Tag: life

Growing

by Kerry Van Dorn | akervand, posted in Original Work, Poetry

I know I have been stunted

Growing in this place

So far away from all that is bright

A darkness without light

A belt of wheat and God

Growing in this place

My life remained unclaimed

I only ever felt ashamed

written – July 15, 2018

That Phrase

by Kerry Van Dorn | akervand, posted in Original Work, Poetry

I’ve always hated the phrase

Where do you see yourself

In a year, in five, in ten years?

To the people asking the question,

I don’t know is never acceptable.

The truth is never a correct response.

Because the truth is that

I cannot see myself today

Let alone tomorrow, or even a year from now.

To the people asking the question,

Only the appearance of an answer matters.

After the question is asked and answered,

They get to go on about their day, oblivious.

While I am still left with the question.

Written – 03/10/2017

I’ve had a guest in my house

by Kerry Van Dorn | akervand, posted in Original Work, Poetry

I’ve had a guest in my house.

An unwanted visitor in my life.

One who’s overstayed his welcome.

In the morning, I wake up; he is there.

At night, I go to sleep; he is there.

Some days he’s even so bold,

He puts on my clothes, does the things I do.

He goes about my life pretending to be me.

A facsimile approximating what I want to be.

No matter how much I beg,

How much I scream and I cry.

He flat out refuses to leave.

All I want is to be finally free.

written – 03/09/2017

Fountain’s Leak

by Kerry Van Dorn | akervand, posted in Original Work, Poetry

There’s such a clarity,

Looking down,

Hands stained in ink.

I Don’t know, I guess I feel

authentically me.

Am I a poet?

by Kerry Van Dorn | akervand, posted in Original Work, Poetry

Am I a poet?

Or just some joker

Writing down words

No one will ever see

To satisfy some need

Misguided as it may be

To puff up my soul

Full of self-importance

Pretending some art

I do not have

But soothes some part

Of my myself by whimpering

Into the moonlight

Feigning some loneliness

Of an unearned pain

I do not have the right

Whatsoever to claim.

Or am I just a poet?

Someone once said

by Kerry Van Dorn | akervand, posted in Original Work, Poetry

Someone once said that to hide part of yourself,

you also shut down All of yourself.

I never heard truer words spoken.

All the clichéd moments of epiphany

ever seen in movies made sense

as I experienced my own cliché.

written – 05/03/2016

Lock yourself away

by Kerry Van Dorn | akervand, posted in Original Work, Poetry

Lock yourself away in a room
For a day, a week, or even two.
Would you exit just the same you came,
Or find yourself someone new?

written – 7/28/2017

Is that all there is?

by Kerry Van Dorn | akervand, posted in Original Work, Poetry

Nothing was ever so disappointing

As realizing one thing.

I look around the world and think –

Is that all there is?

All the stories I’d been told,

Lies upon lies upon lies,

To hide the truth we all come to know –

This is all there is.

A sad disappointing world we cover up with stories,

A great many stories we never stop telling

So we don’t remember the truth we all come to know –

This is all there is.

Stories of wolves and dragons,

Stories of lives and loves,

Stories to trick us into thinking –

There is more than there is.

But these stories are all lies.

There may be princesses and princes,

There may be wolves and dragons,

But there isn’t more than this.

So, I listen to all the different stories,

To forget a sad, disappointing world

for a moment.

But the one thing I cannot forget thinking –

Is that all there is?

written – 4/2/2018