It Wasn't Over When You Died

 

IT WASN'T OVER WHEN YOU DIED

A poem about how child abuse can be passed on through generations:

 

It wasn't over when you died,
When I was still too young to know
The damage that you did inside,
The pain that I would undergo.

When I was still too young to know,
You did to me what things you would.
The pain that I would undergo
Came later, once I understood.

You did to me what things you would
While I lay numb and still. The hate
Came later, once I understood
The sorrow that you came to sate.

While I lay numb and still, the hate
Arose in you as love, as need.
The sorrow that you came to sate
Then passed between us in your seed.

Arose in you as love, as need
To undergo yourself in me,
Then passed between us in your seed,
Became your lasting legacy.

To undergo yourself in me,
The damage that you did inside
Became your lasting legacy.
It wasn't over when you died.

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Journeyman. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/itwasn.html. For more poems about child abuse, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/childabusepoems.html .

Poem of the Week

November 10, 2011 #659

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Veterans Day.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Vast fields of crosses, all the same,
Each embellished with a name.
This is what your love had sought!
Embrace the child become a thought,
Reduced to regimented loss,
A name screwed on a plain, white cross!
Nor can you feel what you must feel
Since what is real cannot be real.
Devour the moment, make it yours,
As life continues on all fours,
Yearning, begging at closed doors.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

December 3, 2009 #558

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about death.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week." You can also cast a vote for it to boost its popularity on Yahoo Buzz.

You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Years turn the pages; the book remains.
No one can see the life it contains.
The story is over; it sits on a shelf
Outside of time, complete in itself.
Ah! Could we know! But never we will.
Now it is sealed, silent and still.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

November 19, 2009 #556

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about marriage.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week." You can also cast a vote for it to boost its popularity on Yahoo Buzz.

You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I do not understand why you don't love me.
You loved me once. What changed? What did I do?
Your eyes are mirrors in which I can't see me.
Your lips are closed, a door I can't pass through.
For years we shared our bodies, thoughts, and lives.
Now we lie at night encased in stone.
Something's turned the simplest words to knives.
I live with you, and yet I live alone.
I do not want to be the one who leaves.
After all, I'm not the one who changed.
But dead is dead, and for the one who grieves,
The loved one should be gone, not just estranged.
You say that nothing's wrong and all is well,
But I well know the truth you will not tell.

© by Nicholas Gordon