Guilt Poems
Quicksand
by Jazmin Houghtaling
Sometimes I feel like I'm sinking.
Like I'm being pulled down by an invisible force
Unable to bring myself back up.
I feel like I'm slowly being dragged under a quicksand that is impossible to escape.
I've been sinking for most of my life.
I've found comfort the sand.
After a while the sand drowns my feelings.
My legs go numb and I no longer feel the pain.
......
11.15.23
by Jade Adams
did I speak too softly?
did I laugh too deeply?
breathe too loudly?
were you too cold - the way that I was too cold? were you searching for warmth in my ribcage? I’m covered in frostbite.
I can’t stop shivering.
is my hair too long? did you wrap it around your fingers too tightly? It must’ve hurt. my shirt is tinged in red, the stains won’t wash out.
......
The Shame of Gaza
by Richard Randolph
If the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust
saw their descendants treat an ethnic minority as second-class citizens,
what do you think they'd feel?
And if they saw them relegate these people
to poor ghettos, deprive them of basic rights,
and then systematically steal their lands,
what do you think they'd feel?
And if they heard them refuse to help these people
have a homeland of their own, claiming there’s no room,
while they live on lands taken from these very people
......
i’ll always love you
by CJ Lara
“I’ll always love you,”
you said
and at the time
i believed you,
believed the notion of pity
under thinly veiled expressions-
oh, he’s ashamed,
oh so ashamed
oh what else
......
Window of a scarred heart
by Cash Olds
LOOK AND SEE. Start from within, being as truthful as you can possibly be. Look out from the scarred window pane of your very own heart. LOOK AND SEE; the pains of this world that have overtaken your trust, your innocence, none the less your ability to live. To live as you had as a child when the sun would glow and the sounds of this world were welcoming rather than deafening.
All of us! All of us that are unable to not be weighed down, and who are chained to our thoughts of wrong, a wrong being held upon us that has no clear sentencing, no clear solution, nor an outcome that could ever possibly draw any closer than unattainable. The baggage we feel we are responsible for on our very own that no other could quite possibly come to grips with.
How can we still hold the belief that happy, not just a momentary experience but as the very climate of an unwavering constant could exist, much less be close enough to strive torwards?
As I look out my window and once again take a necessary assessment of the world that surrounds me i find it is not the lost and misguided who hold no truth that oppress me, but it is their unknowing mis-guidance and the forces that bring about their deprivations that do so. finally, yet maybe most important a lack of unconditional love that bring such pain about it must be unloaded unto others a pain so full that it must literally spill out into the laps of others; often interpreted as hate and discord.
Whoever has the wisdom to see it as so, LISTEN! can we really exclude ourselves from that which we despise? Can we really talk about it as if we never willingly shut our own eyes in order to take part, no, not one of us can. Not one of us can boast of perfection.
......
My Murder Confession
by Melvyn Kairupan
In a haze, I stumble,
tripping over my own feet,
dragging my breath through a hill drowned in fog.
Cold. Fucking cold.
Solitude chewing through my skin,
biting into my bones.
And then—
you.
......
Out of guilt
by Saleh Ben Saleh
I think about,
the right and wrong.
And good and bad,
that comes along.
So on my guitar,
I play a song,
to ease the pain,
of morals gone.
For every tune,
......
Mr. Tree
by Rohan Dhulipalla
the sakura tree
in the dusty ol’ dark corner of the failing shop,
(although the owner would beg to disagree)
priced at $7.95
with a cardboard sign fastened with white cable ties
reading “UNLIKELY TO STAY ALIVE”
it appears that it was trying to expand,
to spread its branches,
but expansions weren’t in demand
......
The Shame of Gaza
by Richard Randolph
If the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust
saw their descendants treat an ethnic minority as second-class citizens,
what do you think they'd feel?
And if they saw them relegate these people
to poor ghettos, deprive them of basic rights,
and then systematically steal their lands,
what do you think they'd feel?
And if they heard them refuse to help these people
have a homeland of their own, claiming there’s no room,
while they live on lands taken from these very people
......
Forgive me
by Sonja D.
I don't know you, woman,
I see your wit and charm
a soul so brave and good
fighting for just and right.
Can't help but wonder, lady,
what story behind that image
careless whisper boldly say
you are none of my concern.
......
