innocence...
Our freedom...
Our life.
For what?
A world of sorrow.

It is difficult to find
Happiness and innocence
In an adult.
For they  have long since forgotten
The way it feels to lie in the tall
Grass, wind in their hair.

The scent of the rain
As it reaches the hot asphalt.
The blue color of the sky
On a cloudless day.

Adults forget to remember
The pure simplicities and pleasures
Around them.
They forget that not all is lost.
If they could only see
Through a child's eyes
Once more, perhaps
They might be able to understand...

It doesn't have to be this way.

We don't have to lose each other.
We don't have to hurt so badly.
Our tears do not have to become
Our way of life.

I don't have to miss you.
We don't have to change.

We could still be who we were...
Inside and out.

Though...
This is not our dreams...
This is real.
My perfect world
Exists only in my mind and
Heart.

Just please,
Don't foreget me...
Even though you have begun
To move on...
You'll always be in my heart...
Please don't tell me
That I won't be in yours.

I love you.
© 2010 Meg McCluskey
May 2010 · 990
Armor
Meg McCluskey May 2010
A heart exists within me,
Somewhere.
It just never comes out,
Afraid to be broken.
Afraid that if it believes in something
That doesn't come true,
It might never be able
To mend itself back together again.

So instead it hides away,
Safe behind its armor,
Hoping that if it stays there,
It will forever be protected.
The problem is,
The heart does not realize
What it is giving up,
By removing itself from chance,
From possibility.

Maybe someday it will realize this,
Before it is too late, and the heart
Regrets not breaking out
When it had the chance.

Perhaps in time,
It will realize
That to experience trust,
Love, life...
The heart must
Be able to break
Free of those metal cages,
It has built around
Itself.

To experience
True life,
It cannot hide away
As it does.
It cannot sit,
Waiting...
Hoping for something;
Someone
To come break it free.
© 2010 Meg McCluskey
May 2010 · 794
Numb
Meg McCluskey May 2010
I feel so cold inside.
Dead.
Emotions I once had,
No longer remain.
Things I once loved,
Gone.

I never meant to end up
This way.
Yet somehow, here I am.
Somehow, my life is going
On around me,
But I am not in it.

My heart is numb
To sensation.
I don't feel.
I don't hurt.
I can't cry.

Nothing, it seems
Can bring me out of this mess.
I feel so careless.
Not depressed.
Simply, emotionless.

If someone hurts,
I do not feel it.
If someone is happy,
I cannot rejoice.
I feel I have lost
All sense of being
Human.

I feel so distant
To who I am.
To who I was.

I wonder how I can
Get that back?
Anymore,
It seems that nothing
Is in my head
But songs.
Lives past.
Where my life will never be.

Sitting here,
Writing,
I have forgotten
Just how easy it is
To forget my troubles
When I express them
In words.

It's fear that holds me back.
Always being told,
I'm not good enough.
I am programmed to think
I don't deserve the best.
Never thinking
Maybe this time
Things will go my way.

I cannot understand
Someone like me.
Someone who could
Feel so little,
Yet criticize so much.

It seems all I have become
Is a bitter woman.
A woman who sits back
And lets life pass her by.

Yet, lately, I am becoming
Fearless.
Is it that I am changing?
Or have I shut myself off
From the world
So I can no longer feel pain?

It has been so long, since I have actually
Loved someone.
I guess a part of me has given up.
I cannot decide if who I am now
Is me growing
Or me dwindling away to nothing…

Am I becoming better
Or worse?
Who am I now?
Who do I want to be?

Perhaps the reason
Why I feel so cold
Is because I have lost
Any aspirations for my life.
I have no desires.
I have no will.
There is no point
In being here.

How can someone appear
To be happy, and yet
Think so little of the world;
Of themselves?
Who is to say that
I am happy?

What is happy?
We surely do not know that.
For happiness cannot be defined by
One person.
Happy to me,
Might be completely miserable
To another.
We are who we are.
Nothing changes that.

I cannot decide what to think
Of myself these days.
I feel so useless yet,
I know there is more to life
Than just this.

Is it perhaps that I am just
Through with this part of my life
And am ready to move on?

Or is it me just hoping the next “level”
Of my life will be better,
Only to find out it is
Me that needs to change?

How can someone be
So dark, but not sad?
Or perhaps this person
Doesn’t realize what
They are.
If so, how long until they
Find out?
How many people have
To get hurt
In the process?

What if they never
Realize who they
Are meant to be?

What if they do?
© 2010 Meg McCluskey
May 2010 · 499
Love
Meg McCluskey May 2010
It feels like nothing can mend the broken pieces of your heart--
Left here to be trampled upon.
Only he can fix it…but he is nowhere to be found…
Far away in a world that you may never enter,
A world that separates the true love of two sweethearts,
As if to play with them like dolls.
“You may love,” it says,
“But know that you can never be together,
For I keep a strict, binding contract
Made long before you met.
You are forever bound to your life here,
And that will never change."

It hurts…you know things
Could have been different.
Doubt begins to fill your head,
And soon you begin to hate…
Hate God for doing this to you…
Hate yourself for ever letting yourself end up this way.
Hate that there is nothing that can change
All bit of hope is lost, like nothing you do
Will ever change what is.
“Maybe I could…”
But there is no end to that sentence,
For what you could have done
Is too far into the past to revive.

“If only…”
But you learn that if onlys make the pain worse--
For knowing what could have been
Doesn’t change what it is now.
Thus once again you are left with nothing.
Nothing but hurt…pain…tears…
Brokenness.

Perhaps there is a way to change this nasty fate…
But God only knows how…
You think that if it is meant to be,
Things will work themselves out…

One can only hope.
© 2010 Meg McCluskey
May 2010 · 513
Nature's Beauty
Meg McCluskey May 2010
Tires squealing in the distance,
Their echoes finding my ears.
Birds chirping--
Singing to each other to
Praise the day they’ve
Been given.

Being in such a confined place
Lets voices echo off the buildings,
Making any close voice sound
Distant.
The softest breeze
Plays with your hair,
Lightly pushing it away,
As if it enlightened your
Features.
Showing the world
What you really are.

Lying there,
You begin not to notice
Just how much the dying
Grass makes you itchy.
All you can think about,
Is the beauty that surrounds you.
God’s permanent gift to all his children.

Though there are more
Browns than greens, more rough than
Soft--what’s left of the color
Brings out the true beauty,
Still keeping your heart intrigued.
What more could you possibly want?
What other beauty is there that attracts you so?
What stronger feeling of love could there be
Than that of pure enjoyment
From your surroundings?

You sit and think
Of what could ever be better
Than nature’s touch to your heart.
But you come up empty--
For there simply is nothing better
Than what is there all around you.
You begin to think about God
Wondering why we should deserve to live
In such an idealistic beauty?
How we could continue
Breaking apart everything that makes it
So beautiful?

Why should we deserve something so
Beautiful that we’re only going to destroy?
Doesn’t it break God’s heart to see
What we’re doing to his masterpiece?
What we continue to do?

Is there a way we all can find
A true love for nature?
To feel the peace it so freely offers us?
Why use hostile ways
Against something so giving?
Against something that truly
Expects nothing from us
But the care and love it deserves?

Is there no other way
Than our own?
© 2010 Meg McCluskey
May 2010 · 1.8k
Emotionless
Meg McCluskey May 2010
I cant seem to get you out of my head…
The way you used to be.
The way we used to be...
We were once friends,
As close as can be.
And now...look at what time
Has done to us.

I don't even know
Who you are
Anymore.

Who we once were
And who we are now
Is not who we used to be--together.

Has my heart grown cold
In your absence?
Or has your sudden absence
Made my heart grow cold?

I hate to place the blame on you.
Yet, it seems, all this started
The day you refused
To return my calls.
My heart began to freeze
When I begged for you to talk
But got no reply.
Mostly, my heart began to break
Never understanding why
You abruptly left.

Was it something I said?
Was it something I did?
You never told me.

Even now,
That we are attempting
To patch up this mess of ours...
I know in my heart
We will never be
The same two people
We once were--together.

Now, together, we are different.
It seems our best relationship now
Is one that is separate...far apart.

I think I have just become so exhausted…
I can't take anymore of this.
My body feels so weak.
I feel like an emotionless drone...
Unsure if feeling will ever
Make my body feel rich
And alive once more.
I feel dead inside.
My body exists, but only that.
Who am I?

I don’t like change because it hurts.
It is too painful.
Especially when people change…
When you look into their eyes
And see the ghost of who they used to be.
When you look into your heart
And wonder if maybe it is you
Who has changed.
© 2010 Meg McCluskey

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