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Serious talk
The morning service was about
Taking one day at a time
and forget your worries
While the piles of backlog unpaid bills bow
in the letter rack, the bill collectors calling
every hours of the day using those 1 800 numbers

And there I was standing by the kitchen sink,
doing the dishes from the night before:

while I pondered about the ambulance bill,
the credit card bill, so many *******  bills,
If I was to drop dead today,
Who would pay those bills?
Who would wash those dishes?

So I took out my small *** from under the counter,
And filled it up with water and gently turned on the stove
I began to cook my favorite porridge,
Oatmeal mixed with saga
I clean down the kitchen counter,
I gather my thoughts, I became the cookie poet of the month
while i munches on my words

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Quote:

As I continued to stir the mixture together on the stove top
I kept thinking about the homeless people

Less worries, no bill, no bill collectors, no
Letters rack, just the last car on the last train track
And a sign that read do you have any loose change?
Hearing you call her your sunshine
hurt me in a way that I didn’t expect.
It didn’t hurt the way a toothache tastes
or the way it smells when someone else
blows out candles on your birthday cake;
it hurt the way it stings to look underwater
in the ocean, but I find myself doing it anyways
because the provocative view is worth the pain.  
You are salt water seeping into my tear ducts
but I’m always stupid enough to open my eyes.
She tells me I’m beautiful
like the snow she’s seeing
for the very first time.
Her mouth opens to catch
some of the cold, and it
slides down her throat,
and I want to kiss her,
if only to steal the shivers
from between her teeth.

but instead, I stand on the
ledge in front of the library
and watch her eyes sparkling
beneath the streetlights
as the snow keeps coming down.
too often i find myself
feeling like my head
is a balloon full of helium
tethering itself to my neck
by a ribbon curled with
an open pair of scissors

too often i find myself telling myself
that this isn’t a good way to feel,
that this is how it started last time,
that i should eat more food,
drink less coffee but more *****.

too often i taste him
underneath my fingernails and
wonder how long it will take
for my cuticles to forget him
and wonder when the nightmares
might give it a rest,
because i could use some sleep.
she smelled
of quiet snowfall
at 2AM on Sunday.

she left me
some months ago
and I am still
washing her out
of my bedsheets
 Jan 2017 Nadine Sharise Hayes
jg
You ask why I no longer write,
But how on Earth am I supposed to?
The parts you took from me were the best
that I could do

The day you slowly flew,
from the utter mess of what we were,
from me and my life,
You took what used to be a joyful soul
before the wound
of your manipulative knife,
And you left it here
to rue seeing nothing
but black and blue.

You ask why I no longer write,
But you still miss to understand;
You have taken with you my fragile arms
through your deceitful but compelling charms,

You have taken with you my sensible and thin fingers
With the way your body used to linger,
Millimeters away from mine,
just enough to make it impossible for me to live without.


And you still ask why I no longer write...
My eyes have seen the body
of a lifeless tiny son
They have fiercely wept for heartache
when life from my womb was torn
They have held in them the vestige
of a perfectly formed son
My grief keeps lasting on.

My eyes have seen the pink stripe
of a second ray of hope
They have gently wept from joy
while I grabbed the saving rope
They've beheld the wriggling grey shape
of a tiny new sweet babe
My love keeps hanging on.
Experiencing the contrast of two vastly different emotions has been eye-opening. To experience grief combined with new joy has been an exceptional experience. To live in grey tinged with the pink rays of a rising sun has been just exceptional. All that said, the grayness of grief is still here and, some days, it still wins. I desire your prayers, if you are so inclined <3
I stopped waiting by the phone
I stopped pressing my glass to the wall
straining for vicarious sound
I stopped waiting for distraction
to prevent me getting bored

I am alone
I am alone
but feel loneliness
only when I feel I ought to
The rest of the time
it is music
or the silence in between

I stopped pacing the floor
as if movement meant
I was doing something

I stopped looking for love
as if desire were the same
as feeling something for someone

As if holding out for change
was as good as holding a person
as if sleeping alone
caused dreams without reason
as if snatches of warmth
gave purpose to the seasons

I stopped collecting forget-me-nots
I stopped bleeding out my liberal heart
every time there was suffering
or hate in the spaces where
love should have been

I stopped waiting for someone
to doctor the still
where sorrow pervaded
the canned laughter of living

I stopped looking for someone
it was only then
I could start forgiving
C
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