Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Grief is heavy,
& the weight never ceases to exist.
You carry it in the depths of your soul.
You feel it in every breath you take,
in every word you speak,
in every step you take—
you carry that weight.

In the morning,
when you wake
& realize
it was just a dream—
their beautiful face no longer walks this
Earth.

At first,
grief feels like it’s crushing you,
holding you down,
making it hard to eat,
hard to speak,
hard to breathe.

Even opening your eyes in the morning is too much,
because their absence is heavier
than the presence of anything else.
Getting out of bed is nothing short of a miracle.

It feels like you’ll never walk again—
like a disease consuming your body,
spreading through every limb & vein.
It truly feels like you’ll never breathe again,
never feel light.

But eventually—
you start building muscle.
That weight doesn’t crush your soul
the way it once did.

Some days,
the weight still feels too heavy,
your muscles ache from carrying their absence.
So you rest,
you lay in bed,
until your muscles regain strength.

Over time, you build more muscle,
until the weight no longer suffocates you
like it did in the beginning.

The weight never goes away;
you’ll always carry that boulder.
But now,
your body knows how.
Maryann I 21h
I loved you like spring loves the thaw,
like lungs crave air,
like art bleeds from the soul of the artist.
And I thought love was enough
to keep the thorns from drawing blood.
I thought devotion would bloom into safety—
but I was only watering a graveyard.

The sickness started slow.
First, a cough—
a whisper of rose dust on my tongue.
Then came the petals,
delicate at first,
pink and trembling with hope.
I cradled them like confessions,
believed they were proof of love.

But they kept coming—
petal after petal,
each one heavy with what you wouldn’t give back.
You kissed me with a smile,
while my lungs filled with flowers
planted by hands that never loved me,
only held me for convenience,
for control,
for conquest.

You were a storm beneath soft skin,
a poison wrapped in perfume.
And I loved you—
God, I loved you,
even while you killed parts of me
with your indifference,
even before I knew the rot ran deeper
than abandonment.

Now I know.
Now I know what you are.
A ****** draped in sunlight,
a predator with a paintbrush smile.
You painted me pretty,
then picked me apart.
And I mistook the pain for passion,
your silence for mystery,
your selfishness for sadness.

My body remembers every time
you touched without love,
every moment I mistook trauma for intimacy.
The petals grew darker—
maroon now,
coated in blood,
choking me from within.

I coughed them into my hands,
and still whispered your name
as if you’d come back with kindness,
as if you were ever kind.

I don’t want to mourn you.
I want to mourn me—
the version of me who still believed in you,
who still thought love was supposed to hurt
but not like this.
Never like this.

Hanahaki, they call it—
the disease of unreturned love.
But this isn’t love anymore.
This is grief.
This is rage.
This is survival.

And someday,
someday I’ll breathe again,
clear-chested, flowerless,
free.
This is an older poem written during a difficult time in my life. I’ve since found healing and am now in a healthy, loving relationship. It took time to recover, but things are getting better, and I’m learning to grow from the pain.
willow 23h
in the end of it
you are alone with it
and when the men stare at you
and ridicule you
their fingers pointing at your body

    you sit there and laugh
    your heart out
    i could
    take it out

        i chose to break the silence
        when no one had my back
        but the cold stone wall

           /stuck in headlights/

              your back to the wall
              to fight alone
              tonight is the night
              i end you

                 and no one understands
                 the depth of it
                 until they take my shoes
                 but they come to realize
                 they dont fit them

                    it ends tonight
                    with the morning light
                    a woman's grief
                    a fiery pit
face it
I wish I could go back, just one more day,
To Dec 31st 2020, before you slipped away.
I wish I could hold you tight,
As on the next morning, you lost your light.

I wish I could hear your scold, one more day,
'Cause now our home's almost silent all day.
I know you are watching us from heaven,
Everyone forgot, but I still remember you  24/7.

I wish I could apologize for that fight,
Which you & I had for TV, that last night.
Now, I hold regret in every breath I take,
Wishing for one moment I can't remake.
This poem is for my grandma who is no more and I still regret that I fought with her when she wanted to watch her religious programme on her last night but I just refused to give her and told her she can watch it tomorrow on repeat telecast but there was no tomorrow for her🥺
So the old addage says:
"Grief is the price we pay for love."
Never knew how true it was,
until I had to grieve my love.

three hundred and eighty days,
yet still I grieve for what we had.

I do not regret loving you.
I regret how hard I loved,
that I'm forced to continue
paying the price of love.
middle of the night, can't sleep. Crying thinking of her. Feeling weak I can't move on. Hating that she's moved on, yet I'm still stuck.
It’s been over  
thirty-five years since  
I felt your motherly touch,  
and I no longer try to shape  
a garden of sorrow.  
Instead, I let the new grass flame,  
its green distinct from the old cold fire,  
whose embers tighten their ring  
with each passing year.  

I find joy in the crepe myrtles  
unfolding into white,  
and the masses of yellow blossoms  
nestled in low bushes  
lining my walk to the gravel path—  
the one leading from the woods  
to your lone grave.  

Grief is no longer larger  
than the heart of your memory,  
for around me blooms  
everything you left behind.  

I watch your granddaughter,  
small as your grave marker,  
wander past your woods  
to the open meadow beyond,  
the whiter flowers she calls  
her playthings.  

And I will follow,  
fall among those flowers,  
sink into the soft moss  
by the marsh—  
where her laughter carries echoes  
of your voice,  
where the petals hold the warmth  
of new hands.  
I will lie near the meadow’s edge,  
close to her,  
and closer still to you.
I tried on several of my father’s
old Brooks Brother suits
just before his funeral,
trying to save myself the expense
of an outfit I didn't need.  

Each was too tight on the collars.
too short on the sleeves, each
crotch inseam strangled my manhood.
I had outgrown them all.

Almost all of it will go to Goodwill-
except maybe for those old coal wingtips,
(still in their slightly battered but original box)
heels and soles worn down from hospital rounds,
the leathers evenly laced, spit and
polished to a proper navy shine,
solid and smooth, enough to go from
monolithic to Marley vinyl
without missing a beat.

I could almost hear “The Great Pretender”
play as he glided my future mom
(literally,”The Beauty Queen of Fulton Burrough”)
across the ballroom floor, and then,
suddenly stop, and leave her,
as the hospital pager buzzed on his belt.

All my father- a short, balding but
approachable looking guy, with the
devil’s goatee- ever needed to win
my mother over, was Nat King Cole.
What he left her with, was Harry Belafonte
swooning his existential sorrows out to her-
“Day-o, midnight come and I want to go home.”

I smelled the stale odor of talc
distinguishing itself from moth *****,
and was tempted to slip them on,
but figured the cost to resole them
wouldn't be worth the price. Besides,
that oxblood polish would be too hard
to find.  I left them there for the next
tenant to decide their fate.
She was mine.
Not a car, not a pet,
Not something to own—
She had a life of her own.

But—
My eyes are mine,
My heart is mine,
For they are a part of me.
Without them,
I am incomplete.
When the very foundation of your love is shattered, it's hard to get back up
This walls all talk,
These halls tell stories,
But they aren't legends yet,
They can't be, she isn't gone.

These walls talk too much!
These halls tell lies!
I hate all these pictures,
Memories stolen away from me!

These walls talk,
These halls are story tellers,
If I listen for long enough,
Will they bring her back?

These walls talk dispairingly,
These halls tell somber stories,
I passed another man walking,
Is he a loner such as I?

These walls talk of her loveliness,
These halls tell her story,
I listen to their songs,
And bathe in her memory.
A piece on the stages of grief, don't worry I haven't lost anything.
A sable veil, a crepuscular drape,
Wherein the soul, a phantom, finds its shape.
A nocturne played on strings of frayed despair,
A hollow resonance, a vacant, frigid air.
The mind, a labyrinth of obsidian hue,
Where phantoms dance, and truths are skewed anew.
A pallid moon, a sickly, waning gleam,
Reflects the void, a fractured, broken dream.
The heart, a sepulchre of frozen tears,
Where joy lies buried, choked by shadowed fears.
A silent requiem, a mournful, solemn chime,
For life's bright tapestry, consumed by creeping time.
The body, vessel frail, a spectral frame,
Endures the tempest, whispers not a name.
A brittle echo, in a vacant, vast domain,
Where solace flees, and only shadows reign.
A somber canvas, painted dark and deep,
Where anguished secrets, silently they sleep.
A cryptic cipher, etched in mournful prose,
Depression's shadow, where the spirit goes.
Themes & Mood:
* Depression, Despair, Melancholy: These are the foundational emotions. The "frayed despair," "vacant, frigid air," and "frozen tears" directly depict these states.
* Existentialism & Nihilism: The "void," "vacant, vast domain," and "brittle echo" suggest a sense of meaninglessness and the absence of inherent value.
* Loss & Grief: The "sepulchre of frozen tears" and "silent requiem" point to a deep sense of loss, likely of joy, hope, or even a sense of self.
* Isolation & Loneliness: The "phantom" soul, "vacant, vast domain," and "solace flees" emphasize the feeling of being utterly alone.
* Darkness, Void, Shadows: These are recurring motifs, representing the overwhelming presence of negative emotions and the absence of light and hope.
* Mourning & Requiem: The "silent requiem" explicitly states a sense of mourning, a formal lament for something lost.
* Anguish & Sorrow: The "anguished secrets" and overall tone of sadness convey deep emotional pain.
Imagery & Style:
* Gothic & Dark Poetry: The language is rich with dark imagery, creating a gothic atmosphere. Words like "sepulchre," "phantom," "spectral," and "nocturne" evoke a sense of darkness and decay.
* Symbolism & Metaphor:
   * "Sable veil" and "crepuscular drape" symbolize the obscuring of light and joy.
   * "Labyrinth of obsidian hue" represents the confused and trapped state of the mind.
   * "Sepulchre of frozen tears" symbolizes the heart as a place of buried emotions.
   * "strings of frayed despair" shows the breaking point of the emotional state.
* Imagery: The poem is visually evocative, painting a picture of a dark, desolate landscape.
* Nocturne & Crepuscular: These terms emphasize the twilight and night, times associated with darkness, mystery, and introspection.
* Phantom & Spectral: These words suggest a sense of unreality, a feeling of being disconnected from life.
* Labyrinth: representing the complicated and confusing nature of the mind.
* Sepulchre: A tomb, representing the death of emotions.
Emotional Tone:
* Sadness, Hopelessness, Desolation: These emotions permeate the entire poem, creating a sense of overwhelming despair.
* Fear: The "shadowed fears" and the overall sense of darkness contribute to a feeling of anxiety and dread.
* Loneliness: The isolation of the "phantom" soul and the "vacant, vast domain" emphasize the feeling of being utterly alone.
In essence, the poem creates a powerful and immersive experience of deep melancholy and existential despair by using vivid imagery, symbolic language, and a consistent tone of sadness and hopelessness. It is a testament to the power of language to convey the darkest corners of the human experience.
Next page