Mourning on school mornings
as you take your children to the bus stop
hope their hearts won’t stop
bullet shells drop

and moments of silence
will never balance their cries
or your rage
or put others at ease

it will never
combat the kids in the halls
saying “we don’t care”
with a rib cage full of hate

it will never
get those of ignorance to think

the people cant listen to moments of silence
so be louder than the gunshots
because I’m tired of listening to those.

I am the sudden coldness in a room.
I am the movement that catches your eye.
The familiar perfume that turns your head in a crowd
And the heaviness on your shoulder that comforts you.

I am the voice that whispers your name
And the feeling that you’re not alone.
I am here and I am patient my love.
Do not hurry to join me.


Gail Lapping 5/4/19

Give me one last kiss
On my lifeless and cold lips
Do not mourn my death

You,
Are my brother.
You,
Are my sister.

You are my tribe,
My people,
My Family.

To see the day,
Witnessing the ways we hate each other,
Thrusts a knife through my heart, and out the other side.

The weight of the world falls upon us when we see the loss of our brothers, our sisters,
Born of the same blood,
As you, and I.

I am not scared,
I am sad,
I am disappointed to see the ways,
The walls we build that separate us from the other.

There is no other,
Only Us.

You,
Are my brother.
You,
Are my sister.
You are all my family,
And my Blood.

To see the blood spilled for the sake of nothing,
Forsaken are we to each other.

Come together,
You and I.
Come, my sister,
Come, my brother.

We shall stand,
Hand in hand.
until the day we fly.

~Robert van Lingen

people cheering,
lights shining,
children playing & singing,
candy being eaten,
hugs being given.

waves crashing;
earth shaking;
heads spinning & throbbing;
blades being clung;
cars being slammed.

a child falling asleep.
leaves gently dropping.
white, delicate snow.
the fragility of an angel's wings.
the vacant spot you left behind.

a phantom pain.

Kiss me goodbye
For the first time
Ever.

Kiss me Hello
For the last time
Gone.

Kiss me Again
at the rise of
Dawn.

Kiss me for kissing's sake
As we go
Hold -- my heart up
for the world to know.

I remember how the sky cried
The mournful day my Nene died.
It sobbed and grieved; thought not prolonged.
Soon sunlight, through the darkness, dawned
As thought the tears had simply dried.

At once I wondered, scornfully, "Why?"
How dare you cease your crying, Sky!
How simply could the world go on?
Then I remembered...

My struggle, isn't her's. It's mine.
I hurt because I'm left behind.
For she, you see, has moved along
A better place she's set-upon.
Therefore, with mourning cast aside,
I'll remember.

I  used to put the feelings in jars,
wrapping them with corresponding ribbons depending on the day
and lining them oh so neatly onto the shelves that line my cortex and home.
Never to say I wasn’t organized in one way,
while others cracked and flew apart in every which direction
hubris was a cheerful  hand to hold as I glided in and swept up the mess,
loaning out jars and advice like cookies.
The back of the head always tells the truth,
I had always known that the shelves were uneven and cheap,
the jars themselves feeble in constitution just like their buyer
and the ribbons were only for display and the whole system functionally flawed.
She is gone;
when the earth became somehow heavier in the loss,
the shelves cracked and crumbled,
the shelves loosened and lay askew,
the shelves were never mine to assume.
The jars came down in a fury,
the force sending shards in every direction and into every part of my brain,
shrieking from the direct hit yet continuing to plead ignorance to the whole **** system.
She is gone;
feelings used to make sense but now nothing does,
nothing is how is feels
nothing is what I wanted to happen
and something is Here,
Something was always waiting,
Something has toppled my jars and shelves
and left me alone on this earth to clean it all up
while She has joined the Universe and now can only be reached
in pictures we took on better days
and the dreams that keep me awake.
Something has come,
Something may have gone,
but Something has also changed me.
Without the jars I feel more free,
without the jars I am open
maybe it was the jars all along
that have always made me feel broken.