The Sanity of Doubt Filled Dreams She wears crimson lips / like poppy petals dancing on a breeze. Her house falls down around her, as she picks through pieces of her dream, no opening left to fill. She has nothing to do right now, so, she wades barefoot into the sea. Waves crest above her ankles / as she sinks slowly into wet sand. The white, and red, and gray of her reaching for a prayer. Gulls cry out, forsaken, as she loses her mind, and softness closes in. When the Child Within the Child Has Parted Go backwards forty-nine years: I am the child / that carries a son within my shell. He does not know that he exists / he was not meant to be. A mindless act, not planned / chalked out on a blank board. My vacant childhood / locked in a discarded box, fighting for latitude /suffering seeped out. I rebelled my torture / choosing freedom, only to be caged by my own witlessness. I ran away to hide / wanting to adult. I did not know how to resolve pain. I perpetuated the sin that I tried to escape. Wanting love, I could not shelter the lie. Tearing down walls / I braved conclusion. Torn from my screaming frame, I let them take you away. The fire left within me burned through my weak flesh. I bled out all sanity / needing to hold you in my arms. Two broken souls / both children. A turbulent future opened its hands and we fell out. Tangled roots / intertwined we grew apart. Voices Inside My Head I wash my sins down the drain, with the taste of you on my tongue. Your bitterness fills me with loathing for myself. Broken bed. Broken chair. I am splinters, strewn about the floor / discarded confetti / last year’s party. I try to grasp thin air, while breathing in blue / or was it purple? Trying to hold on to what sanity I have left. The golden dawn is too far away to reach. I curl up in an empty soup can / to be recycled, with used up guilt and broken dreams. I wonder – did you ever think of me / did you ever care? The voices grow louder / I cannot shut them out. Solitude of Mind You invaded my body never giving me a chance to resist. There was no escape - no place to hide. Silent echoes slowly sinking into a clouded pool of dreams. Captured, alone, released. We sat upon empty promises. We carried fingerbowls of restitution - not owning anything but our remains. Subscriptions of lost forevers drift above the realm of facts. We do not know what we cannot understand. Years stole away the joy of future hope, aging past our own design. How could you be so cruel? We walked into a grayness that would not allow the sun. Time counted out each step we had no choice. We are here now - ravaged by distant loss. My body decays in increments with each breath. Alone, I sit with my desires there is no turning back. You have dismantled all that is left of me. There are no answers - if there be questions. For in the end, we die alone. The Dying of a Mighty Fortress The castle stood a thousand years, bowing to the sun. Turrets rose above clouds, piercing heaven’s realm. Stone by stone we plummeted to earth. An abandoned shell that lost its soul to the sheering wind /whistling through vast emptiness. Its throat had lost the taste for blood centuries ago. We used to be so strong. Now a place of curiosity. Its heart no longer beats. Sky falling all around, as daybreak pulls open tattered curtains, & ancient walls crumble into dust. Imprisoned within these screaming rooms are countless ghosts. Tales of knights in armor & ladies veiled in silk, echo through vast halls. Stories no longer told. Ravens perch on high sills, overseeing their domain. I stand on the precipice calling out your name. A wayward gust swallows my voice. Once a monument to greatness, the ages claim their derelict prize. “To be or not to be,” a tribute to the past. Time rules all things with an iron hand. Nothing is powerful enough to last forever. The castle weeps a final tear.
BIO:
Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry. She is the winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year, her bio is featured in the “Who’s Who of Emerging Writers 2020 and 2021,” published by Sweetycat Press. She is the author of 14 poetry books, and one short story book. lives in Delaware, USA. She loves gardening and cooking.
Chris lives with her husband and four cats. Her most recent credits are: Sparks of Calliope; The Closed Eye Open, Poetic Sun, Tangled Locks Journal, Wild Roof Journal, The American Writers Review, The Scribe Magazine, The Phoenix, Burningword Literary Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Silver Blade, Pomona Valley Review, West Texas Literary Review, The Hungry Chimera, Sheila-Na-Gig, Fourth & Sycamore.