It’s in these dark moments
When the night is still
I sit quietly, listening for an answer
Even a whisper will do
But like all futile desires
I wait in abandoned apprehension
For I know the likelihood
Is a ruse I dare not believe
And why must I dwell on answers
That I know aren’t really there
It just seems easier
To surrender to defeat
© 2020 Michelle Cook
Photo credit: https://pixabay.com/photos/violinist-fantasy-inspiration-4972270/
Steaming smokestacks fade
Against a hazy world
I often feel the same
© 2020 Michelle Cook
Photo credit: https://pixabay.com/photos/industry-sunrise-air-pollution-1752876/
I want to live
Where the waves crash upon the shore
To hear those tumultuous waves
Pounding like pistons
Smoothing every jagged rock
With timeless precision
Ever reminding me
Of the silver linings
Found in my afflictions
For with every persistent beating
Comes polished perfection
© 2020 Michelle Cook
Photo credit: https://pixabay.com/photos/the-beach-gravel-the-morning-rock-3266660/
I realized something today
I love too fiercely for this world.
Perhaps people think I’m disingenuous
when I pour out everything I feel.
And I wonder what I should do
about all the love I have to give.
If I could bottle it, I would.
Surely someone would want it then.
If only I could share my love
with those who really need it,
or pour love into people
who are suffering from the lack of.
The biggest problem is
love hurts when you try to hold it in.
And carrying it around inside of me
is a burden I’m no longer willing to bear.
Sometimes, I just wanna rip out my heart
and feed it to the wolves.
At least then I’d finally be free
from the urge to ever love again.
© 2020 Michelle Cook
Photo credit: https://pixabay.com/photos/people-one-window-abandoned-3111875/
There was a time, long long ago,
when grief consumed and controlled me.
Desperate thoughts and delusions
carpeted the walls of my mind.
And if memory serves me correctly,
it all began one unsympathetic night.
I was lost in empty thought.
Resting quietly,
against the old familiar comforts,
which only a saggy, depleted featherbed can give.
But powdered blue notions,
ran rampant that eve,
spinning a trap, right in front of my eyes.
And nothing could have prepared me
for the ambush; I was about to face.
Typically, I have always been on the offensive,
but that night, I was taken by complete surprise.
It seemed as if a tornado,
one filled with erratic and overemotional thoughts,
had somehow landed on top of me.
I felt my chest tighten,
surrounded by every last unfortunate thought I’d ever had.
Even the cuckoo down the hall
seemed to chime a little less enthusiastically
as I wrestled with my mind.
Every hope, wish, dream,
seemed to vanish into thin air.
I was left nauseated by midnight blue reflections,
and I laid there motionless,
desperately waiting for dawn to arrive.
At first light, I knew something was still terribly off.
I became temporarily crippled,
the fear of ignorance—all-consuming.
The overwhelming feelings,
ones comprised of dolor and distress,
clung to the recesses of my troubled heart.
I was quite literally suffocating,
in-between swells of uncertainty.
It wasn’t long before mama came looking for me.
I must’ve had the look of death itself,
as the light in her eyes
grew instantaneously dim.
Mama worked to make sense of my sickly state,
and I tried to give her all that remained of my spirit.
But my half-smile looked more like a frown,
and there was just no way of deflecting
all the worry situated in her gaze.
I knew right then and there;
mama had recognized my face as her very own.
It seemed the dispiritedness in our humble abode
had finally caused the undulating waters to reach me.
As I now reminisce,
recalling the details of that one unsympathetic night,
I realize just how long it’s taken for the floodwaters to recede.
And even though the waves have since quieted,
I am still not the same girl I once was.
© 2020 Michelle Cook
Photo credit: https://pixabay.com/photos/sleep-bed-sheets-covers-comforter-839358/
Her Writing Haven 