You Never

You never got to fully develop your little body.
But I can picture every detail of your perfectly formed features
As clearly as if you were before me.

You never got to wriggle and squirm in my belly.
But I can still feel you.
A hollowness inside that cannot be filled.

You never got to know my touch or arms holding you tight,
But I caress the memory of you with love,
Hugging my pillow at night, wishing it was you.

You never got to breathe and fill your tiny lungs.
But I take deep breaths to soothe the ache in my heart.
Sighing, for what should have been.

You never got to hear my voice or know me as your mother.
But I speak to you often and the person in the mirror
Wears traces of you, etched in the lines of her face and on the curve of her lips.

You never got to experience happiness, joy, or excitement.
But I lived there during the twelve weeks you were with me.
A brief interlude that was over before it could truly begin.

You never got to experience sadness, loss, or fear
But I know that if you had, I would have always
Picked you up, held you near, and comforted you.

You never got to see your potential fulfilled,
But I dream of the ‘what ifs’ and alternate realities
All the endless possibilities, never realised.

You never got to cry out loud or shed any tears,
But I have shed enough for two lifetimes.
Maybe more.

The scar upon my soul
Is the only proof I have
That you ever even existed.

You will forever be my baby,
Never a toddler, child, teenager, or adult.
The scale of injustice tips me over the edge sometimes.

But in the end, the balance is always maintained.
For everything you never did, I have done for you.
You are gone little one, but never, ever forgotten.

By Sarah ©2022

Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Story Swap #2

Originally written November 24, 2012. The due date of my lost baby.

Never Again

A chance.
A hope.
A dare.
A dream.
A disappointment.
A response.
A misunderstanding.
A problem.
A despair.
A regret.
A mess.

A valuable lesson learned.

Never again.

By Sarah ©2022

Better

I am better than this.
But still, I slip.

A slip.
A spiral.

Ashamed.
Around in my head I go.

Torturing,
Self-eviscerating

Every. Moment.
Replayed and amplified.

A car crash of thoughts and feelings.

There’s a scrap heap in my mind.
A junk yard fire.

I am better than this.
But it’s got the best of me.

By Sarah ©2021

Reasons for Admission

My reasons for admission?
Shall I tell you?
Do you really need to know?

For years I’ve stayed tight-lipped.
But my ego has become a prosthesis,
that no longer fits;
that I no longer wish to wear.

I have become an inconstant texture –
The clang of discord, congesting my brain.
I’ve tried to think in reverse.
Gunshot wounds, fighting the fire.

Too much seduction and disappointment,
have led to these dissolute habits.
This yummy life, a pipe dream.
No longer solvent.

Is it self abuse?
To listen to this incessant gurgling.
Or am I required, like the olive tree,
To be patient for the fruit.

So reasons for admission?
You decide…

By Sarah ©2021

Prompts: Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Sunday Writing Prompt and Wordle #238

Punching Through

Image credit Tobias Keller via Unsplash

silhouetted beasts
guide me through darkest moments
’til sun’s rays punch through

By Sarah ©2017

Prompt: Only 100 Words, Three Line Tales – Week 95

Yield

Confusion.
Saturated mind
unable
to sort through;
prioritise challenges.
Moonstruck by my fears.

Day by day,
with ragtag mounting,
I feel I
am drowning.
The sun is shimmering still
– but in me, no more.

Do I sail
raging seas, or yield?
A conflict –
Desperate
wanderlust away from self?
Or stay. Fight the fight?

By Sarah ©2017

Prompt: Sammi Scribbles, Weekend Writing Prompt, #29 – Random, Task: Poetry Challenge – Write a three verse poem, where:
• each verse focuses on one of the three random words (Moonstruck – Ragtag – Wanderlust)
• and each verse must somehow reference the photo prompt in some way

and also; Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Saturday Mix, Lucky Dip – 18 November 2017, Task: Write a Shadorma about an emotion (I have obviously chosen to write about confusion!)

Chaos On Black

Image credit Alex Iby via Unsplash

Run aground; blinded.
No blue skies or sunshine here.
Just chaos on black.

By Sarah ©2017

Prompt: Only 100 Words, Three Line Tales – Week 93; and also, Daily Post Daily Prompt: black

Rented Smiles

It’s a sly decline.
Renting smiles,
whilst secretly dropping
my blossoms.

Trying to deny
the bellow inside
like a child,
locked in a closet.

What fate am I weaving?

By Sarah ©2017

Image credit Patricia Lara via Unsplash

Prompt: The Sunday Whirl, Wordle 324. Words: bellow, weave, smile, deny, child, fate, closet, blossom, sly, rent, drop, decline

Outside Myself

Being.
Confused; detached.
Watching, hearing, saying,
never understanding; I’m outside
myself.

By Sarah ©2017

Image credit kellepics via Pixabay

Prompt: Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Sunday Writing Prompt, #225 – Know Thyself

Lift

Caught in the struggle.
I hold no power in this web.
Creating a swirling storm,
My mind has become a mystery;
Keeping me on the fringe of sanity.
I’m starting to list.
My star is fading.
       Oh, to take 
                 charge on this
lonely road.
When will it lift?
Please lift.  (Sigh)

By Sarah ©2017

Prompt: The Sunday Whirl, Wordle #320. Words: struggle, power, fringe, mystery, list, star, swirl, road, storm, sigh, lift, charge

No Tea Today

“Well, I didn’t want tea anyway.” 
and no, I don’t, want you to stay.

Please, will you just go away!
Leave me to wallow in my way.

(That’s what I do, when my mood is grey)
It’s best to keep yourself at bay,

Lest that I should make you pay.
Well-meaning helpers make good prey;

A target at which to aim my spray!
The best of intentions cannot sway,

What heaviness upon my shoulders weigh.
Instead, I’ll  wait for sunshine’s ray,

To lead this present bleakness astray.
But for now…Come what may.

By Sarah ©2017

Prompt: Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, First Line Friday – September 15th 2017

Slipping

A hole has been burrowed into my core, and I have been scooped out. Damaged and broken, I cannot be whole. Surely, my heart will die, in those briefest moments, between dream and reality, when I become aware I am lost, and that I will never be again. Like smoke curling skyward, I slip through my desperately grasping fingers. I clutch at wisps of me, for this is all I have now.

in murky waters
malevolent fingers tear
unseen misery

By Sarah ©2017

Image credit Pixabay

Prompt: Daily Post Daily Prompt, core, clutch, express; and also, Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Heeding Haiku with Chèvrefeuille, September 13th 2017 – despair

The Black

Image credit Laura Makabesku

The darkness had finally shown itself. Though she’d tried to keep it at bay, it had edged its way out. It had been a fluttering of feathers; tickling at her conscience. Then, an unfurling of wings, covering her hope. She tried to hold it close, clutching it to her breast. Tried to absorb it back into her soul, where all things secret lay. But it was too late; she was exposed for all to see and she was terrified. Rolling up her shadow and searching for light, she could find nothing, but the black.

fallen from the light
the raven calls me again
shadows descending 

By Sarah ©2017

Prompt: Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Photo Challenge #177; Colleen’s Weekly Poetry Challenge #47 – light and shadow; and also, Daily Post Daily Prompt: black

Askew

Something is off.
I’m feeling askew.
My optimism rough.
Confused what to do.

I’m feeling askew.
Stuck in my mind.
Confused what to do.
Thoughts so unkind.

Stuck in my mind.
My soul in despair.
Thoughts so unkind.
Catapult me out of there.

My soul in despair
My optimism rough.
Catapult me out of there.
Something is off.

By Sarah ©2017

Image courtesy of Boaz Yiftach at FreeDigitalImages.net

Author’s note: Thanks Miriam Hurdle for inspiring me to try this new (to me!) form of poetry. This is my first attempt at Pantoum in response to the Daily Post’s Daily Prompt for 24/5/17, ‘catapult’.

Please visit Miriam’s site and pantoum ‘Letter in the bottle’ .

Prompt: Daily Post Daily Prompt, Word: catapult

Pantoum Poem:
There are four stanzas in the line patterns of
Stanza 1 – 1, 2, 3, 4.
Stanza 2 – 2, 5, 4, 6.
Stanza 3 – 5, 7, 6, 8.
Stanza 4 – 7, 3, 8, 1.
Reference: https://www.youngwriters.co.uk/types-pantoum

The Person in the Mirror

Who is this person in the mirror that I see?
Surely, that person, cannot be me?
With a tightness to her mouth that was never there before,
A smile barely gracing her lips anymore.

Eyes that do not twinkle or shine with delight,
Instead marked with sorrow at the loss of tiny life.
Sagging shoulders tell of lost faith in all things good,
When bad things happen to those it never should.

The sense of failure and loneliness running deep within,
Cannot be covered up by make-up upon her skin.
Her footsteps falling heavily, she no longer walks light.
Her dreams but a distant memory of only ‘what might’.

New creases and wrinkles have been etched upon her skin,
As a souvenir of the journey, of grief that she is in.
A future being unravelled that was never her chosen path,
Others moved on – her alone in the aftermath.

Bitterness and resentment is the taste left in her mouth,
Anger and jealousy the only words she wants to spout
Each day she wears a mask so that noone sees her pain,
But in her heart she knows she will never be the same.

Thoughts of hope so hard to grasp, no matter how she tries
Happiness so far away, it seems only a lie.
Dark smudges show she’s tired. Resigned to this new fate.
I don’t want to be this person, but I fear that it’s too late.

By Sarah ©2012