when we have our fallouts
I've always had my doubts
wanting you to retrace your steps
so I could see what would happen next

I haven't cried
even though I tried
when you dismissed my feelings
you left me there, staring at ceilings

I don't feel sorry for my heart
it was you, who drifted us apart
making assumptions at my expense
while you made everything tense

wanting you to finally come back
returning with all the things you lack
now I see you for who you truly are
you permanently left time with a scar

please, don't come back
you won't get a plaque
you won't get brownie points
because we've got no joints

The children branded Gifted at the ripe age of eight,
Will grow up carrying the crippling weight
Of an expectation stamped on them before they had thought
Of who they wanted to be, who they were and were not
So when the brain reaches limit of what they're capable of
They will think they’ve destroyed all that was worthy of love
And hide from the sharp gaze of Expection’s eyes
Would rather cease than hear the collective parent’s sighs
The Gifted children will never meet authority’s plans
And instead struggle in silence, head in their hands
Believing the sermon that their knowledge is essential
When they crash, they all say, “She had so much potential.”

I often waste
Too many breaths
On the run
of a sentence
Just to fill the
empty spaces.

Of Civilization and Disenchantment
by Michael R. Burch

Suddenly uncomfortable
to stay at my grandfather's house ―
actually his third new wife's,
in her daughter's bedroom
― one interminable summer
with nothing to do,
all the meals served cold,
even beans and peas...

Lacking the words to describe
ah! , those pearl-luminous estuaries ―
strange omens, incoherent nights.

Seeing the flares of the river barges
illuminating Memphis,
city of bluffs and dying splendors.

Drifting toward Alexandria,
Pharos, Rhakotis, Djoser's fertile delta,
lands at the beginning of a new time and "civilization."

Leaving behind sixty miles of unbroken cemetery,
Alexander's corpse floating seaward,
bobbing, milkwhite, in a jar of honey.

Memphis shall be waste and desolate,
without an inhabitant.
Or so the people dreamed, in chains.

Published by The Centrifugal Eye and The Centrifugal Eye Fifth Anniversary Anthology. Keywords/Tags: Memphis, river, barges, bluffs, Alexandria, Pharos, Rhakotis, Djoser, Alexander, waste, desolate