Caring to Forget
by Jessica Hartley

It’s so hard to admit I miss you
When I know you don’t care at all
It’s so hard to remember the mountain top
When I so vividly remember the fall
I remember when we were happy
When nothing could tear us apart
I remember how complete I felt
Now I have the pain of a broken heart

My mind has been running in circles
It won’t let me sleep at night
My body has become exhausted
My heart wants to give up the fight

I never imagined I’d be here
Missing everything we had and shared
I thought I was over this feeling
I thought I no longer cared
But this pain has become too much
I can’t keeping hiding how I feel
Everything has come crashing down
Nothing in my life seems real

I never thought I’d be here
I didn’t think it was true
But here I am, still in pain
Because I’m missing you

Lately I have gotten some submissions that were very “raw” poetry. More of a muddled lump of feelings with no structure. Sabraya sent me this poem, filled with such emotion I had to structure it for her and this is what I got.

You Are The One

You are . .

The one who has a hold on my dreams
The one who I never want to leave
The one who I remembers the past is the past cause we are the future

You are…

The one don’t want to be without
The one who suppresses the pain
The one who is my guiding light
The one who brings me up when I am down
The one who makes me smile while being the only one to give me butterflies
The one who has given me hope, to love, to be special
The one who makes it easier to live day by day without shedding tears

You are my first love and God willing the only
You are my heart, my soul and everything in between
You are it…
You are my trouble and my annoyance, but we make it through
You are him.

You are…

The one my heart belongs to forever
The one that’s always on my mind

The words on the tip of my tongue…
I . . love you, yet i can not say them enough
Enough to express my hearts joy to have found someone..
To my heart with yours.

You are my love, my hope and my strength.
You are truly, My one and only

by Sabraya Ibrahim
edited by Matthew Henrickson

The Bog Road

The road wound down past Mureen Hill
Still, dull, glaucous
The place where my Mother was born
Towards the strange silent bog
Its forbidden charms and sweet earthy scents
Compelled me there every day

I drank in the heady air
Thick with the drone of bees
Hollow drips of water
Seeping into deep pools
Lazy currents of wind
Playing at the top of the whins
A peacock butterfly
Still against the warmth of the road
Little yellow flowers
Poking through the tar
Malin Head shimmering in the distance

My steps drummed up
Rich memories
Caught like beads of dew in soft webby cushions
Lying on my back in the heather
The sun on my face
Looking up at the sky
The sharp sweet taste of sorrel on my tongue
Combing Granny’s silky white hair
Her warm sweet baby smell
Wardrobes stuffed full of old clothes
Mothballs, lace mats, death sets
Granddaddy on the doorstep
Hands clasped behind his back
Watching the weather
On the Inishowen Hills

Carmel Gibbons

This Is For You
by Lamia Allen

This is to all the girls who thought they had found the “special one”
The girls who gave their whole heart to that one “special” guy…
Who ended up being left picking up the broken pieces
To those who can still look him in the eyes and tell him she still loves him
Knowing she won’t get the same response
To those who remember getting that warm fuzzy feeling the 1st time they heard him Say those three “special” words to her
To those who felt the tears running down their cheeks
When they learned he had found someone new to love.
This is for you..

To all those girls out there who stayed on the crazy roller coaster ride
Just because they felt it was worth it
To all those girls who cried long after everything was said and done
For all those who still feel it’s not over
To those scared to move on for fear of “what if?”
For all the ones who thought it would never end
This is for you…

Thanks For Making Me, Me
by Jessica Hartley

I haven’t been to this place in awhile
I walked into it alone
Staring at the blank computer screen
While my mind wanders on its own
Memories overtake me
The past replays in my mind
I want to live in the present
But they keep pulling from behind
I miss the friendships that I’ve lost
And the people I’m starting to lose
I wish I could make everything right
But i don’t know what to choose
There are people in my life now
That are very important to me
But there are people in my past i’ve lost
That developed who i would be
So now I’m left with the decision
To hold on or let the past go
While I try to cling to the present
The memories continue to show
I know I’m a different person now
From who I used to be
But I will never forget the people
Who helped to make me, me

Standing all alone… just waiting
Trying to find sunrise falling
Like a flower waiting for blooming

I’ve been there too long without a goal
With my thoughts, my mind waiting for the call
That will prevent from slipping in that hole
Not because you’re old and I’m just too small
Then I should spend my lifetime learning to crawl

Empty streets as I go on walking
Beneath the yellow trees I fly
I can’t just keep on quoting
And see the whole world passing by

Those colors won’t be the same
Everything gets too old
And one day they’ll become lame
Exactly like a paper when it folds
As people who left after they came
Turned to no color, from bold

We’ll all be gone for good one day
When nothing you can anymore say
So just take the chance now
And do everything you have to do

Maybe I’m still young to take some steps
But adults were younger before
God gave me those lips
To talk, end and start a war

You can consider me an old child
But sorry, I’ll not accept being ignored
I’ve the ability to find, that’s why I got a mind
And I have those hands to write the word
That anyone can read, even the blind

For my dream I swear I’ll fight
Till the last breath I’ll never give up
Even though I still have my hands in my pockets
Waiting for the sun to rise
I’ll forever be a human being that has… the right

by Reem Emad Mahmoud Awad – Age 16

Me and him are something like confetti, bright and colorful in every way.
Our personalities unmatched, but yet they flow so perfectly.
It’s what makes us so close.
But just like confetti when it blows away, his colors will leave.
My colors will dim, and wither.
Never will I find another so bright like him.

by Alexandria Purnell

What A Shame
To be alive but never live, What A Shame!

To be blessed with everything, yet enjoy nothing; What A Shame,
To have the gift of knowledge and not help someone else to learn,
What A Shame!
To be full with greatness an ideas and share with know one but yourself,
What A Shame!

To refuse to give of yourself
What A Shame!

To have eyes but refuse to see,
Ears but refuse to hear,
Hands but refuse to reach out to others,
Feet but refuse to go that extra mile;
What A Shame, What A Shame, What A Shame!!!

Written by Brenda G. Partridge-Brown
Stone Mountain, Georgia

Monday, two in the afternoon
a great man was born today.

Alone in this house,
a room painted orange
notebook on salmon-colored pillow.

I hold my breath and listen deep,
a digging sound in the corner of my mind.

Some termite’s gonna dig the ground right up
from underneath me,
carry me to the center of the earth.

There are only two paths from there:
escaping my termite overlords, or
imploding body into self,
recycled into magma chambers.

Ticking clock, a red line
following its path across a round, clear face.
We look into time,
but does time look back?

Outside a child calls
and two blocks away, cars blaze past
sun’s out but my fingers freeze
exposed in winter wind.

I hold my breath and listen deep
by a house which never changes
and the wind can’t reach my still-warm center
wiggling life back into toes.

Beating in the corner of my chest
my eyes an unreliable narrator
in this story of my life
and this is an afternoon alone.

This poem was submitted by C-Squared of Dark is Easy

Life is like a valley.
A valley from which
carries shadows.
A land from uncertinty
and of the dead.
The smell of fear,
from the far.
A given time to
someone’s end.
Like a waterfall
of dry crusty sand.
Nothing can stand,
the wasted heat.
From this barren wasteland,
nothing can be heard,
except the moans of the dead.
The bones are laid in
a pattern for whom to
come and see.
Life has becomed a desert,
for nothing to live.

-Lukas G. 

“My poems aren’t like usual poems…I like to make people think about what they do and what they can see if the future doesn’t come out like we think it might be like. I know this one is kind of dark and I wrote it when I was living in a RV because Hurricane Wilma had destroyed our house…”