poem

Shroud in Shadows

~ Liza Fernandez ~ 4 Comments

She came in shadows underneath a bright-lit sky.

She came shroud in darkness and deceit and false hopes
She flung onto anyone who would catch them.

She came waving her wands, spitting her vile, taking
Taking, taking, taking
Taking everything he had tried so hard to keep from her.

He had made promises that he had kept,
But she had come to snatch the promises away
To throw them to the dirt
And trample them until they were naught but ashes.

She came with all the hope and peace and love in the world
Not knowing that hope and peace and love look different through different eyes.

She came trying, with open arms,
To embrace all of the world, and all of him,
And found, when she drew her arms back towards herself,
That she had taken his very life.

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The Fog (Part 1)

~ Liza Fernandez ~ 2 Comments

The fog was going away.

It had started to come in almost from the beginning;
She could not remember now a time when it was not coming in.
It had come in under clouds, under the sun, under star-less and star-filled skies.

Over the water that matched the sky in its vastness,
Creeping, rolling, floating, streaming forward
The fog had come in

To the shore filled with rocks and sand,
To the sparse grass,
To the tall trees that were now the only ones that had lived in clear air.

The fog had come in from no one knew where
Blowing into the roads,
Swirling around lamp posts,
Making dogs howl
And children cry.

The fog had come in,
Had crawled up the walls,
Had entered through open windows and through cracks under locked doors.

The fog had come
And it had found her.

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Man-Made

~ Liza Fernandez ~ 4 Comments

I don’t know
How this is where I came to be.
They said, “Stay away,” and now this is where I’ll linger.

I came, searching, because you would not show me plainly.
I came, hardly aware, of how bright the sky could be,
Of how solid death could be,
Of how dim and weak my life has been.

They said, “Don’t! Because…what if?” And now the what-if’s are all I see;
They’re shroud in gold, and freedom, and peace.
All the what-ifs I was made to fear
Now walk besides me hand-in-hand
Afraid of me.

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Gutless

~ Liza Fernandez ~ 3 Comments

There is nothing left to say
And I am blank.

The words had spilled out so freely,
Tumbling forward together,
Racing and shoving to form a thought.
There had been so many thoughts, for so many years,
Now all dried up in months.

She had sat for endless nights
Through endless notebooks
And endless made-up lives.
She had burned,
And singed and bled,
And had had the happiest nights of her life.

But now the words were silent
And her mind only echoed voices from the past.

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Nutshell

~ Liza Fernandez ~ 4 Comments

You clear your throat
On the outer side of the universe,
And I jump up in my bed,
Suddenly afraid of the dark.

When we walked together,
In my perceived “hand-in-hand,”
Me as a child,
You as a god…

…What would a god have to do with a child?

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Let’s Go Free

~ Liza Fernandez ~ 7 Comments

I thrust out my hand,
Hold it over a flame.
You scoff,
As though it were a bad thing
To prefer fire
Over numbing ice.

I walk forward
Into an unknown,
Braving for once
To take a chance.
You smirk,
As though maturity meant
Being willing to stay
So unsatisfied.

I come to the shore,
Fling away my clothes,
And walk unhindered into the waving waves.

I delve into the water,
For once fully alive:
Light entwined with darkness,
Life a play thing with death.
You sit dry on the shore
And wonder at my wanting to be cleansed of your
Dirt.

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Wrong

~ Liza Fernandez ~ 5 Comments

“There is nothing else,”
So I turn away
From colors, from sounds, from eyes that see
To grayness and a blank
Placed for those who are not sated.

“You were wrong,”
I know
(And you’ll never let me forget it),
So I draw out the blade
Over the last of untouched skin.
“You were wrong,” you repeat,
“To offer any sacrifice.”

No sacrifice,
No sincerely-I-do love,
No level of child’s understanding,
No effort
To counter your “This is all there is.”

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