Tag: alone

Jaya Avendel

Published on by Susi Bocks50 Comments
dancing woman on concrete pavement
Ahmad Odeh – Unsplash

Preceding

I pluck hearts from the sky
Count pennies amassed in fortune
On the moss cold
Under my concrete touch

When I read of Shakespeare
I see the strings in Romeo and Juliet and
I pull them.

Into Silence

I enter the bathroom and
Close the door

Steam from the bath
I indoctrinated with lavender
At noon
Tickles my ankles

I scream
Curl my voice around the trembling tile
With the cold steel taps
Dissolve like Epsom salts in water.

No one comes
No one is home.

Tinging

She lingers between light and dark
Her eyes never open wide enough to
Reveal their true color
If she wakes
It is in the night
Where no one can see.

Awaken

Everything is something else
In another form
Love is cruelty to someone else
Brutally pink; torn.
My dance is faulty
In the eyes of the soldier
Also inside me.

Satisfied

The shadows behind
The moon envelop me like |
The gentle touch of
A dying spring flower or
The gentler touch of starlight.

~~~

Jaya Avendel is a micro-poetess and word witch from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia passionate about life where it intersects with writing and the dreamscapes lost in between. With writing published at Green Ink Poetry, Free Verse Revolution, and Visual Verse, among others, she writes and dreams at www.ninchronicles.com. Jaya was featured on The Short of It in 2020 and her work was published in the anthology – The Sound of Brilliance.

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Reblogs – Jude Itakali & Lorraine Lewis

Published on by Susi Bocks12 Comments
man standing in front of the window
Sasha Freemind – Unsplash

One is the agonizing ache of unrequited love, the other is the depth of experience when feeling cut off. It seems we are constantly wrestling with one form of isolation or another.

Secret Admirer by Jude Itakali

Is it your smile 
that dazzles me 
The softness of your voice 
that comforts me 
The light in your eyes 
scrying my future joys 
Am I selfish 
for thinking you are the answer 
Presumptuous 
for dreaming you can want me too 

I’d like to tell you- 
I’m under your spell 
I’d like to speak my mind 
with the melody from my heart 
I’d like to say, I love you 
But I cannot 
Lest I spook and alarm 
For already, 
You are too precious to lose 
And a little bit of you 
Is better than none at all 

Paramour of dreams 
Peculiar with perfection 
My heart surrenders 
betrothed and bound to love you 
Meant to be, Never to be 

Alone by Lorraine Lewis

Cut off 
A blanket black 
Between us none can see 
A box the walls of a prison 
Close in 
Stifle 
Alone in the box fear rising 
No one to hear a cry 
Awareness stings 
Of life 

Outside 
The box people 
Living lives chattering 
Unaware of the person in 
The box 
Beside 
Them dying gasping for breath one 
Breath but it is too late 
A corpse lies dead 
Staring 

Reblog – Melancholia by Rahul Gaur

Published on by Susi Bocks2 Comments

Such a brilliant capture of the feelings of loss and uncertainty. The accompanying image complements the emotions well.

Melancholia

The act of wanting consumes⁣
my mind so much that ⁣
I never realise what I really wanted⁣ after all
Losing myself at the ends ⁣
of her fading footsteps⁣
and the silence left by her echoes⁣
and the echoes left by her silence⁣
I only end up imitating my wants than ⁣
really know what I wanted at all⁣
The melancholy monster consumes me for not
knowing but that is when I know
this monster is really not a monster
as I ponder…
⁣
…where do I go from here ⁣
if not inwards ⁣
To save me from the beginning ⁣
of the building blocks of my utter doom⁣
Melancholy opens up wounds
that can only be closed by facing the fears
that created them as I realise
All I receive is connected to all I give
amidst the karmic cycle of my intents⁣
The ignorance of the immediate fate⁣
I put too much emphasis on
The laughter of my perpetual bloom ⁣is
connected to the whispers of my eventual tomb

Reblog – Solitaire by VJ Knutson

Published on by Susi BocksLeave a comment

How does one traverse the loss of love, aging, and loneliness? VJ may not present the answer but she certainly gives us a glimpse of how real it can get.

One Woman's Quest

Past love’s deadline
wolves no longer prowl
vultures, smelling rot,
circle overhead, plot

My essence is solitary
feather fallen between
wide-eyed expectancy
and maturity’s abyss

Abandonment or neglect
I truly cannot say…

(Tuesdays I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Image my own.)

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Reblog – Poem #242 by Luna

Published on by Susi BocksLeave a comment

Another that hit so well, tagging memories of so long ago, a heartache which took years to dull. I applaud Luna for expressing these heartfelt emotions so well!

LUNA

It gets so cold
when loneliness enters the scene
but the feeling is actually burning.
Burning with the desire to break free.
Burning with the desire to sleep in peace.
Burning when you remember things
the way they used to be.
Burning when you see the shadow of
the empty place that once had a heartbeat.

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Reblog – Alone by Taylor Grace

Published on by Susi Bocks4 Comments

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The Broken Inside of Me

Which version do you prefer me to be?

The me that doesn’t always suit you quite so perfectly

The me that fits your perception of who I should be

The me who never has moments of weakness that brings me to my knees

It is difficult trying to be who everyone wants me to be

One day I’m going to only have myself to please

I reach out for your hand, repeatedly waiting just for someone to understand

Love me

Hate me

There is no in between

I understand though because I feel the same things

I’ve spent my whole life just trying to breathe

Still to this day I run, I hide, driving around aimlessly in an attempt to ignore the brokenness that is inside

The only thing I really need is someone to listen and comfort the pieces that are me

I know they say love comes with a cost

Maybe I’m just tired of feeling so damn lost

Not feeling accepted has taken a toll on me

Devastation added on top of the underlying pain

Nothing I can do but sit holding no one accountable

What else would you expect me to do

I turn it all inside

Carrying all the burdens

Hiding all the shame

Running from the memories

At the end of the day I have no one to blame

It’s ok though because I know that pain

I feel invisible

Nothing to lose

Oh wait, that’s right

That’s when I get told I don’t have a clue

I wonder if I’ve ever really showed anyone who I really am

My broken pieces run far too deep

Inside my demons constantly keeping me from sleep

Continually re-victimized by the very same voices that keep feeding me lies

Just when I feel I can’t hold on one more day, it occurs to me that no one is coming to save me and it doesn’t even matter if I were to walk away

All the labels and judgment

Fill my ears

But again no one knows the shell of a woman standing in front of them

Too sensitive

Too bossy

Too picky

Too upset

Too cautious

Too angry

Too hurt

Too organized

Too right

Too wrong

Too isolated

Too weak

Too strong

Too emotional

Too tired

Too sexy

Too much

Too difficult

Too quiet

Too old

Too kind

Too loud

Too thoughtful

Too busy

Too hyper

Too complicated

Too Broken

Surrounded by all the voices

Seeming so intrigued

Fascinated by my words and wisdom

They like me

They love me

Oops once again I’ve been misled

They were only passing the time

And never again thought of me

Have you ever truly felt this alone?

 

A powerful piece about the internal struggles individuals grapple with.
Well done, Taylor!

A Suitcase by Randal A. Burd, Jr. via Vita Brevis

Published on by Susi Bocks4 Comments

Capture-11
Empty House – L.S. Lowry

A suitcase lies among the many things
Abandoned when the owner left for good.
Exposed to elements, old mildew clings
To fabric torn and peeling from the wood.
The dusty handle still emits a shine
In places that endured the frequent grasp
Of hands too hurried by the railroad line
To put on gloves or lock the metal clasp.
What irony! A suitcase left behind
Speaks more about the trip it never made,
Found useless for the task it was designed
When owner passed from substance into shade.
The things that matter now won’t matter then.
The cycle ends only to start again.

About the Poet

Randal A. Burd, Jr. is an educator who works with the disadvantaged in rural Missouri. He holds a master’s degree in English Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Missouri. Randal is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Sparks of Calliope magazine. His latest collection of poems, Memoirs of a Witness Tree, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in Summer 2020.

It was wonderful to read each line and feel the elements present themselves in my mind. Randal did a great job of making me feel the loneliness and emptiness of the scene. All I could think of was “poor suitcase” as if it were feeling pain. Bravo!

Published on Vita Brevis 1/6/2020