Questions

How did it feel when I was finally arrested?
Did it bring you glee to know I was handcuffed and taken away?
Were you happy your long standing desire was finally fulfilled?
Were you satisfied with yourself?
Did you celebrate?
Did you pat yourself on the back triumphantly?
Did you rejoice knowing I was forced into the company of actual criminals?
Did it make you giddy to know I experienced the humiliation of being strip searched?
Were you finally satisfied to get the mother of your children arrested?
Was it all you hoped for?

Who does that?
Who plots plans premediates such things?
Who bates and berates?
Who starts a fire and fans the flames?
Who then pretends that they didn't create the inferno?
Who has no remorse?
Who shows love like that?
Who did I marry?
How soon can I be free?

-gws

Better

I have been asked
If I thought I didn't deserve better
If I thought I couldn't have better
If I thought he was the best I could do
NO
I knew I deserved better
I knew I was worth better
I knew I could have better
I was in love
I believed my relationship 
Could become better
Would become better
I just had to wait and believe
I clung to breadcrumbs
While my soul starved
I believed in a dream
Long past its expiration date
I held onto hope
Even when the nightmares 
Haunted the wakeful day
I had to do everything I could
Until it became undeniably clear
There was nothing else I could do
When it was clear it was him and not me
I had shown up
Put the work in
Tried and cried and tired again
And he wouldn't meet me
He couldn't accept responsibility for his part
He wouldn't do the work
He wanted me to keep changing
Transforming
Making myself less so he could be more
Smaller
More compliant
Less of a person
More of a puppet
A Stepford Wife
That could never please him anyway
I knew that my luminescence was what drew him to me
My shine was acceptable then
My shine is acceptable now
Just not to him
I knew love shouldn't feel like this
Be like this
Behave like this
Hurt like this
Love does not bully
Love does not belittle
Love does not plot against the one it adores
Love does not manipulate or blame
Love does not destroy others to make itself feel powerful
My hope became my prison
An escape room I allowed to be created around me
I found myself trapped in its ever shifting walls
It would take time
It would take opportunity
It would take all the courage I had to leave
To choose me
And to not look back
I do deserve better
And reclaiming myself
Is where I start to create better

-gws

@wordswishesandwisdom
Happy NaPoWriMo! Here’s my Day 25 poem called Better #poetry #wordsmithing #poem #writer #wordswishesandwisdom #poet #poetsoftiktok #poetryTok #NaPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo2024 #poetryreading
♬ original sound – GWS

To Thine Own Self Be True

This above all 
To thine own self be true
But damn
Is that a hard thing to do
I want to hold 
To my own principles
To set firm my jaw
And without a pause
Hold firm the ground
I'm planted upon
But when I say no
You refuse to move on
Turning my insides
Upside and down
Knitting my eyebrows
And causing a frown
Why is honoring me 
Such an ask
It's not like I'm begging
Some outrageous task
I'm asking for only
Mutual respect
Yet you recoil
As if you were decked 
Leaving me feeling
Like I've caused you harm
While my heart is rattling
My chest in alarm
Now I'm a monster
For making my needs
A priority which 
Leaves you aggrieved
One day soon 
I will disavow 
Ownership of 
What's forced on me now
I will figure out how
To my own self be true
And with peace in my heart
I will leave you

-gws

@wordswishesandwisdom
Happy NaPoWriMo! Here’s my Day 23 poem called To Thine Own Self Be True #poetry #wordsmithing #poem #writer #wordswishesandwisdom #poet #poetsoftiktok #poetryTok #NaPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo2024 #poetryreading
♬ original sound – GWS

When I Met You

When I met you
You were charming
But nowhere near perfect
You were charismatic
But endearingly flawed
You were looking for a party
But you accidentally found a home

When you met me
I was unapologetically myself
But I was naive
I was willing to take risks
But not necessarily with my heart
I was looking for experiences
But accidentally found connection

What I didn't know
Was what a damaged soul looked like
What I didn't know
Was that you were a blackhole gobbling the light

What you didn't know
Was I was a whole universe
What you didn't know
Was divine light cannot be devoured

We didn't begin as we ended
We started as a soft glow
Hopeful and carefree
I couldn't tell you when
I think the inferno began

I became the fuel that you would burn
Trying to fill your infernal yearning
The gaping emptiness inside of you
With a meaningful light
That once was me

I thought if I loved you enough 
I would somehow be enough
To sate your appetite for more
But all you were was an insatiable maw
And I a blazing star
Who's fire was never bright enough
Who's light could never warm you up
Because black holes cannot be quenched
They can only demand - MORE

So I became a comet with a star at its core
My corona full of survival and fury
Breaking free of your event horizon
I would not be devoured by your darkness

Now no light surrounds you 
You have consumed all else you had
Nothing orbits you but cold and quiet
The space around you dead

When you met me 
We had hope we could love each other well
When I left you 
Was to heal from just how far I fell
But I'm a girl with phoenix wings
And a star within my heart
I blaze a trail across the sky
As I make a fresh new start

-gws

@wordswishesandwisdom
Happy NaPoWriMo! Here’s my Day 14 poem called When I Met You #poetry #wordsmithing #poem #writer #wordswishesandwisdom #poet #poetsoftiktok #poetryTok #NaPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo2024 #poetryreading
♬ Very Sad – Enchan

Monster

Photo by Elu012bna Aru0101ja on Pexels.com

Am I now the monster you wanted me to be
The one who looks only to me
Who collected every tear I cried
Until they became a tragic sea

Upon that sea I built a boat
And struggled just to keep afloat
While you growled and raged and stormed
And locked my voice inside my throat

For years I let you make me small
Choking me with blame for all
Your vast fears and insecurities
Your own inflictions you can't recall

So let me be a monster now
And you can tell exactly how
You took a girl who loved you well
And nearly broke her spirit down

But don't forget to tell the tale
Of how that girl did so prevail
Walked away for good and true
And cut herself a brand new trail

-gws

@wordswishesandwisdom
Happy NaPoWriMo! Here’s my Day 13 poem called Monster #poetry #wordsmithing #poem #writer #wordswishesandwisdom #poet #poetsoftiktok #poetryTok #NaPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo2024 #poetryreading
♬ Ambient-style emotional piano – MoppySound

Ritual of Returning and Release

I sit in my silver armor upon my golden throne
Light streams in through my temple's high windows
Painting the floor below my dais in deep lavender beams
The temple is quiet and familiar and mine

The doors to the chamber open and he enters
Shadows trailing from his shoulders 
Like a cloak woven from smoke
He strides forward 
Until he is stopped by the barrier of lavender light
We lock eyes with each other
He kneels upon the stones 
A gesture of only minor supplication
For his eyes never leave mine

I close my eyes and breathe
I feel the gauntlets release from my wrists
The greaves from my legs
The chest plate and chain mail
The weight of them suddenly gone
I open my eyes and watch as the armor becomes dark smoke
Passing through the boundary 
Returning to him
I do not need protection any longer
The silver collar releases from my throat
Then the silver circlet from my brow
And last the silver band upon my finger
The weight of him removed from me
Cleansed and returned to his keeping

My eyes return to his
Now he breathes deeply and black smoke flows from him
As it passes through the lavender boundary
The smoke becomes like liquid gold
A delicate gold filigree pendent alights above my heart
Glowing with a quietly fierce fire
I can feel a gentle thrum as it syncs with my pulse
Upon my head appears a grand and golden fiery crown
Radiating strength and power
Pulsing with each breath
Now restored, these symbols of my power blaze to life
Burning away every shadow in the temple
Returning the quiet fire to my eyes

His shadows retreat as does his gaze
He bows his head once
This ritual of returning and release ended
I watch as he rises, turns, and retreats
He disappears back through the temple's doors
They close silently behind him
Tethered together no longer
I sit in my power
Whole again and free

-gws

@wordswishesandwisdom
Happy NaPoWriMo! Here’s my Day 11 poem called Ritual of Returning and Release #poetry #wordsmithing #poem #writer #wordswishesandwisdom #poet #poetsoftiktok #poetryTok #NaPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo2024 #poetryreading
♬ Last Hope (Over Slowed + Reverb) – Steve Ralph

Love is Not Enough

"Love is not enough"
This was a truth I gave you
In place of a kiss goodbye
Love is not enough to bridge
The chasm separating us
Neither is it flexible enough
To withstand the tension
It cannot rewrite our history
Erase the years of pain
It cannot alter reality
Nor save our unsalvageable marriage
The love between us is a shadow
A wraith
A  remnant
Of a hope dressed up to look like love
In third-hand threadbare finery
The illusion shattered
And the real state of things exposed

-gws

@wordswishesandwisdom
Happy NaPoWriMo! Here’s my Day 6 poem called Love is Not Enough (it’s day 6 – really) #poetry #wordsmithing #poem #writer #wordswishesandwisdom #poet #poetsoftiktok #poetryTok #NaPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo2024 #poetryreading
♬ original sound – GWS

Unlearn

I need to unlearn your touch 
The sound of your breathing 
Next to me in the dark
I need to unlearn a lifetime 
Of everything about you

-gws

Getting Over You (and Other Divine Interventions)

The Universe intervened
In our amber-trapped lives
Cleaving us asunder 
Now that your umbra is clearing
I begin to see the Universe has
Gifted me infinite sunrises 
Bursting with innumerable possibilities
After half my life with you
Standing you up
Holding you up
I find myself suddenly free
Of the responsibility of you
I delight in the joy of doing anything
Without your judgment
I relax remembering that there are no 
Relentless expectations to navigate
I revel in a full night's uninterrupted sleep
I relinquish more and more tension from my body
As each day passes without you
A single divine gift containing 
All the possibilities I can dream of
I will not get over you in a day
You have left me a moonscape
Desolate and damaged
I will redeem and reclaim myself
Both shadow and light
Ever shifting and changing
Just like the magnificent moon

-gws

@wordswishesandwisdom
Happy NaPoWriMo! Here’s my Day 3 poem called Getting Over You (and Other Divine Interventions). #poetry #wordsmithing #poem #writer #wordswishesandwisdom #poet #poetsoftiktok #poetryTok #NaPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo2024 #poetryreading
♬ original sound – GWS

This is the Poem I’ll Never Write

Holding hands in matching rockers
Laughing about when we were young
You reminiscing about record stores and ska shows
As I tell our grandchildren tales of magic
Spending our sunset days in loving conversations
Each other's best bestie
Strolling into the ever after that follows the happily

-gws