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Christy Dec 2024
I grew up the perfect child.
Seen but never heard.
Painfully aware of the mood in the room
And grew up way too soon.
Suppressed any hint of emotion
To make life easier for them.
And played the part of the perfect child
Receiving the bare minimum.
Sharon Talbot Dec 2024
Now that we are on in years,
celebrations change and dwindle
to little remnants of tradition.
We are two stragglers
from life’s journey,
Left behind by the young,
No longer nurturing him,
yet tied to his well-being
even as we wait for his call.
I celebrate Yule not in our home,
but by imaging his joy beside a tree,
his exchange of gifts with her.
And I recall the first Christmas
with my husband, falling asleep together
under a mammoth tree filled with light.
We made ornaments for fun
and poverty didn’t matter.
I wrote a poem for him,
decorated with scenes of our life.
And now, we are too weary
to celebrate like that.
It is as if we pore through a box,
a ragged thing, dragged through time,
looking for souvenirs of joy
and memories of the life we had
when he was here.
I think this poem speaks for itself about our experience this year. Our son moved far away and cannot just pop by for Christmas or dinner from the next town. It is definitely a new stage of loss!
Mxxie Dec 2024
Strings dig into my wrists,
Carving control into fragile flesh
Moving me to their will.

I bend.
I spin.
I dance.

I despise it.

"Be this," she demands,
"Do that," he whispers,
Their voices tangle in the threads,
Pulling tighter, cutting deeper,
Moving me to their will.

I bend.
I spin.
I dance.

I loathe it

Moving my lips
The sighs
The whispers
The mutters
It isn't me.

Tugging my wrists
The twist
The tether
The weight
It isn’t me.

Bending my knees
The creak
The lurch
The stumble
It isn’t me.

Turning my head
The tilt
The ****
The blank stare
It isn’t me.

Carving my chest
The hollow
The knots
The splinters
It isn’t me.

Tearing my legs
The sway
The drag
The fall
It isn’t me.

I bend.
I spin.
I dance.

I hate it.

I'm just a hollow puppet.
Bound by twisted strings.

Nothing more
Nothing less.

The Liquitex that smudges my face
It draws new smiles,
It spills new tears,
Blurring the lines of who I was.

Each brushstroke rewrites my skin,
A hollowed mask of painted lies,
Cracks forming where the truth once lived.

It stains my cheeks in hues I don’t choose,
Bright reds that scream,
Deep blues that ache,
Colors bleeding into someone else’s story.

The varnish sets,
Am I trapped beneath it?
Just a mere doll of their design?

I bend.
I spin.
I dance.

I despise it.

And the fingers that type these words?
The letters
The sentences
The poem

It doesn't feel real.

A hollow shell of bone and sinew,
Moving without meaning,
Guided by unseen hands.

That's all I am.

I don't feel.
I don't love.
I don't dream.
I don't care.
I don't exist.

I bend.
I spin.
I dance.

I loathe it.
mourningritual Dec 2024
I had a father once
one who committed one too many sins
so I don’t know why it surprised me so
when there was finally one I could not forgive

was this not his legacy all along?
irresponsibility and negligence and abuse
and never knowing right from wrong

I am a victim of my fathers demons
my mother even more so
his fists and his ire and his indifference
pummeled us and refused to let us grow

why was I so surprised
after a life time of deviancy and ire
that my father would be the same creature he is
bathing everyone else in his fire
Rubianne Foster Dec 2024
Mother,
You once loved my father’s face
You held it close to yours.
You brushed his cheeks with your lips
You embraced him with your entire heart
And now,
You despise my cheeks
Because they are his
You hate my smile
Because my teeth are the same shape as his
Did you ever hold me so close?
Mother,
Forgive me,
For what I couldn't control.
And Father,
You once protected my mother
You kept her close to you
You spent sunny days and rainy nights
By her side
But now, I can't recall your voice
Are my eyes really like yours?
Do I remind you of Mother?
Father,
Forgive me
For making you leave
Millie Dec 2024
pulling me up just to push me back down, to this cycle i'm bound. pride is a sin whether from you or within. i climb to the top not planning to stop but if i go too far—
just let me fly, be free. let me truly be me. unlock the door, release the chains because no matter how much you think you love me, you only put me in pain.
how can i heal when i begin to it's my skin you peel. bring me back to "perfect," everything you dreamed for me, but that's not who i am, can't you see?!
just let me live my life, the way i intend too. you treat me like a trial run, how is that fun for you?
this is my life, not yours. leave me alone
i have a B
not good enough.
i am trying my best
not good enough.
i have plenty of friends
not good enough.
i am really proud of myself
not good enough.
i am just a human being
not good enough.
i am a trans person
not good enough.
i keep trying
but i always know what you will say.
not good enough.
not good enough.
not good enough.
because to you,
it never really is
showyoulove Dec 2024
"Are we there yet Mommy?" asked the little child

"Not yet my love. But soon enough you'll see"

"Daddy, are we there yet?" the child asked again

"No. But when we are you'll know it. Trust me"

"It'll be a while yet before we are there
But I'll tell you a secret of which I am aware.
If you pay close attention, sometimes you'll spot
A little bit of home that someone had forgot."

"It happens when two hearts come together
And true love finds a lasting home
Where peace and joy are birds of a feather
Built upon faith's cornerstone."

"It's where life flourishes and children grow
It's where laughter and love so freely flow.
But this is just a taste of what is yet do come:
It is far beyond your wildest dreams and then some."

"One day we will go before you
And leave you for a little while
But later you will join us again
And we'll welcome you with a smile."

"So, you see, for now, home is where we are.
As long as we're a family, Heaven isn't far."
vil Dec 2024
i hear you mother,
i hear you father.
but i cannot feel you father,
but i hear you mother.
vast echoes, calling one another.
cacophony of voices, overlapping each other.
drain drain,
goes my pain.
but when i hear your name,
i feel vain.
pained.
my heart empty.
people, i feel testy.
whenever i hear, i remember,
my originators, my creators,
filling my silent vacators.
i hate all of you.
kms
Anais Vionet Dec 2024
(a piece from high school (I’ve been reorganizing))

I am simply at my worst these days.
Wild and unpredictable emotions rush on me - it's a place where the layer of control and composure are very thin.

This school year has been an endless working, always desperate, collection of days.

Each passing week seemed to unmask some flaw in me.. Like peeling a rotten onion.

Emotionally, spiritually, I’m drubbed—I droop like a hanged man.

It's not the work—I survive (piano) competitions and academic battles as if by some brand of magic..

No, it's more.
I have lost my goal. Like biblical engineers raising the tower of Babel on the plain of Sennaar, I am struck by a lack of focus. My direction, my original plans, seem shallow—I stand purposefully gelded.

It's worse because I'm somehow so much less who I want to be.

Like an asymptotic curve I constantly miss my ideal. I am hunted, internally, by my own inner voice, that ruthless, pittyless, seeker of perfection.. it lurks like the prowling wolf, stalk bent walk.. sifting my every thought, my every action for flaws.. until like the wing weary hunted pray I could almost welcome the killers warmth for sweet silence

In a mood somewhere between cowardly and courageous I finally approached my mom..

In a speech from the scaffold, I told her of my black, tight, treacherous spiral.. of my doubts about everything.

I expected the worst.. a disappointment, in less than cryptic, ciphered messages, a slow sharpening of her claws on me for endless shortcomings..

Instead, I got miracles..
as if rigid constellations had shifted.. an atmosphere of freedom earned.. and at least for that moment, the mom who used to sing me awake in the mornings as a girl.. and a delicious summer of rest.
.
.
A song for this:
Everyday Is A Winding Road by Sheryl Crow
Cruel To Be Kind by Letters to Cleo
.
Oh, and a Christmas playlist because—it’s December!:
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_02.mp3
BLT Merriam Webster word of the day challenge 12/05/24:
drub = soundly defeated
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