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Jeremy Betts Nov 2023
I'm not the only me I see when I see me looking back at me
Bewildered by the impossibility of a blind visionary with the foresight to look past me to find me
I got caught staring so intently I lost sight of the true me completely
You see such savagery and think it must have been nurtured from infancy
While true, I had it in check, hidden away in the captivity of a long forgotten memory
But it still remembered me, waited patiently, predicting my return with a whimsical accuracy
It heard me frantically trying to find the glass to break in case of emergency
Not to set it free but to once again embrace what was scary, what might be the reality of the actual me
Instantly I handed over the key, didn't even keep a copy for me
Knowing exactly what I was doing and what it'd do to me mentally
It was always going to happen this way eventually
Finding solace in it's monotony, no more uncertainty
Both wake up and go to bed with the same angry energy
Done with the pleasantry and all the pageantry projected outwardly to seem more neighborly
Just so the world could be more comfortable with me when I pass through their snooty, gated community
While it pays no mind to what's being done to my psyche
This self destructive entity wasn't only the part of my reality I was told to bury
It is the entirety of my history, sad and happy, comedy and tragedy
I was it and it was me, the merger went so smoothly I believed it was absolutely meant to be, probably
Fighting myself got messy and wasn't necessarily a necessity
In the end there was no surprise who's hand was raised in victory
I already knew the part of me that held superiority but everyone else said it'd turn out differently
Like they got some kind of decoder key
Of course it didn't and they don't, thankfully I was welcomed back too once again become my own worst enemy
It ain't good company but I personally accept that personality and it's starting to warm up to me finally
It's been a strange journey, be thankful I didn't ask you to join me

©2023
Michael Murphy Oct 2023
There was a moment
There was a time
You in my arms
Your heart beat with mine

I thought that I knew
I thought you were mine
I thought it was true
But only to find

It was only a moment
A snapshot in time
I look to that moment
To see I was blind
What you believe to be true might only be true in that moment
Pete Badertscher Oct 2023
I sat down by my father's grave (who is not dead yet),
and my mother's (who died 3 years ago),
and my aunt (who died two years ago-- alone),
and my great-grandparents (who died before I knew them).
I sat down with dry eyes by these graves all in a row
and contemplated the cold, impermanence of life.

My father maintains the graves.
He festoons them with colorful flowers for Memorial Day.
I think, how cliche to ornament with
silk flowers in a fake urn
on a lonesome line of graves.
But, moving the wire-cored foliage I see a singular
peacock feather hidden among the sanguine flowers
and realize this is the essence of my father
and that understanding
dampens my cheeks.
This is a slice of time poem when I was doing just as the poem suggests.
Francie Lynch Oct 2023
I remember.
I forget.
I wonder why.
You're so easy to remember.
You're so hard to forget.
Time ticks out no respite.
Today I am wrong.
The other day,
I was right.
Tony Tweedy Oct 2023
Walls enclose so many things,
and often have no doors,
a mind can have so many rooms,
without obeying spatial laws.

Dark or light the varied rooms,
where thoughts can play at games,
to fill mansions of many floors,
and tenants have unforgotten names.

Nights where faces come and go,
all marching from distant past,
but all were gone so long ago,
from the first face to the last.

Time that ebbs at varied pace,
as memory plays out the parade,
recalling all the ones once lost,
and those who never stayed.

Universe of lonely empty feeling,
all that memory has now become,
No sense of being yet still alive,
just a chill that leaves you numb.

A heart that once yearned for love,
of the promise that it can bring,
but yearnings perished long ago,
to become this sad and lonely thing.
Too old and too alone....
Jellyfish Oct 2023
I miss our first days sometimes
and like to reminisce at night
There are times when I'm lucky and
I can convince him to retell our stories to me
after we turn out the lights.
It always helps me to fall asleep;
When he recounts our memories.
I would love to lay together and hear him describe things to me
but he doesn't like to lately
I miss going to sleep at the same time.
Phia Sep 2023
You became
A distant memory,
Nothing left of you
But a story for the moon
xjf Sep 2023
In the back of my stair storage
I have a bin
within my old sins lie
Otherwise I'll forget
as soon as it leaves my eyes
I'm liable

Distracted  
Careless
Unmindful

I have lost so many things
some misplaced
forgotten
stolen, I’m sure
I've lost people
For the same reasons

Its enough to drive me manic
I can’t trace
where the last place
I had it
was
The worst
Is when I don't even know
I've lost it
until the universe
decides to taunt and tease me
with that information

I've lost songs
that hold memories
of my childhood within their lyrics
I've lost movies
Some I've just watched too many times
I've lost feelings
at least all the intensity in them

So,
I've started hoarding

I told myself I'm not losing that nostalgia
So I'm boarding them up in boxes
I'm being present in my past
and these are the paradoxes
In which my unlost will hopefully last

Not to be dramatic
But I love to be dramatic
You're one thing I look for every time
But I couldn't find you if I tried
No crumbs, no remnant
nothing in these boxes
will cause remembrance

One day, I'll be going through
and one day, I won't care to find you
Zywa Aug 2023
I remember one

evening, and so many more --


of those there have been...
"Het tankstation op de route" - 1 ("The filling station on the route" - 1, 2013, Jan Baeke)

Collection "Stall"
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