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Steve Page May 2023
She'd crayoned indiscriminate orange cheer and saw that she'd later been placed high up on the fridge door. From experience she knew that this meant that she had created something of worth, something with a 3-year-old's indiscriminate love, kept in place by a bright red magnet right next to a half-finished shopping list.  

At their next visit she pointed and laughed - it was still there, though a little askew and over-caressed, judging by the finger-grease stains. Her pride was self-evident as she presented the picture's yellow counterpart and watched it being mounted with a matching magnet.  

This time she noticed the tears, so had to ask her mum what that meant.  

She quickly learned and later at the Royal Academy she was ready with a handkerchief when her grandfather teared up staring up at the family portrait in her signature sunshine palette. She enjoyed the smile as he reached up as if to bless the elevated portrait with his familiar caress and grand-paternal pride.  

But the repeated queries about the bright red spot that featured on most of her portraits went unanswered.
UnfoundYet May 2023
This morning I woke up
missing how things used to be.
I miss the warm and the comfort that my family used to bring.

Belonging, that’s what I miss
for now I’m only a stranger with nowhere else to be.

I have these memories,
and I wonder if that is all they’ll ever going to be.
The happiness and the calm,
they feel so distant from me.

There is this aching pain here in my chest,
it makes me uneasy,
it doesn’t allow me to rest.

I used to be known to anyone
but myself.
Now I’m trying to get
closer
to who I really am,

but every step I take leads me
away
from everybody else.

But that little girl is all alone,
in the dark she’s screaming for my attention.
For too long I’ve ignored her cries,
too focused on the people around me
and on not creating any tension.

All this energy I’ve used,
all the dedication I gave,
it all feels like a waste of time.

For if those people knew who I was,
then why I still felt so utterly
alone?

maybe it’s because of my Lou
of the magic she creates.
She’s quite capable you see,
with her in two places I can be,
whereas before only in one I used to be.

I can be on the surface,
grounded in the present,
but holding the hand of that little girl all together.

maybe that was enough,
it had been for a long time.
But now I want more.

Yes I am greedy, and I don’t want to deny it.

I want to be in those two places all the time.
I want to hold that girl’s hand and tell her
that it is all right.

I want to do it while sitting at dinner,
when my dad makes his jokes.
I want to do it when my mom asks me if I like
the new shirt she just bought.

I want to do it when I play cards with my grandma,
and when I’m around my other friends.
Because while I comfort that little girl,
it is her who gives me strength.

So here I am,
trying so hard to walk towards her.
I’m trying to keep her with me,
near the surface,
grounded in my present.

She’s scared,
and so am I.
Sometimes she slips away,
sometimes I still ignore her cries.

It’s just so difficult
and I struggle to understand why.

How can they know me, if that girl
was never by my side
when I shook their hand, or when I made them smile?

They knew a stranger, an imposter,
that’s what they knew.

But why am I so distant from them now,
when all I’m trying to do is
presenting them the truth?

Are they angry because I lied?
I didn’t mean to do so.
I just couldn’t hear her voice for so long.

It pains me that the road towards the light,
towards that girl,

it’s such a lonely road.

It saddens me,
when the reason I only moved is because
I didn’t want to feel alone at all.

I felt not whole around the ones that
loved me.
I wanted to be whole
for them.
Now I am not whole yet,
but each day a little closer I get.

But why is it that always a stranger is all I am?
A stranger to myself in the start,
a stranger to them in the end.

Perhaps there is another road,
another path that I’ll take
once I’ll have conquered the present
with the little girl here in my presence.

Perhaps only then I’ll be able to see
how to make those memories real
how to live them again
as a new me.
Steve Page May 2023
10 little fingers, 9 little toes
Due to the topple of that Calor gas bottle
But still he took his first unsteady stumble
Between the sofa and the coffee table
And should have been grateful
For the outstretched hand that took the brunt
Of the sharp corner and the hot spill
But oblivious he bounced back

Right into a job with his mate’s dad down the garage,
Where he delved into the grease and spanners
That formed the bread and butter of a living wage.
And when the car fell on his toe that wasn’t there
He stumbled on without a care
Unstoppable, ready for the next obstacle,

And applied to the navy for a crazy venture round the world
Or he would have had the medical not red lined his missing digit
And said he wasn’t fit for the pitch and heave of a naval ship
Or so the story went as he took his grandkids
Hand in hand along Camber Sands,
With a wiggle of his nine hairy toes, raising familiar giggles

and the redraft:

10 little fingers, 9 little toes
Due to the topple of that Calor gas bottle
But still he took his first unsteady stumble
Between the sofa and the coffee table
And might have been grateful for the outstretched hand
That softened the corner and the hot spill
But oblivious he bounced back
Right into a job with his mate’s dad down the garage,
Where he delved into the grease and spanners,
The bread and butter of a living wage.
And when the car fell on his toe that wasn’t there
He stumbled on unstoppable, ready for the next obstacle,
And applied to the navy for worldwide venture
Or would have had the medical not red lined his missing digit
Cos he wasn’t fit for the pitch and heave of a naval ship
Or so the story went as he took his grandkids
Hand in hand along Camber Sands,
With a wiggle of his nine hairy toes,
Raising familiar giggles
charged with writing a poem on the theme of Bodies by my poets corner
Ace May 2023
We live in the same world and in the same house
But we'll never know each other even until the day we part

You still shower me with love even if I'm not the one you've hoped for
I'm grateful however burden by the love that you offer

Sincerely I love you with all my heart
But it hurts to know that you'll never understand
Understand what I want and what I am.
Larry dillon May 2023
All the pain a man could muster in his lifetime:
Compressed to a minute.
Then, send it scattershot through the airwaves.
A morose melody. A lovely female voice inflects....
"May I override your rationality and reason?"
Imprints a depression on the mind;
a rope around the deckhand's neck.
Does her voice now command your neocortex?
Yes, but deeper still: it denigrates.
Instills an insistence toward apathy:
existential treason.
musical notes denote a debt to be paid.
They accept just the one currency.
Trade melancholic fervor for nihility...
A payment must be made.
Posit the ship is a sojourn in deep water.
Feeling A sorrow you can't adjourn.
How quickly you will learn:
Jumping overboard
CAN be an act of kindness.
A slave to that recalcitrant sorrow.
Jetsam yourself to lighten the load on your psyche:
It's ideal over facing another tommorow.

Seafaring folk
assume a siren's song is beautiful.

I felt The Earth shake when she sung.
There goes the air from my lungs.
What more to give? Here.
Borrow my body and tongue.
Sitting in the auditorium
of my own soliloquy.
This state of mind is anti-reverie.
Your falsetto sonnet showed memories.
My family.My mishaps.
An altercation out of ennui-with my father.
Before he left,that last thing he said to me...

But.

Why WAS he levied into conflict
over Antioch?
On a whim prescribed, of course;
The pope demanded A crusade on sin.
Father died inside the walls of Jerusalem.
Bled out fighting alongside other mortal men:
Father, is your heaven more beautiful,
than your grand daughter's grin?

Captain has seven sailors hold me still.
I am suppressed inside the fo'c'sle.
He counts down from sixty:
"Let us see if time sets him straight."
A siren's enthrall doesn't agitate long.
Yet,
Even after the weight of it lifting,
it leaves you forlong.
Sometimes-I still feel-
underwater...is that where I truly belong?

Seafaring folk
assume a siren's song is beautiful.
                          I know better.

A violent storm materializes from otherwise
sunny, fair weather.
I guess the myths of the Tempest here are true:
It attacks ships sailing near the fabled
isle Revenir.
Until then,for my own safety,
I had been enroute to the brig.
"All hands on deck
(including me and my captors)
Secure those loose rigs.
Batten down the hatch.
Cap'n is going to steer us-
Right through this Tempest's heart!!"
Steady now.
Or his hubris will tear the ship apart.

I felt indifferent as waves
pummel us relentlessly.
Contrite as our vessel
won its war with the sea.

                   I jump overboard.

Instant remorse.
Father, can your God please alter my course?
A mistake.
This can't be my legacy.
I'm sinking.
Because of what a siren sung.
I can't breathe. Feel water filling in my lungs.
Siren,take what you won
then leave me undone.
I'm sinking.
Is this how I meet my end?
Shimmer from the sunlight fades
as I descend.
Sinking.
And I'll never be found...
My fear, my flailing. My failure to float.
the ocean swallows it all,
ingurgitates my hope.
Is this how you felt?
Facing your ill-fated destiny?
Father.
You always tried-and failed -to quell my misery.
That last thing you said...
Preaching your god's salvation as remedy.

                        I'm sinking.

All along its been my sorrow
that's drowning me.

-
A story of a sailor's mind being taken by a siren's call and how it exacerbates his already present, internal, buried grief.

Part 1 in the Revenir series.
You didn’t know you found your very own Icarus.
She seeks the sky
Full of pride
Full of belief
—she can do better than those who came before her.

She has spent years fawning over those wings of wax—
Denying realities of
Gravity’s fatal pull,
Rejecting effects of
Scorching heat.

She doesn’t want you to stop her
(Though she loves you because she knows you’ll try).

Just like those who came before her,
She understands there is but one moment to
Feel the sun,
The gilded air,
Before burning up
Or crashing into eternal shade.
To the one who is always there after too much time in the sun.
Kris Fireheart Apr 2023
Tired...
My eyes burn,
My lungs ache...
The sun wakes me
Through the
Windows.

Dress myself
Wash my face,
It's time to endure
Another day...

Another rush
At the restaurant,
Put on a smile,
And pretend it's
Okay...

But I can't do this
For much longer,
My longest day
Is Sunday...
I work weekends at my grandmother's restaurant in Houston. She's 71, and puts on a brave face at work, but when she gets home, she needs her cane to walk... so I put on my best smile, help the customers, wash the dishes and say "Can I get that for you, sir?" "Is there anything I can do to help?" But when I get home, all I want to do is collapse onto my couch with my 14 year old Labrador...
Kris Fireheart Apr 2023
My home. My safe place!
My sanctuary of peace and calm!

Deaf as I am,  I'm glad to have friends,
When someone tries to steal from my mom!

So we kept watch, over her van,
Seeing the shadows of an unknown man,

We're suited and booted; my knife
And his gun,
And we're ready to take him,
Or force him to run!

******* all,  I have work
In the morning,
But I'll be ****** if we don't
Send him a warning!

Our shout brought him out,
And we watched him run,
To go steal elsewhere,
But he'll have no fun!

Not here; not now.
At my grandmother's house.
So I stand and I shake,
Eyes wide open; awake,

A knife at my side, with
My rage as my guide.
Hell no! Not here!
Not now!

My home.  My safe place,
My sanctuary of calm!
So I await the coming sunrise;
No one ***** with my mom!
Someone tried to steal my grandma's van tonight. So the adrenaline has overpowered my sleeping pills, and now I'm stuck with the urge to ****. But that's fine by me; I'll stay awake! I work tomorrow,  but I'll never be late.
L Mar 2023
My father is 54
My mother will be 55
My brother is 21

My father cannot lift over 30 lbs without dropping dead
My mother cannot lift herself from her bed

My father can only survive on an array of medications
My mother survives by the grace of Adonai and Radiation

My brother wants to **** himself
with a gun he says one day he will get a license
I beg him to stay with me, I try to talk some sense

My father can no longer do the things that he loves
My mother can no longer do most things in general
My brother's misery is congenital

I beg them to stay with me but can only do so much
God has turned his back on us
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