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.

Hour One 2023- Maui

I am not the person I was a year ago.

I cannot grasp the dark world around me.

The changes within the home I love.

The pain palpable,

it permeates every breeze.

It beats in every heart

including my own.

A warning beat like

a ceremonial drum.

I am safe, unharmed.

My bones are not a part

of the Maui world.

I am an interloper.

An Invader, a settler.

But my heart bleeds.

It aches from every cell.

My tears always at the ready.

No words can

fill this new void.

I wail in the darkness,

feeling more tenuous than ever.

Safety gone.

Hope set ablaze.

Lying in ash.

All that was, is no more.

I am not who I used to be.