In darkened room
I lie, willing blackness
to obliterate blackness.
A scream, unearthed
from dankness
shatters the silence,
echoes off heartless walls,
shock waves reverberate
relentless torment
seventeen years…
committed, no…
dedicated
ripped away
leaving me
nothing
I fall, spiral
reel out of control
breaking down
tomorrow,
the children will return
the house will fill again,
and I will pick up
these shards,
piece together
some semblance
of normalcy,
and begin
to rebuild
in the dark.
(Written for dVerse pub, where Lillian is hosting with a challenge to focus on time: “To everything there is a season…”)
The palpable depth of anguish and grief from your past is so palpable in this one, V.J. As is the strength you evidence in the last lines! Bravo!
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Thank you Frank. I was surprised to still be able to access that pain and happy to say life is great now.
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There is a lot of grief and pain in your words. I hope that writing poems like this has brought forth a sense of peace for you. I know that writing can help me to better understand what I have experienced.
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Yes. It’s quite the process isn’t it. So many layers, and thus we heal.
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Tragedy strikes rapidly – years seem like they are ripped away and then the slow rebuilding begins.
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Exactly, Frank. We never know when it will strike.
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There is no time scale for grief, often we have to pick up and move on before we finish processing. I really like how you organized this piece, the spacing between the lines when you are alone with your grief, and then all the lines without spacing at the end when you just have to get on with life. It really enhances the feeling.
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Thanks Heather – you are on to something about having to move on without processing. It does catch up eventually, I believe.
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Eventually.
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“Our children are not us”–true dat’. I’m happy that the poem is configured out of old pain, because as a good poet, you present pain to us as a slice of reality. “Write what you know”,the teachers say–cool, but what about fantasy, Sci Fi, Gothic, Westerns and such.
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Now, come on, Glenn – don’t you inject what you know into your western?
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A beautiful and heartbreaking piece. I look forward to reading your work. Such a relief to hear people speak painful truths….I think our facebook “look at my happy life” focus in this country is doing is damage in many ways.
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Yes, I agree. Truth is life is messy, and we survive.
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This hits hard. The way it doesn’t end on a purely optimistic note is especially good. Children have their own lives to live, they can never remove the darkness of the seventeen ‘wasted’ years.
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Spoken from someone who has been there, I dare say. Still, we recover.
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I’m imagining, VJ. I’ve been lucky in some of my choices. But the idea of individuality is the same. Our children are not us, interchangeable. They’ll go their own ways and we have to deal with our sorrows in our own way.
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True. Thanks for your thoughts, Jane.
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🙂
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Oh how the dank dark helps us appreciate the bright of the day and the bright of our lives. This is the sting and reality of life….. sending warm mid week wishes!
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Thanks Diana – Hope you are well and keeping warm.
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First, I thought it was a suicide; the death of a marriage gotta be a scream in the dark too. But you rebuild, even in the dark.
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Yes, we do. Thanks Lynn.
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I lost my husband of 23 years when I was just 45. I so resonate with what you’ve written … and now, in retrospect, knowing indeed it is possible to rebuild.
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Sorry to hear that Beverly. I think, if we live long enough, we all experience such a moment.
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Like a death, and always lingering. Time changes things, but that scar remains. (K)
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Yes they do. Thanks for commenting.
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one season ends and another begins, life is marked by those and how we cope with change, there’s much strength and encouragement in your words for me
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Thanks Gina. Revisiting the experience restores my faith in my own strength.
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your words are too close to home for me.
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Sorry to hear that Gina. I know that you too are strong and resilient.
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and so are you
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The words are so intense but the hope to build is great.
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It always amazes me how the spirit carries on no matter what happens.
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Yes it’s true.
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Yes, me too!
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The poem speaks so powerfully of grief. Yes a season for everything, especially grief.
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Yes, there is. Seems if we’re alive, we can’t escape it. Thanks Paul.
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No escape, so true.
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“A scream, unearthed
from dankness
shatters the silence,
echoes off heartless walls,”
this really sears its way in
such sorrow
{{{{{HUGS}}}
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Thanks Jade, but it’s just poetry – revisiting something that happened a long time ago (and apparently still has energy, lol.)
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OK, VJ. I’ll send the hug back to that time then 😉
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Thanks – that’s better, lol.
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🙂
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Some seasons indeed dark. Yet the darkness eventually yields to a new light as we accept the dark. Your poem takes me back to the 1979 night my husband cleared his closet and walked out – leaving me and our 2 kids. One of the first lights to come on was the realization that I now had BOTH SIDES of the walk-in closet; I proceeded to claim one little advantage after another.
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That made me chuckle – both sides of the closet – how our resilience kicks in. This was written about my husband leaving (although he moved the kids and I out, but same concept).
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This is really a heart wrenching piece! The putting together of ones life after a loss like this, I am sure is very overwhelming. Well done.
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Thank you Dwight. To everything, there is a season, lol.
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The seasons always progress….and when we’re faced with monumental challenges and disappointments, we can learn from that….we will move on.
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We do! a testimony to our strength.
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I like the hope and action to build again, even in the darkness.
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Thanks Grace – the human spirit is amazing.
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V.J. is this really happening to you, or it is just poetry, the past.
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Just poetry – the past. The prompt brought it forth. My kids’ Dad, after seventeen years. Many years ago, but I guess the impact still remains.
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Yes, I remember reading some of it. Those painful experiences are always there to some degree.
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Apparently so….
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Really like how you ended this piece
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Thank you.
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