Gone
You were there.
I saw you in my dreams.
Cold is where the heat was.
You are out of reach by the fingertips.
A tip of the tongue is where I say your name.
You disappeared.
Suffering Past – after Diana Khoi Nguyen
We wear our past like too tight sweaters.
We dance at parties, smiling large and bold
while our past hangs on our shoulders
showing stains and holes cut in tears.
I try to leave the house without them
but they chase me like
crazed liquored up weasels,
snapping at my heels,
spitting my own tears back at me.
We must come to terms with our past
transform it into our future,
twisting it like red licorice
grasped in little fingers turning and turning
it straight.
The Lost One (Hour 1)
It could be my thoughts,
Don’t know what they cost,
My life or my goal,
They swallow me whole.
The thinking keeps me cold,
Far away from gold,
Buried inside my bones.
The lost one roams,
In search for a home.
Hour 1
Solitary hours, a darkness so silent
Except the hum of the light
And the thoughts of regret that play
Over and over like a skipping record.
Broken wires, torn pages, squeaks
And creaks, a fake oasis,
No rest or solace for the souls
Seeking a place to be useful, to
Find purpose, only another outpost
Another node on the short string of life.
Refuge
Refuge
Darkness surrounds me.
No moon or stars to guide me.
I am lost with no hope.
The path is narrow and the journey long.
Perils and predators lurk in the black forest.
In the midst of my gloom, I stumble into a clearing.
A warm light beckons me.
A comfortable cabin awaits me.
My steps quicken to reach the door.
A rush of restored hope wells up within me.
I am safe at last.
.
5:15
Dreams swirl
into the suction hole
of memory.
Emails shriek,
“This is how
many times
you should shower!”
Delete, delete,
delete, delete.
Even the dogs
and the laborers
remain asleep.
I check my pulse,
feel the current
course through
what remains
of my veins.
Determined river,
released from
slumber’s dam,
shoves its way
through the blockage
and flows upstream,
unencumbered.
How many more days
until it runs dry?
Prompt 1 – Weaning Too Young – A Canine Sonnet
Image Courtesy of Pixabay
I held her in my hand,
A newborn
German Shepherd pup;
“It’s too soon, Little One,”
I whispered,
“You’ll need at least six more weeks
Of suckling
In order to survive
And grow up strong…”
But of course, she didn’t understand…
And then, her mom took over…
With the expertise
Of a Canine Mom
She nursed her pup to life
Antoinette LeRoux © 2023
2023 – Hour One
Unprompted: “Purpose/Beyond the Mourning” [2023: Hour One]
Tiny hopes and dreams,
Unravel at the seams,
Giving way to truths that,
Beyond the mourning,
Will water our growth;
And send our souls soaring.
Police Officer in Jonesboro
They appear on the screen of his flip-phone
small squares becoming large
grainy, somewhere below 240p
he took them on the last call
‘You know how some people say we’re social animals,’ he says
as I’m met with body after body
bullet-riddled and bent over
limbs lackadaisical or ramrod
eyes wide with mouths agape
‘Well, we aren’t.’ Dragging on his cigarette
fathers, brothers, husbands
rendered into useless fat
mind-break fuel
free anatomy lessons
funerals without open coffins.
Tomorrow
Repeat
emerge from algorithmic slurry
one day out of the year I relearn how to talk
Repeat
rote gibberish for the content scraper
the overmind that changed everything
tomorrow
Repeat
for some reason
It claims to be new
it’s not
so you can
Repeat
some people use distraction
some use fear
hunger or pain
so they can
Repeat
no matter the method
Tomorrow
the world continues to turn
as I observe intently
so I can
Repeat.