Pencil Love, Natasha Bascombe

Why Oh Why do you neglect me? Is it because I don’t pencil in to your busy schedule, or maybe I’m never on point. Is the “Hustle and Bustle” of life too much for you to handle, so much that you can’t have one minute with me! NOT ONE!

I noticed our time was fading, so I decided to reflect. Reflect because I knew what was to come. I thought of the great masterpieces we created together. Your sweet hand around my waist… Your grip not too strong, not too lose, but firm and confident… All the complex problems we went through, Fought through, and FINISHED! All the sweet nothings you wrote that poured from your soul into mine! I collected them ALL, HELD them for YOU, I WAITED!

I WAS THERE! RIGHT THERE! Your friend! Your companion! Your LOVE! YOUR LIFE. I lived for you and you for me. We were what is said “meant to be”. Our connection gleams like star rubies, blinding everyone with our talent. A duet we are, A duet that sang a song with no end… The melody rings loudly in my head now as I glance down at reality. What once was, but no longer is. I look down at the blank paper and see my vanishing soul. That once loving hand reaches again, but this time to throw me away. For I am just a pencil now…No Longer your own…

Zindagi, Deepika Kewlani

Zindagi is not just breathing
It's not just surviving
Zindagi nahin hai just being a human figure
Aapka zindagi kimti chees hai
Please don't waste
Reincarnations, nahin pata hai kya hoga
Enjoy every minute as if there is no next
Kyun ki nahin pata hain if there is anything left
Do you really know the truth?
Zindagi mein sab chupa chupi hain
You need to live to find out what zindagi really is
Yeh toh son nahin hai, lakin kimti toh hai
Lakho is not enough to purchase life
Aapka kyal rakhna, zindagi pura karo
Don't waste something more precious than gold
LIFE

This Friend of Mine (Ode to a Bar Stool), Kaitlyn Pyne

A lifeless, dull object lies below me
the copper color as bright as a shiny new penny
I feel like an empress gazing down at her subject,
on a cushion as soft as a feather
Blue stripes, alive as fireworks,
dance across a dark blue sky
This tall obtuse object with secrets from the past,
alive in its backbone,
aching for more gossip, more heartache
It looks soft and timid among the other objects
ashamed of its color, its size, its shape
it's no wonder why, with legs long like a model
Alive is this lifeless shape,
content am I

nuts..., joanna vogel

The last man on earth sat in a room…
There was a knock on the door.

“Damn-it Sheila!” Herb screamed, banging his fist on the mahogany arm of his swivel chair.

“Herb, Soup’s on!” Sheila gave a final smart rap on the door, ignoring the “Do Not Disturb” sign that hung from the knob (the other side of which read “Maid, Clean This Room") and walked back to the kitchen where steam rose from a pot of murky green, split pea soup that rested on the stove.

What a loon. She thought, slicing a small loaf of olive bread. All this “I’m the last man on earth and it’s up to me to continue populating the species. Come on Sheila, come on baby, play along.” Why couldn’t he do something normal like start a bridge club or be a Trekkie? Anything.

But no, always this last man bullshit. Three O’clock in the morning and there he is, poking away. “Come on baby, come on. It’s for the good of the species…”

As if it wasn’t enough that she had been married to him for thirty years and had borne him two children. No. Now at fifty years old she had to start re-populating the goddamn planet.

“Ouch!” Sheila nicked her thumb with the bread knife just as Herb strolled into the kitchen, bare feet sticking to the linoleum tiles. Fly open. He didn’t even say anything. Just stood there with his fly open, leaning against the fake marble countertop to give her the best possible view of his open fly.

A drop of blood fell from Sheila’s thumb onto the un-sliced portion of the bread. It rolled down the floury crust, to create the tiniest pool behind the un-sliced bread, on the wooden cutting board.

“Oh for goodness sakes.” and she ran at him with the knife.

Life, Ginny Georgekutty

Every day she woke up
sitting in the kitchen
gazing out the window
with their faces looking back
not with the same smiles she knew
only with the regret, the fear and the anger
hidden deep inside her
It had been years, probably three
if she had to guess
yet she still could not grasp
that they were truly gone
she kept thinking
It couldn't have happened
It must have been a dream
Yet she knew inside
it was the only true reason
for the mess her life became
they say time heals all wounds
sure she thought, but with a scar
as a reminder each day
of the life she now faced
all alone, by herself
Why did it have to be her
Why not the bloke down the street
or the one next door
who's simply bored out of his mind
she didn't want this life
with nothing but pain and suffering
nothing but a million corpses
or the funerals of their families
grieving over their loss
of course, what would you know
you didn't live this life
She got up with a heavy sigh
and walked out the door
willing to finally face
the cruel, unfair reality
she tried to hide from, for years
in spite of her fears
of being alone,
or making mistakes
without them there to help her up
but that's the way life works
random with its twists and turns
she just had to learn to face them,
and make the most of them in her life

"Ashley Wrote This in The Car This Morning Because Ms. Mayo Said To" (or "Normal", if you'd prefer something more conventional)

Why aren't you like us?
Why don't you like what we like?
What aren't you normal?

What is normal?
Aren't I normal when I act like myself?
No normal is what's usual

Then whats the usual?
How I usually act?
No usual is whats ordinary
Normal is ordinary!

So, whats ordinary?
Something thats not special

What about unique
Different
Remarkable
Me?

Well thats why
Thats why I'm not normal

for you on a holiday, joanna vogel

I am not in the fashion of receiving
gifts.
I make strange faces
to convey gratitude,
then cover them with my hands.
All you see are my
nervously bitten fingernails
which cannot really tell you how
much I think my heart
might fall out from loving you,
and how inadequate I feel in return.

I think I may be a little old
to start breaking out the hot glue,
the paper plates, elbow macaroni, and,
in the absence of my needles and wool,
I have knit you a poem for Christmas,
for Hanukkah,
for Kwanzaa and New Years.
Now, don't get too excited,
I don't know what you've heard about me,
and remember,
this poem is a generic.
Come to think of it,
I think I might sell it
to my pharmacist,
might barter it with those
silly Hallmark people,
and get you a proper gift.