“I have a request to make of those who read Empty Shells. If any friend surmises he has discovered the author he will be courteous enough to keep my secret. I have left out a great many poems that would have betrayed my identity, and put in none that I have cause to fear. Why then publish? I have no right to count on a long life and I am not willing to be ‘edited, revised, and corrected.’ On the other hand, I feel towards my poems as many women do towards their weak children; and treasure them because if they were conceived in grief they healed my heart. After the first smart of a new loss was softened, next to writing my greatest comfort was reading; and I did not then seek great authors. Shakespeare, Milton, and Goethe were naught to me: I sought minor Poets — of whom I dare hope to be one. Could I but be a like comfort to some simple, sorrowing hearts I should feel my life-griefs had not been in vain.”
-all posts-
Hard enough
If guilt or regret is an essential part of your grief, you will never stop grieving.
Winsome, losesome
Love isn’t just blind
but also stupid —
lobotomy by arrow
bullseye, Dr Cupid!
2024
I know a guy.
Angry. Festering
in disappointment
of the world
and of himself.
A little depressed.
Sick of doing
the same. freaking.
thing. every day.
Wondering where
his lost youth went.
Hungering to replace
the comfort and
all the good things
in his life that
have gone away.
But resolutely
continuing on
doing his duty.
Living with the pain.
Loving while he can.
Taking any little
laugh he can find.
Then doing it all
over again. Perhaps
you know him too.
Perhaps we all do
— inside.
Cicatrixoxo
Most of our scars are internal.
Queen of Self
Work hard, enrobe yourself in velvet hope, and rule your world!
Coldhearted
Hail is angry rain.
Lion’s outlook
“I will hear not those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious.”
—Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman in the World, 1968
A little blue
“I’ve been feeling a little blue — just a pale, elusive azure. It isn’t serious enough for anything darker.”
—L. M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island, 1915
Always This Paying
Nothing is really any fun,
because you’ve always got to pay for everything.
—D. H. Lawrence, Pansies, 1929
Perfectionism
I beat myself up every day without so much as a scratch.
Ember
days in winter
fall so short —
as the sun sets
loneliness rises
no Physics
dancing under midnight stars
on damp grass in the dark —
a good friend by my side
youth’s music in our ears
wildcats watching hereaway
in the cool fall desert night —
zero credit hours for school
but dozens of them for life