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Memphis Ghosts Apr 2020
When you lose someone to death, they never tell you how hard or how easy the grief process can be.

They never tell you about that heartache that you feel inside your chest every time you think of the person you lost. That constant hole inside your chest and how, no matter how much you try to fill it with other things, it never goes away. They don’t inform you that certain songs, movies, or shows can trigger emotions deep inside of you and make you lose your **** sometimes. You’re never told about the constant days and nights, sobbing, unable to move as you just lay there and wish you were dead. Not because you wanted your life to end, but because you wish you were with that person again. They don’t tell you about your subconscious and how it’ll try to find every little thing that can relate to that person, just to try and get a grasp of hope that they might still be on earth, that they might still be alive.

No one tells you about the guilt you feel, for every negative impact you had with that person while you were alive. Let alone the guilt you face when you are supposed to do them proud and you feel as though you are failing them. They never tell you that that person might have taught you a lot of things in life, but they never taught you how to live your life without them, how to go on without them, how to move on from them. They never tell you about the constant stomach ache, the terrifying and rippling anxiety that you get every time someone mentions their name. You’re not told about the sting in your eyes or the pain of the lump in your throat as you try your best to prove to everyone that you are okay, when in fact, you are far from okay. The jaw clenching, the anger, the countless holes in the wall or dents in the ground that perfectly show an imprint of your knuckles, because you can’t seem to swallow your emotions anymore. They never tell you about the screaming, the anger towards the person that passed or really anyone and everyone for that matter.

They never talk about how antidepressants don’t work anymore or counseling just doesn’t seem like enough. You’re not told about the amount of times that you’ll space out during the day; whether you’re in class, at the marker, or in the shower. They don’t tell you about the shaking of every limb on your body because you ache to be able to reach for that person again, the shaking of your insides because you try to hold in or emotions. They let you know that the first year could be the hardest, or that you could be numb and the second year hits harder. About the countless holiday’s, birthdays, and anniversaries that you will miss and how it just becomes all the more painful each reminder. They don’t tell you about the nightmares. How you’ll relive every moment all over again and once you wake up, you’re forced to face the reality that it’s not true.

Throughout losing someone, you’re not told a lot of things. But most importantly, you’re not told about the fleeting moments you get for a split blissful second you have this butterfly feeling where everything is fine, that person didn’t pass, and you think they will call, you’ll call them, or they’ll walk right through that door soon. As if you hadn’t gone through all that pain and as if you hadn’t watched their soulless body be buried underground. And for that very very brief second, you feel normal and free. But as soon as it comes, it goes away just as fast and you’re faced with the brutal reality that that feeling was just an anomaly, a fluke, maybe even a daydream. Then you’re left to think about it for weeks on end, wondering why you felt that way in the first place when you /know/ they are gone.

Least to say….people don’t speak up. They don’t tell you a lot about grieving and how alone it can feel not knowing. But I just told you a small fraction of my side and believe me when I tell you, /you’re not alone/. /And you will never be alone/.
This isn't really a poem I guess? But more so just a ramble about grief and the death of my father and my feelings towards it all.
Cjf Apr 2020
Hey ez. Just wanted to say, you would be 5 months now. Almost to 6 baby girl. Cousin Ellie just got to 7. Shaydens at 1. Liliana is at 8. You would’ve been right in between. Just perfectly spoiled rotten with love. We miss you. I do. Sometimes I feel so guilty that I don’t think of you often. But thinking of the could’ve and would’ve beens leaves an ache inside that hurts too much. I guess I’ve associated you with so much pain that I think of you when I’m feeling low. I’m happy for the most part. You know? Like.. things feel okay. I held shayden the other day remember? I dreamt of you that night and felt like I was holding you and I felt like that was a push from you to tell me that it was okay for my arms to hold a baby even if it’s not you. It’s just hard for me tho. To have to be awkward and laughed at and watched over as I hold a newborn when I should’ve been used to it by now. I should’ve been the one to be able to tell the best way to angle the head and even know how to burp them. I know others don’t mean to be insensitive it’s not their fault.. I’m the one who always shows them how strong I am and that im not still healing. Thanks to you. I don’t know some times wether to thank you or not because if you were here I wouldn’t have had to find out what I’m capable of. If you were here I wouldn’t have had to find out what being strong means. You showed me the purest love in the most simplistic way and I wish there was a way I could feel that again. Maybe the hurt inside me when I think of you is that love still just not so pure anymore since it’s marred with losing you. I know it’s bad that I don’t talk about you. But baby, it’s only been 5 months. How does anyone expect me to just be okay with it now? 5 months of you being alive would be you still being brand new. 5 months of you being dead means that I’m still holding on. 5 months of me trying to go back to normalcy. Staying with friends, going for drinks, laughing and making jokes. Some of it feels more fake than others. I don’t think you realize how much happier I would be with you here. I sometimes get a thought in my head that is terrible, but that I think is my way of coping because it isn’t how I really feel. You know? That maybe I wasn’t ready for you. Maybe I was too ill prepared. I mean come on look at us. I can barely make it by and there’s just two adults. No car. No home. No baby. And we’re still struggling. So sometimes I think, yes maybe it is better for you.. that way you won’t ever have to know how much this world really is just a climbing ladder and a lot of the times we’re at the bottom. Maybe sometimes it would be easier if you were here, maybe you would be motivation. Something to get us out of our hole we’re in. Or that I’m in.
I don’t know what’s right anymore. I wish you were here so I could just talk your little head off again. I miss those morning drives of just telling you what I had in store for us. Of complaining about nonsense and always losing track of what I was saying but actually feeling listened to for once. You made me feel so much peace just by talking to you. I don’t have anyone to talk to anymore. Everyone has their own problems and me adding to theirs when my problems are easily fixable seems pointless. Idk. I just miss you. I’m sorry that I’m a bad mom. I didn’t deserve you but I thank you so much that you gave me you.
This is more of a letter than a poem. But I guess poetry is what we make it. Side note: It’s now been a year since we’ve lost her, these were just words I wrote to help the process.
Hannah Jones Apr 2020
If I am
a woman of abundance
speaking fluent excess
in a time where
nothing
is denied
what do I become
when the borders
are closed
to the land
I promised myself?

Pigeonholed into
this sense of security
seeing myself
through one-half
of the monocle
--wasted tension,
then, if twice-effort
produces half-sight--
Where do I go
to find myself
when the only door
I knew
is shrouded
in second-hand screens?

I will rise-
for comfort has made
apaths of us all

I will rise-
realizing these bones
ache under the weight
of collected burdens

I will rise-
vision adjusting
as perspective changes
from lower life
to heavenward glances
too dry
too bright
too foreign to the naked eye

And yet
this simplistic wealth
contradicts itself
in losing, we hope
to gain
in leaving, we hope
to find

So I will rise-
embracing the new abundance
of having nothing
except All.
Written at the beginning of my time of quarantine here in Tennessee. May my poverty lead me to the spiritual wealth I seek.
joel jokonia Apr 2020
How she smiles
Melts my pain away
Takes me to a place
A glimpse of peace
Once a while
Like gentle breeze of green
And a happy sun
And pure air
Sanitised by nature herself
Touching the hairs of my skin
Clean
Lasting only a while
Not too long

I only catch a breath

Then back to regrets
Everyday spaces
Familiar places
Orchestrated in
Reverberated agonies of souls
Haunted by sin
Eating away inside our skin
A bit by beat
Pasts that will still lay
Before my eyes
With an uningnorable scent
Stubborn on my nose
On Statuses.
On WhatsApp.
On Posts
On Facebook
Wherever, my eyes look
Wherever, my life breeds
Wherever, my nostril finds air

Hanging strong
With such unignorable scent
Like freshly painted walls in cheap paint
Annoying
But
One that defeats love

Then she smiles again
With a little squeaky sound of laughter
Her little tongue
Peeking
Seeking
A shot at my soul

And I swear
Its only just
For a while
And again I am lost
In the gentle breeze of green
And yet again

I only catch a breath

.
NB) to my little darling Nealah
Heavens blessing.

📌 ~Nea-ism~

Poet : Joel Jokonia
Edited : Khana Moyo
Dated : 14April2020
Title : Breeze of green
~Number 11419~
Ind Apr 2020
I sit in silence with my mother because how am I meant to say the roots of everything I despise about myself lie at her feet?
That I've learnt to refuse to let her make me feel shame and guilt for eating?
That to this day I look at my body and hear the echos of insults she hurled at eight year old me about the
fat on my hips,
their dips and dimples?
That my partners hands caress that same flesh
and she kisses away my hatred?

I sit in silence with my mother because she doesn't talk, she shouts
out of anger at the cage she's in.
And in her volume I hear the echos of everything she's been unable to achieve,
all her hopes and dreams cruches by pre-conceived ideas of femininity and society's prying eye?
Can never ask why she allowed herself to be chained, and silenced.
Why her present is only half the shadow of her past.

I sit in silence with my mother because how can I say everything I take pride in is what she hates most about me?
That my sexuality is not a choice, but I've chosen that label and I treasure it?
That femininity to me is hair where I can see it,
swearing when people can hear,
and unapoligetically taking up space others would rather I vacate?
That my rejection of faith isn't a reflection of her,
but rather proof she raised someone who learnt to challenge before they accept?
That I'm strong and resiliant

but still soft around the edge?
escapril day 3
MARS Apr 2020
I strolled through
A library. T’was as abandoned
In the hands of time
As the proverbial Ozymandias.

It guarded a wealth of knowledge
Under each leather wrapped parchment
Like a pearl inside an oyster, just
Not under Adam’s ale.

One of them, as abandoned as the former
Stared at me, sitting in a
Coze on the floor.
‘Mommy!’ it cried

In such a desperate and helpless manner.
Instantaneously bonded I with it.
It was one akin to a mother and her child
Fragile, yet quite unbreakable.

All this in a book.
Words I have not to say
About that fervid day
And how etched it is.
This poem shares an intimate bond between MARS and a book. MARS adopts the abandoned, lonely and weeping book as if it were the MARS's own child.  A mix of archaic English and complex words let the reader bond with the poem as the MARS did with the book.
AM Apr 2020
My daughter was born in 1995,
born with curly brown hair, and plum dark eyes.
She started walking at the age of two,
The smartest girl in her class,
would sing the ABC front and back

By the time she was four, we moved to Peru.
She picked up Spanish like she would pick up a flu.
At times she talked like an adult,
a half- sized human with so much attitude.

We lived in a pent-house on the 11th floor.
Best view in Lima, we had a pool in the apartment block.
In 1999, I left her in the room playing with Polly-Dolls,
And that’s when she climbed up to the open balcony door
I had a nightmare last night, and I just couldn't shake it off.
CIN Apr 2020
You’re sweet like honey
And she treats you like money
To spend and throw away
And im watching from so far away
Hoping you’ll be okay
Because she uses you like that
And i cant take you back
Oh my dear
I know you dont want to hear this from me
I love you like honey
Come back to mama ill be so proud of you

Your my only girl
My baby forever
Delicate as a feather
Come back to me
I can see
You’ve grown up strong
Its time to move on
She isn’t good for you
She’ll tear you to pieces
I just wish you would see

You’re sweet like honey
And treats you like money
You dont have to come back to me
I just want whats best for you
You know i always do
I swear its true
Its about a mother who can see her daughter is in a toxic relationship. Just a btw.
as I walk through the house
there‘s this familiar scent
it’s always around me,
always present.

a sweet air fills my nose,
so lovely, it smells like a rose

a flower that reminds me of home,
a fragrance that makes me bloom.
I smile when I notice,
it‘s my mother’s perfume.

- gio, 28.03.2020
Broken Pieces Apr 2020
He was my father, I never thought that would change,
But then things began to rearrange.
I love him still to this day,
I'm just sad to say he wasn't able to stay.
I never thought he would give in,
So when he said yes my mind had begun to spin.

He was my dad, and I thought that meant forever,
He left though, now I don't talk about things just say whatever.
He was the most important to me,
Because I thought he would never think to set me free.
Now he hasn't reached out in awhile,
I've begun to lose my smile.

He's nothing but a stranger now because he's gone,
He left, he even managed to beat the dawn.
I wanted him to be there for me no matter what,
But then he left and the door slowly shut.
I guess I wasn't a good daughter,
Because you just forgot her.
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