Category: Pain/Sadness

Blog, Pain/Sadness

Down But Not Out

by  •  • 14 Comments

Down But Not Out

Demeaned, dismissed, destroyed
Yes!
These are things that you have done to me
I fall down under the pressure of your assault
and I feel you stomping
on my goodness, my kindness
Hurting, bruising, humiliating
Yes!
I am defeated at these times
You kill me with your anger
and crush me with your words
I represent someone
you need to punish and assail
In your mind you have been triumphant
and I have been destroyed
but my spirit can never be broken
It will always be mine
 
 
Copyright © 2021 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved


Lisa from Tao Talk is hosting tonight at D'Verse Poets.  She has
prompted us with lines from Ernest Hemingway to inspire our poem.


I chose:

‘But man is not made for defeat,’ he said. ‘A man can be destroyed but not defeated.’
From The Old Man and the Sea

Image by KLEITON Santos from Pixabay 
Blog, Pain/Sadness

Love Lies Bleeding

by  •  • 4 Comments

Love Lies Bleeding

The sun bleeds it’s last drop
of red into the ocean
Bidding farewell
to a day filled with raw emotion
Words weaponized
Driven in like daggers
Leaving scathing, open wounds
becoming forever scars
Tattooed reminders
on broken hearts
Uneven and crooked
Nerves stretched taught
like catgut strings on a guitar
Where one more pluck
will result in a snap
Rendering a melody
forever played out of tune


Copyright © 2021 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Prompts

Drive - Steam of Consciousness
Snap - FOWC
Blog, Pain/Sadness

The Stranger In My Midst

by  •  • 7 Comments

The Stranger In My Midst

I loved you for your differences
They intrigued me
Fascinated me
You were the square peg
in a round hole
Socially awkward 
Entertaining and sweet
Vulnerable yet strong
I was smitten
and life was good
But then, without warning
I would see the flip side
The monster who reared its head
Combative and cruel
Detached, aloof 
Seeing me as an enemy
Blind rage
taking life from your eyes
Who were you in those moments
when I lost you?
Never knowing
if I would ever get you back
Sometimes it was a day
Other times six months
or more
This time?
Probably never
Now those differences
Separate more than bind 
and cannot be bridged
The chasm has become too big
We have traveled too far
In opposite directions
Who are you now?
Someone I no longer recognize
Or want

 
Copyright © 2021 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved
Blog, Pain/Sadness, Quadrille

Wound Up – A Quadrille

by  •  • 43 Comments

Wound Up

My nerves were 
so tightly wound 
one sound of dissention
would make me jump
from my shivering skin
 
Your words, as always
hateful and cruel
were like salt poured
in an open wound
Stinging and painful
 
Fearing the worst
I escape before
finally snapping
 
 
Copyright © 2021 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Lillian is hosting Monday Quadrille at D'Verse Poets tonight
She has prompted us with Homographs.  A word that, although spelled
the same, has two different meanings depending on how it is spoken.
The word she has asked us to use is "Wound".  We can use it once 
or twice showing both meanings.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash
Blog, Pain/Sadness

Unheard – Poem of the Month – May 2021

by  •  • 87 Comments

Unheard

My words do not reach you anymore
They hang heavy in the air, waiting to be heard
Full of love, passion, anger, questioning
But your ears are closed to them
They fall to the ground unanswered
As is always the way
 
You, too busy speaking your own truths
to care about my thoughts and dreams
I die a little death each time this happens
Over time parts of me become numb
Where the life once used to be
Benign stumps from which nothing will grow
 
Neglected like a plant trying to thrive in a closet
No sunshine to nurture life or water to quench its thirst
When the desire to speak and be heard is eventually lost
Then that is when you will hear me no more
The only sound to be heard will be you
Talking to the wind
 
 
Copyright © 2021 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Mish is hosting Open Link Night at D'Verse Poets tonight
Blog, Pain/Sadness

Stolen Love – A Puente

by  •  • 24 Comments

Stolen Love

Closeness of two bodies 
Huddled in chilly night air
Promises whispered 
in white smoke breath
Impending separation
Daunting, destroying
 
~ Togetherness uncertain ~
 
Stolen love has a price to pay
Lying to one, lying to all
Saying what has been said
to another is second-hand love
Impure and sullied
Unhappiness, loneliness
 
 
Copyright © 2021 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Merril is hosting D'Verse Poets tonight and has prompted
us with "Bridge".  We may either use the word in a poem
or write a "Puente". A poem linking two stanzas by a bridge (a puente)

Photo Pixabay
Blog, Pain/Sadness

Love and Hate – The Flip Side

by  •  • 21 Comments

Hate the Opposite of Love

HATE 
 
Because of me, in the valley of death
You die slowly like the petrified trees
  
I remember how you looked
How your face would contort in pain
When I angrily screamed at you
  
Because of me, you despise the chaos
of the city
the faceless crowds hurrying to their
destinations
 
I remember your silence, your piecing stare
from those unforgettable eyes
  
Unlike the scent of blossoms
Your memory of me is ugly
A weeping sore that will never heal
Untouchable as a leper
  
My words can still sting
Like a thousand angry bees poked from their nest
You will always remember the hurt
But my face will be obliterated from your memory
  
Because of me, the stench of swamp water
is ever present
Because of me, you will never search
for love again:
shooting stars and falling objects will kill you


Copyright © 2021 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Written for D'Verse Poets my poem HATE is written as the flip side of Pablo Neruda's poem LOVE (see below)

LOVE by Pablo Neruda

Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers 
I ache from the perfumes of spring. 

I have forgotten your face, 
I no longer remember your hands; 
how did your lips feel on mine? 

Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks 
the white statues that have neither voice nor sight. 

I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; 
I have forgotten your eyes. 

Like a flower to its perfume, 
I am bound to my vague memory of you. 
I live with pain that is like a wound; 
if you touch me, you will do me irreparable harm. 

Your caresses enfold me, 
like climbing vines on melancholy walls. 
I have forgotten your love, 
yet I seem to glimpse you in every window. 

Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me; 
because of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitates desires: 
shooting stars and falling objects. 

Lisa from Tao Talk is hosting D'Verse Poets tonight and has prompted us
with Flipping the meanings of poems.  I chose one of Pablo Neruda' beautiful
love poems and wrote the opposite. 

Image by Harsh Vardhan Art from Pixabay 
Blog, Pain/Sadness

Derailed – A Quadrille

by  •  • 22 Comments

Derailed

Fraught with anxiety
from your polarizing display
of how to sabotage this special day
My nerve endings are stretched
and entwined into an intricate
pattern of macrame-knotted pain
I am frozen in place and time
Numbingly shocked by the spectacle
I have just witnessed
 
 
Copyright © 2021 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Mish is hosting Monday Quadrille at D'Verse Poets
and has prompted us with the word "knot" to be used any
which way we choose

A Quadrille is a poem of exactly 44 words, excluding the title


Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Blog, Pain/Sadness

Why?

by  •  • 38 Comments

Why?

 Why do you ask me?
 Isn't it obvious?
 Don’t you hear me crying?
 Don’t you see my pain?
 Don’t you listen to the words
 that spill from your mouth
 like a ferocious, raging torrent
 of festering, poisonous spew?
 What’s the matter with me?
 Are you out of your mind?
 You clearly do not have a degree
 in the bleeding obvious
 Because if you did you would know
 I am human, damn it
 When you strike
 with your sharp, stabbing words
 I hurt
 I bleed
 I cry
 But you do not stop
 and
 this being human is not worth it any more
  
 

 Copyright © 2021 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
 All Rights Reserved

 Kim from Writing In N. Norfolk is hosting D'Verse Poetics
 tonight and has prompted us with starting our poem with
 the following line:
 
 "This being human is ..."
 
 I'm afraid I broke the rule and ended my poem with the line
 instead.  I hope Kim will forgive me.

 Photo by Johnny Cohen on Unsplash
Blog, Pain/Sadness

Into the Darkness

by  •  • 14 Comments

Into the Darkness

An ever-consuming sadness
envelops your body in
a diaphanous veil
A storm brewing in your mind
Words of reason hide in the penumbra
Marinating in suppressed anger
that dwells there
Instinctively I know what is happening
I recognize the warning signs
triggering your frustrations 
What the eyes don’t see
Intuition already knows
Watching a rerun of the movie
I have seen so many times
I sense the imminent deterioration 
of what was once a beautiful mind
The beginning of the end



Copyright © 2021 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Prompts

What the eyes don’t see - RDP Saturday
Penumbra - RDP Thursday
Deteriorate - FOWC
The beginning, the end - Stream of Consciousness 

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay
%d bloggers like this: