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KarmaPolice Aug 27
Tears of wasted reels
Fall for the fiction
Dry eyes to reality
No sorrow left for me.

By Darren Wall ©
Your dusty blue eyes look just like mine,

But mine don’t hold the lies you spoke.

Brothers are supposed to protect,

So why am I finding myself at the end of your rope?

You handed me silence, wrapped in blame,

A gift of absence, a hollow name.

You lied, deflected, and called it grace,

But I see the cracks in your polished face.

I raised my voice—not to harm, but to heal,

To break the silence, to make it real.

Yet you called me “too much,” said I crossed a line,

When all I wanted was to stop the decline.

You disowned me for speaking my truth,

For refusing to play the role of your sleuth.

I won’t chase shadows, I won’t pretend,

That this family’s brokenness can ever mend—

Without honesty, without the fight,

Without calling out what isn’t right.

You chose to cut me loose, to let me go,

But I’m not the one who’s lost, you know.

I’ve done the work, I’ve faced my pain,

While you’ve stayed stagnant, afraid of the rain.

You called me the problem, the one to blame,

But I’m not the one who’s playing the game.

I won’t apologize for wanting more,

For refusing to settle, for closing the door
.
On the lies, the shame, the toxic spin—

I’m done letting the cycle win.

Your dusty blue eyes look just like mine,

But mine don’t hold the lies you spoke.

I’ll walk away with my head held high,

No longer bound by your fraying rope.
Isn’t it funny how the child who calls out the bad behavior soon becomes the black sheep?
A brother’s goodbye is like lightning;
A flash of anger then he’s gone.
Fiery words, and with one strike
He severed what has already been worn

The words slipped from his lips,
exiling me and my kind
Does he even understand what he’s fighting for?
To exile himself to an island.

A father’s goodbye stretches calendars
forever and in silence.
no need for words.
An unspoken cure
that distance prevents verbal violence

But goodbye with you, Grandma,
my Grandma…
it will echo through my mind for eternity.
It will haunt my soul with every step,
Because I want you to be free with me.

My goodbye is stained in unspoken grief
And haunted by the brokenness
of a family that never had a chance to heal,
where empathy was a stranger
or happenstance.
Christy Feb 8
Sat in my Mother’s Cadillac
Heated seat warm
Just finished my prayers
Watching the entrance door
I have a sister

Trying to still my rapid heart
And fight back building tears
Waiting for this moment
For more than a year
I have a sister

When I read the obituary
Of our estranged father
Survived by a daughter
Stopped me at my core
I have a sister

I wonder if you are sitting
Anxious in your car  
Starring at the door
Gathering courage
To meet your sister.
Prabhu Iyer Nov 2024
this surly hour
I entered a new world
where the old become strange,
the known go unknown;
Siblings and elders
relations by law, friends, teachers
who we knew so long
go acting unknown
either me, unseeing
for who they are now
or them, acting distant;
Those who we loved
feign unwant,
who we adored
flagrant;
Now here like the onion
I peel the layers
going sepia from ambient
just the highlight
of this twilit hour when
beloveds go estranged
it happens in all our lives, a day when we move on
KarmaPolice Jun 2024
After years of silence,
I realised
That my kin
No longer inhabited
My world.

I was discarded,
Mentally neglected,
And...
Cast aside.

My tears rang
Like tinnitus,
Disturbing their peace
And pride.

The familial stench
Of shame
Slowly infected
Them all.

A broken brother,
Ravaged by life,
Consumed
By fate.

Lost to the embers
Of time.

By Darren Wall

©
Em MacKenzie Jul 2021
You’re six feet tall and more feet apart
from anyone you claim to be close to.
Struggling to breathe and a defunct heart,
in denial of prophecy; inevitably it came true.

You didn’t even pretend you ever cared for me,
we both know we’re not the ones you wanted to see.
If only you could realize what was important in life,
maybe you wouldn’t face the close in strife.
If only you could realize what this was all about,
maybe your funeral wouldn’t be cardboard cut outs.
In your last breath of air,
was there regret or despair?

It’s the ones that you don’t peg for depth
that seem to never be fully understood.
I’ve watched how easily they’ve wept,
and immediately reverted back to wood.

You didn’t even pretend you ever cared for me,
couldn’t care less; we’re supposed to be family.
If only you could realize what was important in life,
then you wouldn’t have replaced your kids and wife.
If only you could look back on all those years,
maybe you’d hold your kids instead of your beers.

No invite for dining with the dead,
no faking pleasantries unpleasantly.
Breaking promises along with the bread,
and never present even presently.
No invite for dining with the dead,
ignoring a mess while eating messily.
Smelling copper while tasting lead,
feeling separated both separately.

In your last breath of air,
did you notice we weren’t there?
In your last breath of air,
did you start to care?

No invite for dining with the dead,
no faking pleasantries unpleasantly.
Ignoring last call and ignoring bed,
my mental exhaustion is kicking in mentally.
No invite for dining with the dead,
ignoring a mess while eating messily.
The scene will remain within my head,
and my refusal to be desperate has grown desperately.
There’s more than one way to stuff a turkey.
Em MacKenzie Nov 2020
I walked into that room and saw you’re body lying there,
I barely recognized you; lacking life, muscle and hair.
I looked into your open eyes like I never did before,
and spoke looking at your face instead of averting gaze to floor.
If they asked me to identify or claim, I can’t say that I could,
I never truly knew you or felt the connection that I should.
You were given the curse of cancer,
but gifted the knowledge and time,
but did you ever even think that the answer
could be to reach out your hand to mine?
I had so much I never said,
maybe you had the same.
I’ll remain running the sentences in my head,
but never question if I should feel blame.
For a child to not know a parent is easy as night and day,
as much as I should’ve known you, you should’ve known me the same way.
Now my sister and I are the only ones here,
the only ones with your name and blood,
and it shouldn’t even be a question or fear
if we were ever truly loved.
11/06/1958 - 10/25/2020
K E Cummins Jun 2020
You have left me dazed and confused
Lost in my own imaginings
And if you see me wander
Cease, desist, let me be
I am not here for you
I am unto myself
A lone wild thing
Untampered and forlorn

On the shore of a sea of ice
I stood awestruck by tears
At the sky as it moved
Birds specked in gold sunset light
Blue, the colour of grace

Black ink branches, sky
Sky flows and knells in vast empty space
A hollow where the birds sing
The wilderness of my mind
Meets the wildness of the grass
And folds back into sanity
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