emotional

How ironic
That you don’t like it
When I stand up for myself:
You’re the one
Whose weapon words
Gave me real-time training
In the art of self defence.
Had I not learned
To deflect your contempt
And resist your hateful words,
I would not be here today.

You prompted my resistance,
Inspired my defiance,
And forced my indifference
To anything else you have to say.

So thank you, I think,
For helping me become someone others like
Infinitely more than you do.

Thank You… I Think
#poem #Poetuit
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I have sewn these seams a hundred times:
Letting out,
Taking in,

Adjusting for change,
Suturing wounds
And mending the tears
Through which too many have left,
Exposing for a moment
That which I wish to keep hidden:
Tender flesh, secret places,
A soul worn and tattered;
Safely concealed
Beneath the careful tailoring
And confident colour
Of that which I display to the world.

Today,
In the quietness of my sanctuary,
I gather my fraying finery
Close to my breast,
Protective of its frailty,
I weep,
Overwhelmed by the agony
Of an injury so profound
It may never be repaired.

And then,
Because I have no choice,
I begin to stitch,
Yet again.

*Photo artwork by Joanne Van Leerdam. June 24, 2020.*

Tears fall,
Can’t stop them,
Can’t hide them.
You’re gone,
Can’t bring you
Back again.
Why am I always the one who is feeling
The pain of the wrenching and tearing of leaving?
Why must this pain be so raw deep inside of me?
My heart
Misses you
Desperately.
Please say
That you won’t
Forget me.
I can’t imagine my life without you in it,
Bereft of the light and the joy of your loveliness,
Every room filled with the echoes of memories.
Never
To be the
Same again.
Tears fall,
Into the
Loneliness.
You’re
Gone.

Mourning Song.
#poetry #grief #Emotions #poetrylovers #personal #ReadAWrite
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This poem is included in my collection titled ‘Leaf’.

Listen,
Now that you’ve made it clear
That I don’t matter to you,
I need you to return my things:

The time you were always asking for,
Countless borrowed hands,
The respect you mistook for deference,
The love you took for granted,
My confidence,
My dignity,
And everything else you took
When I wasn’t looking.

Given that ‘New Horizons’ just won first place for Short Story in the Summer Indie Book Awards, I thought I would share a story from that book this week.

I hope you enjoy it!

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she lied.

So he left, not worried at all.

And she stayed, as she always had.

She had always wished he would touch her face gently, or hold her hand, and say he’d be back as soon as he could be. She longed to hear him tell her that there was nowhere else he would rather be than with her. She wanted him to hold her close when the nights were long and lonely. She craved for him to love her the way he had promised to, all those years ago.

But her hopes had faded with her memories of their happiness. For all she remembered of those times, it could have been someone else in the faded pictures in the album that she knew by heart, but could no longer bear to open.

A wedding dress. A baby’s first steps. A smiling couple in front of a small house in the suburbs. A schoolboy. A graduation. Another wedding dress.

The only thing that mattered anymore was the baby, and he was long gone, a grown man living on the other side of the country, pursuing his own hopes and dreams.

Probably for the best, she thought. No point in him knowing what my life has become. Just let him be happy.

What she wanted now was to be somewhere – someone – else. It almost didn’t matter where, or who. Those things are not so important to someone who has almost entirely forgotten who she used to be.

She gazed at the leaves falling in the yard, flurries of colour falling to the ground, skittering playfully in the breeze.

So free. So beautiful. I wonder how they know when it’s time to fall.

Then she realised: they just do. It just happens.

She turned away from the window and went to the closet. She took out a suitcase and began to fill it with her things. She was preparing to leap from her tree and fly to another place.

She was afraid of falling; she was afraid of the wind.

But she was more afraid of staying where she was and ceasing to exist at all.

‘Late Fall’ appears in New Horizons.
Find out more at www.jvlpoet.com/books

Tag: emotional

Thank You… I Think

Mending.

Mourning Song

Final Notice.

Late Fall.