I am a wasteland where hope
goes to die. Traded in at birth

for peace of mind – I’m just
a secondhand child with a big

black hole where my heart
should be. A black ice maiden –

a subzero sum – vagabond veins
gone blue and dumb with a dead

child in bits and bones stored
upon a shelf. An empty nest in

an abandoned home – the one
true sour note in a sacred song –

a hungry ghost in a hollow
room – a compulsory blackout

in an endless night – a complete
and total absence of any light.

At rest I find no sleep – I lay me
down where wounds go to weep.

 

Judith is an Outsider poet having no MFA or other degree to her name but she has been writing poetry for over 50 years. She has been published in various online and print journals and her chapbook, The Evidence & The Evermore, was published in 2019 by Sara Ethel Lefsyk.