Tag: Grief

Lost

~ Yanagi Studios

By D. S. Johnson

Voices raised and voices shook
Words were read, hymns were sung
Casting, now and then a look
Towards where she now lay

Heads were bowed and tears were shed
Hearts were bruised, hands were wrung
Deep beneath the flowerbed
We buried her away.

O, simple loves and simple joys
May, fragile, be snubbed far too young
This little girl, amongst her toys
Was hope, another day

Now joy is dead and hope is lost
Our hearts are left forever stung
With clouded minds we bear the cost
We must forever pay

Twins

~ Yanagi Studios

By Thomas Caterer

You’ll feel better when you look they say
Hands shake, knees about to buckle
You stare into the casket
Her face made-up, red lips, ghost white skin
She’s dressed for a wedding or a party
She sticks out where everyone’s dressed for a funeral

Her last words, ‘I can’t feel my leg’
The peritoneum flooded with blood
Like invaders rushing the city walls
A liver ripped in half
So violently, so casually

The twin thing, the special connection
Sensing her never again
Two sides of one coin, with one side scratched off
The tight knot in your stomach
The snake crawls along without a care
Inside of your skin
This is what emptiness feels like
Hands grip the coffin
Despite all the laughs and smiles that will hide it over the years
You know that some part of you will forever feel
Some small part of this endless emptiness
Always

A Place Where He Speaks

~ Yanagi Studios

By Thomas Caterer

How quickly the days became months and then years
My continued crisis a vile tribute to my base fears
In the immediacy of your premature death
I was confined by piteous concerns of ego
In my dull stomach a regret stirred, numbed by tears

In the final few months as we watched you decay, I played the mother
Preparing your meals, only for them to be abandoned, one after another
You shared the tales of your trips, speaking to gods in a sea of colour and light
An innate need to dispel fright, to accept death, you’d lost a friend too
We discussed the mutual fear in the dead of night, of the dark that will smother

I can only hope you found peace after your last breath
I wish that we could hug now and talk of death
As we did in dreary, rain-sodden nights in feckless England
I know we were both troubled by the silence of God
I hope you found a place where he speaks…