Lullaby for the Lost

No funeral

No flowers

Put it out with medical waste

No tears

No prayers

Sympathy is for the chaste

No one's bringing you a casserole

No one's sending you a card

You caused yourself this grief, this sadness

Now no one cares if it is hard.

No right to mourn

Carry the scorn

Your choice, so you said

Time to move on

Glad that it's gone

Flush it away, it's dead

Your dirty little secret

You kept it sterile, clean

No name for your lost baby

The one that could've been.

submitted for dVerse Poetics, Taboo Subjects, at dVerse Poets Pub

Elegy for a Childhood

image source

It was the thirteenth of September
1981
I gave you what you wanted
Afraid that you would run
I lost more than my innocence
I lost my sense of trust
That bad things just don't happen
To good little kids like us.

I watched the days creep by
On my calendar on the wall
I watch the summer sun
Become the winds of fall
I hated you for what you did
And I hated God for fate
I prayed each morning on the bathroom scale
Then see if I'd gained weight.

It was the thirteenth of November
Two months to the day
I walked in to the clinic
The price I had to pay
To pay for our stupidity
With my shame, my fear, my blood
In two hours I walked out the door
You were relieved
I wasn't pregnant anymore.

If we'd known what we would create
If we'd known what we would destroy
If we'd known how our lives would change that day
Would it have made a difference anyway?


Aside from minor editing, this poem was written in 1990 and has been hibernating in a folder since then. I decided it was ready to come out today.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank at Poets United

I Am One

Look me in the eye

Call me a slut

A whore

A sinner

If that's what you think I am

Don't hide behind your signs

And your slogans

And your fake smile

While your teeth drip venom

Don't pretend to like me

When you see me around town

Then whisper sharp rumors

Like knives that stab my back

I am one of those

Who has done the unspeakable

Speak to me!

I am sick of being stifled

I am sick of being shamed

Sick of wearing this tape over my mouth

And averting my eyes to your gaze

I am one

And it's time that I spoke

I would rather be spit upon

Than forgotten

Bleeding

From a wire hanger

Or a knitting needle

Between my legs.

submitted for One Shot Poetry Wednesday at One Stop Poetry

October Moon

Autumn wind brings you back

Like the fallen leaves

Ghosts of the dead, unborn

Ghosts of those not mourned

I hear your whispers

I feel you inside

Come back to haunt

The house where you died

Scraped clean like a Halloween pumpkin

Trick or treat; no one’s home

It’s been 30 years

Leave me alone

I danced with the Devil

Drank the witches’ brew

I howl in the nighttime

Beneath the October moon

submitted to PhotographProse on 1/20/2011

Photograph Stylist: Linda Gaspich
Prose Stylist: lolamouse