#absence poems on Hello Poetry

Nat Lipstadt 1d

Then Came Woman/Reflections: The Absence of Self (DRAFT)

prayer of hope, for young and old, who suffer from the slings and arrows sadness and the loss of love; I offer up this prayer of hope and offer you my hand around your shoulders until you no longer require it

more than once,
for lengthy periods,
by events, other people,
my self was eradicated
and limping from day
to night, and J faced
absolutes, choices choking,
alternating alternatives that
offered zero, or even less
than zero, and the inkwell
wasn't refillable, and I could
point to nothing yet encouraging a mystifying purposed existence

then came a woman

who asked nor proffered
conditionals
pre, prior post or otherwise
and
offered up the miraculous
drink, human kindly notice,
snd it
drained the bitters,
began fluid replacement,
and slow resuscitation

and then
poems rebirthed me,
liberated the angry sacred
gory sadness words devoid of glory,
with a reworded score, and
the eyes could write without
a patina filter of jaundiced hatred,
and whispered private internally
many times a beloving
hallelujah

and when ever the remembrance of
the near misses are crackly occasionally appearing, the surge dissipates intact quick
into a netherworld for suppressing
and bid "away with you," and a
thin lipped smile part sneer
for having survived
even
prospered when
then came a woman

and the self, the my self,
returned
after an absence of destructed
decades...deadening decades

and I smile when
the grandchildren tell me
knock knock jokes
and gently knock me on the head,
to make sure I'm alert,
then came woman
who had already~all ready
knocked me on the
heart

#lipstadt #hallelujah #absence #of #self #tgen #cane

Zywa 1d

[ On the beach I think ]

On the beach I think

about our days here, and you --

blow away again.

Collection "Moons"

#beach #missing #absence

K 2d

Untitled

i envy the sun
it embraces you in my absence

7/7/25

#envy #love #embrace #sun #absence #adoration

Nosy 5d

Hold you once more

How I wish to you hold you
Even just once more
All my thoughts distorted
Now that you're no more

A quiet grief.

#grief #loss #heartache #bittersweet #softpain #absence

Nat Lipstadt Jul 1

Then Came Woman/Reflections: The Absence of Self

prayer of hope, for young and old, who suffer from the slings and arrows sadness and the loss of love; I offer up this prayer of hope and offer you my hand around your shoulders until you no longer require it

more than once,
for lengthy periods,
by events, other people,
my self was eradicated
and limping from day
to night, and J faced
absolutes, choices choking,
alternating alternatives that
offered zero, or even less
than zero, and the inkwell
wasn't refillable, and I could
point to nothing yet encouraging a mystifying purposed existence

then came a woman

who asked nor proffered
conditionals
pre, prior post or otherwise
and
offered up the miraculous
drink, human kindly notice,
snd it
drained the bitters,
began fluid replacement,
and slow resuscitation

and then
poems rebirthed me,
liberated the angry sacred
gory sadness words devoid of glory,
with a reworded score, and
the eyes could write without
a patina filter of jaundiced hatred,
and whispered private internally
many times a beloving
hallelujah

and when ever the remembrance of
the near misses are crackly occasionally appearing, the surge dissipates intact quick
into a netherworld for suppressing
and bid "away with you," and a
thin lipped smile part sneer
for having survived
even
prospered when
then came a woman

and the self, the my self,
returned
after an absence of destructed
decades...deadening decades

and I smile when
the grandchildren tell me
knock knock jokes
and gently knock me on the head,
to make sure I'm alert,
then came woman
who had already~all ready
knocked me on the
heart

lipstadt reflections of self

#lipstadt #hallelujah #absence #of #self #tgen #cane

AJ Jun 8

Even Freedom Grieves

Now, I cherish your absence,
yet something about it feels untrue
Once, I wept for every moment near you, mourning the space you filled too soon

I begged for distance, craved the quiet, ached for days untouched by you
Yet silence lingers, rich and heavy,
like a ghost that won't undo

I swore I'd never miss your presence,
never yearn for what once pained
Yet even freedom bears the sorrow
of a loss that still remains

#freedom #absence #distance

Hasanur Rahaman Shaikh Jun 17

Unfolded Silence

The curtain moved.
Not with wind—
but with something
warm,
like breath held
then let go.

Her anklet scraped
the floor tile
only once.

Your tea
steeped too long
on the windowsill.

The calendar page
was blank.

Her scarf stayed
where she dropped it—
on the chair’s back,
faint with
lemon shampoo.

And you—
you didn’t touch it.
Not then.

But later,
you folded it.
Twice.

As if
that meant
you hadn’t looked.

- THE END -

© 2025 June, Hasanur Rahman Shaikh.
All rights reserved.

Sometimes, absence is loudest in the things left behind. This is a quiet grief, told through scarves, silence, and tea that went cold.

#grief #loss #minimalism #poetry #quietsadness #unspokenlove #absence #memories #healingthroughobjects #poeticimagery

Cadmus May 30

Unspoken

🪔

I pretend I’m just fine

But your absence

Maps itself all over my face

Like shadow tracing bones.

🪔

Some losses don’t announce themselves with tears or noise , they settle into the contours of us, silently rewriting how the world reads our face.

#grief #love #silence #memory #absence #longing #facade #truth #sorrow #vulnerability

Laokos May 26

prison food

weight.
that’s all I feel now.

the weight of silence.
absence.
thoughts like boots
stuck in mud up to my knees.

thirteen thousand nights
pounding out of my chest like a riot mob
choking on my life
and staring down twenty thousand more.
****.

the searing void
of an ancient sugared kiss
sends tears down my face
like tiny iron weights—
a silent guillotine.
you’re so far away now.
or maybe I am.

dusting off dreams
like they’re old pictures
and setting them back on the shelf
in this violet desert.
mirage or memory?
who knows.

I’ve become a warm corpse
mumbling “no”
to the tired lives that want to ride me
like an old horse
one limp away from being glue.

who is there to tell?
who the hell would listen?
who’d step foot
onto the interstate of my heart
dodging semis
and roadkill potpourri?

doesn’t matter.
the dreams look clean again.
and that’s enough
to keep the lights on in the cell
for another thousand nights.

so keep that duster handy.
go back to sleep.

these nights are hungry.
and they’re not going to eat themselves.

#prison #food #weight #absence #choking #dust #dreams #tired #hungry #nights

Sam S May 29

In the Wake of Wings: The Soil Remembers

Part III

(The Flower’s Grief)

The sky still opens.
The rain still falls.
But nothing comes.
No wings, no call.

My roots hold firm, though the soil decays,
starved of the dance that once gave praise.
I bloom with aching memory…
offering colour to a vanished creed.

They’ve gone, the ones who crowned the spring,
lost to poison, silence, spell, or sting.
And yet I bloom.
And yet I bleed.
Because I remember what we were made to be.

When the bees have gone…

#stillness #barren #decay #absence #wilt #unpollinated