Dare I confess
the hollowness
of my heart
How emptiness
echoes in its chambers
How lost I feel inside
This is no sanctity
no secure refuge
my withdrawal is a sham
I stand by, observe –
circles entwine, embrace –
recognize the power of love
Practice the words
extend warmth
and retreat, before
connection ignites
convinced as I am
that the vacancy is merited.
(Image from personal collection.)
Chill and fog
cloud my senses –
effective distraction
loneliness holds no sway.
Others speed past,
while I advance,
slow, steady –
drawn by an unknown
Presence, who may
or may not receive me well
at this road’s end
I cannot tell.
Pray indifference
does not await me –
have suffered enough
no stomach for more.
Must stop a moment
and rest…darkness
brings its own brand
of cold… I am weary.
Tomorrow,
I’ll begin anew,
perhaps not so alone,
But loved ones
are preoccupied
others long gone
So the task remains
mine singularly
to further this journey
With faith to carry me
and a prayer for clear
passage to see me through.
(Image from personal collection.)
Loneliness –
abandoned and rejected,
grieves unrestrained,
then hesitantly,
willingly,
opens to possibility,
discovering hope,
connection,
in solitude –
not alone
in solitude
connection
discovers hope,
opens to possibility,
hesitantly,
then willingly,
grief releases,
abandons and rejects
loneliness.
(Frank Hubeny is the host tonight for the dVerse Pub, and he challenges to write a reverse poem. I found this one in my archives (2015) and with a little tweaking, I think it work.)
You think she’d learn –
collects boyfriends like
other girls amass makeup;
always thrilling at the start
the objectified male’s influence
sticking; believes in commitment
while inwardly protesting
ego creates a scene,
manifests conflict
needs to break away –
heart having leaped
prematurely.
You think she’d learn –
past courtships have
established that infatuation
is the exception: not a trail worth
targeting; where is common sense?
she will not listen, loves the sound
of ‘boyfriend’, is dedicated to desires
of the flesh, blind to problems
balls and chains provoke;
impulse is a good teacher,
she never heeds.
You think she’d learn –
clean slate is not achievable
dramas of the past superimposed
had one too many arse-ended
engagements – needs to minimize
this yearning for affection,
wake up, smash the drive
that invokes mayhem
settle for the institution
of loneliness.
(Image: onehdwallpaper.com)
Solitude, I dream
of expansive landscapes,
crave your panoramic
silence, thrill to the ideal
of your boundless sanctity
Solitude, you wrap me
in separateness, strip away
my cardboard walls, tear
at the corners of my instability;
no refuge from the stillness
Solitude, I am smothered
by your starkness, by my
starkness, cries of madness
reverberating through vast
canyons of aloneness.
(Image: serendipityteam.wordpress.com)
Spent most life running –
obligations stepping stones
spanning the endless abyss –
desperately seeking bridges.
Inescapable is darkness –
pathways crumble, falter,
delusions disintegrate –
I have fallen, am falling
Alone. Starkness blinding,
rawness of soul exposed,
like an inverted negative,
surreal, unexpected truth.
Unanswerable questions arise,
I breathe, am not received,
no reflection to validate me,
matter suspended without
purpose, so fleeting, fickle
I am shadow, shelved,
inconsequential, nothing
silence painfully throbbing
riddled by abandonment –
victim or perpetrator – God’s
design or fantasy’s failings:
either way, I am cast aside
endlessly floating, undefined
losing grasp, untethered,
hopelessly longing for legs
that I might run again.
One Woman's Quest 