I woke up a wilted rose
My petals were crushed
a thousand tempests
My thorns turned inwards
striking my stem
Worms crawled all over me
Yet
my roots were intact
– by Angelina Bong
Malaysia
Tag: loss (Page 1 of 4)
There is a snuffing out
when the synapses stop firing.
The ex-wives fade to black.
His hawks blink.
Extinguished.
The Co-op, Jesus, trains and snow glimmer.
Cut.
Planets spin off the axons.
Our kisses are ashes
blown to the wind.
He lies alone, like a great house
with all it’s furniture moved out;
windows smeared with grease,
electrics, plumbing in such disarray,
builders would suck their teeth,
shrug, turn away.
Flick a switch, see the neurons crackle.
Smell the burning.
- by Lizzie Heath
United Kingdom
Too young to understand,
Too scared to stay
- by RachDoesDesign
Wales
[The image features a form with chaotic hair spanning the entirety of the piece, lines and dots show the chaos of the mind]
The skin I wear
The skin I wear is a covering
for my bones and flesh
and I’m glad it holds it in
but wonder sometimes
why and sigh
about the pain I’m in.
It’s not as if I’ve fallen
or didn’t watch where I was going,
I was plodding on quite well I thought
and tried to do what I’d been taught –
I enjoyed it all in a way.
Can I use a vacuum cleaner?
Why do you ask? I used to
work full time and be the breadwinner
and I can’t help wondering whether
you would have asked that of a man.
I can somehow think you know
I’m still here in a way,
I think so, anyway.
- by Wendy Jones
Wales
I feel the music
This orchestra of mine
I jest your intimacy
Embracing every shard
With love and warmth
But should you say goodbye
And leave me before I die
I shall stand and run and dance
To an air of triumph!
But should you chance to be
With me ‘til the end
No matter if we both
Entwine the undergrowth
And lie together meekly
Til the last note gently
Fades away…
- by Wendy Jones
Further information: https://poetryatnightblog.wordpress.com/
This is shocking.
I am not an object and I am not broken but
the pain tells me differently.
This is chronic.
Why am I not adjusted yet?
It comes and goes, it’s all my consciousness
or
all I want is to lie down.
And when I come into work I lie about my days off.
Why do I look tired? Maybe,
that’s just how I look. Maybe,
they think I am just not very ‘together’…
This invisible pain cannot be talked about because that will only make work relations worse-
because they never know how to interact with me after, but
my anxiety aches like the bits between my legs.
I am not used to this.
I am managing well and privately proud, but sometimes
I wish they all knew.
I guess all superheroes probably feel like this sometimes.
I bet there’s a lot of us.
- by Grae Salisbury
Canada
Instagram: @jellybeancomix
hospital gown
a flap in the back
lights flickering
tra la la obsessive screaming
sounds of machines
dissolving matter
situated between two beds
rupture of bodies
declared missing
delivered in close up
- by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa
Japan
Jane Joritz-Nakagawa’s most recent book is Poems: New and Selected (Isobar, 2018) on sale at Amazon
There is no God.
I know it. I feel it in this agony. This violence. As my brain tricks my body into ripping itself apart.
There isn’t. There can’t be.
Please God. There can’t be.
- by Holly Hirst
Twitter @RomGothHolly
I’ve slept through Christmas. I shiver and pull the covers over me; sweat, and throw the covers off. My head bobs with nausea as I hobble to the bathroom to pee. The cats stay away, though at some point I hear them sliding across the living room floor, chasing that knitted ball with the bell. They sound far away. I sink into scalding bathwater—steam rising around me, my skin red—but it doesn’t feel anywhere near hot enough. I eat a deviled egg. Hear the glass of seltzer fizzing on my nightstand as I turn onto my right hip to relieve my left. Awake time for the day: 45 minutes. Sleep time: 20 hours. In-between these two: three hours of semi-comatose wondering, wondering if I’ll ever get back a bit of the life I once had.
*from “Sick Notes: The Story Inside the Illness: Memoir Meets Case Study”
- by amymilios.blog
Link to Master’s Thesis on ProQuest
United States
Like a tennis ace, all
Crisp white shorts, and shirts
Fresh every day,
He sits over the breakfast
Table, too big
For any chair, an elbow
Planted, a one-hand scoop
Of eggs and bacon,
Solid muscle in the arm
And thigh, his neck
A bronze pillar
Of glowing flesh.
And then you see
Slight tremor, and glimpse
The massive continuing act
Of self-control that holds
This huge frame
Together, prevents
Spillage, leakage, any sign
That one day soon
Tendon may spasm,
The merest lifting of a fork
An impossible task,
And are aghast
Before this terrible
Doomed dignity.
- by David Punter
WordPress: davidpunter.wordpress.com
Anthology: Bristol: 21 Poems (published 2017)
UK (but written in the Maldives)
