Behind the lines
What we are doing?
This are for the sake of our feelings
Because we look forward to pursuing.

Behind the lines
We play safe,
To avoid the probable chafe
So we're exchanging sweet words secretly by strafe.

Behind the lines
We play hide and seek,
We are so obvious about our feelings, I can see we are both weak
We're so scared to find out but this could possibly leak.

Behind the lines
We communicate,
We talk for our fate
But we know we're not ready because of our state.

Behind the lines
I made a move,
Asked you to enjoy and groove
And said that I'll wait, just watch I'll prove.

Behind our lines
There's a trauma
That's why we felt this aura
That brings us both to a nirvana

Behind our lines
We are scared
Because we were unprepared
Our feelings were undeclared
But I'm telling you this at first
Before we met at the line
My feelings for you was clearly declared.

Thank you Corona,
For the awakening call to humanity that was lost in the midst of our busy lives!

Thank you Corona,
For exposing our weakness and vulnerability as human beings, through the power of your invisibility!

Thank you Corona,
For showing us that we are all equal under rule, regardless of age, ***, race, or religion!

Thank you Corona,
For reminding us of the forgotten heroes in the field of healthcare, who are fighting in the front lines, risking their lives to save others.

Thank you Corona,
For teaching a valuable lesson, that by standing together in our fight we can defeat  you under a banner of kindness, love, and humanity!

Hussein Dekmak

See
by Michael R. Burch

See how her hair has thinned: it doesn’t seem
like hair at all, but like the airy moult
of emus who outraced the wind and left
soft plumage in their wake. See how her eyes
are gentler now; see how each wrinkle laughs,
and deepens on itself, as though mirth took
some comfort there, then burrowed deeply in,
outlasting winter. See how very thin
her features are—that time has made more spare,
so that each bone shows, elegant and rare.
For life remains undimmed in her grave eyes,
and courage in her still-delighted looks:
each face presented like a picture book’s.
Bemused, she blows us undismayed goodbyes.

Keywords/Tags: Elderly, woman, grandmother, thin, thinning, hair, airy, emu, moult, soft, plumage, wrinkles, laugh lines, frail, gaunt, bones, winter, grave, eyes, courage, laughter, family, gathered, bedside, kisses, hugs, goodbyes, farewells, life, death, photo album, pictures, photos, photographs

Published by The Eclectic Muse, Love Me Knots (an anthology of the top 100 contemporary love poems), Nutty Stories (South Africa), Black Medina, The New Formalist, Better Than Starbucks, Potcake Chapbooks, Strange Roads, Sonnetto Poesia, Litera (UK), Poems About, Poetry Life & Times, MahMag (in a Farsi translation by Dr. Mahnaz Badihian), Somewhere Along The Beaten Path (Anthology), Freshet, Life & Legends, Famous Poets & Poems, Short Quotes & Poems (listed in the top 10 short poems) and Victorian Violet Press. “See” won 3rd place in the 2003 Writer’s Digest Rhyming Poetry contest, out of over 18,000 overall entries, and was published in Writer’s Digest’s The Year’s Best Writing.

A home
That is not something you buy
A home is someone you ask
A turn in the road of life
You try
Having better than taken alone
You build each other up

i don’t wanna start tomorrow
im not asleep
these days are short these days
feels like wanna weep

growing up an adult is hard, i feel
i don’t feel any more,
emotions i control who he in my way
i wasn’t this way before

words don’t make sense now
my letter reflects me,
this lines are that i am
l am what i am, thus, let me BE

i have my hair white,
21 is just my age,
i have an allergic to caffeine
know it brings me the rage

what i’ve been through
only known by the god,
i know what i’ve been through
May i call myself a God?

Does god exists? he asked
i asked if you believe i exist,
He believed my existence,
He believed I am the god.

give me the freedom to write
i am a poet
what i write isn’t a poem
I ain’t a poet

how to be content
i ask myself daily
the seed is planted
i cant water it daily

parking lots on suburban nights
we would congregate there after long shifts, held captive
as conversations and arm gestures played out like symphonies
secrets drifted past lips and simmered at the surface.

we ignored all the lines
there was no place I would have rather been.

when the moments of silence grew longer
like shadows that disappear with the sun
we marched back to our cars, one by one,
or my favorite,
two by two.

fingers finicking with the temperature controls,
my stomach crawls into my throat.
one second
your eyes flirt with the car door
the next
they’re teasing my lips.
                                                           ­                             
I learned a lot in that parking lot.

I turned myself inside out
every inch of me exposed
illuminated by orange street lamps.

in that car, you never dared to venture beyond those straight white lines,
you painted over them, again and again, thickening the divide
between your seat and mine.

maybe it was the way the street lamps reflected on my face
or the way the music made me feel, just sad enough
or the look on my face in the rear-view mirror
but when you ran out of paint
the line began to fade away
I faded with it.

I learned a lot about lips
whose I shouldn’t have kissed.

so why do I coat my lips, first with lipstick then with tears?
because I place my self-worth in the curves of my mouth.
I cover them up just to wring them back out.

your hands are etched
with tiny dry lines
that cut
each one-way road to nowhere.

I wanted a doctorate,
one that specialized in him -
to know him so thoroughly
that the lines on his palms were
ones I could recite in my sleep
I was so close to getting it.

His voice caught my attention.
"What?" he asked kindly.
"Oh, nothing," I said nonchalantly
as I averted my eyes,
kept the blossoming love hidden.
I resolved to try another day.