Banished

revolving doors.

where do I come
where shall I go.

uncertainty, fear
unending chaos.

where do I come
where shall I go.

stillness and shadows
foot in or foot out.

where do I come
where shall I go.

continuous conceal
dispirited, quiet.

where do I come
where shall I go.

forgotten and lone
forever surrounded.

where do I come
now I shall go. Exits.

---

Sorrow

“Not this day” I heard your soft whisper faintly in my ear
hollowed weight in my arms
unrevealed grace without justification,
substantially heavy
you gazed at me, searching for my rectification.
“I can’t let go” I pleaded at your mercy
just one more day next to your warmth, embracing.
As your last breaths rhythmically slowed down
into lost fragments, robbed pieces of time.
Holding my breath afraid I would drown
In those instances, I didn’t revere that you were all mine.
I can hear your footsteps searching for me
I hold on to your cushion, tears trickling down my cheeks
if I had only told you what you signified indeed
“I am not ready” I cried, everything feels so painfully bleak.
Yet your departure was so tranquil and quiet,
for you it is what I despairingly desired.
I can’t bear it if your sudden farewell was in fact your retaliation.
As I held you and witnessed you crossing the threshold, into a new creation.

Vanquished

fifteen.
A strike in the face
my startled perplexity parallel to Gramps’ aged and toothless grin,
Daddy’s chuckle deafening my earholes, my skull
Throbbing, while
Grandma’s evasiveness loudly gnaws
at her supper.
Nothing

had happened.
No spark of revelation, no perturbation.
It had happened to her
It had happened to Mother
It happened to me.

A cycle of perpetual
screams, wails, flinching, terror, whimpering…
Sirens, red and blue lights.
Condemnation, its ceaseless passenger.

Twenty-seven.
A kick on the thigh, taste of blood on my mouth,
lying on the cold ground, staring out the window at the vast black sky.
Succession, rotations, no ending in sight.
Contusions and lesions subdued and resigned.
Sirens, red and blue lights, disbelief in first class.
A gurney underneath me, my head veered to the right,
And there I was,
Looking into my daughter’s eyes.

One.

---

Beatriz Iglesias is currently is a student Broward College majoring in Elementary Education. She loves to write fictional stories and poems. These are her first published works.