A Liberating Poem by Cherie Burbach

[Valerie]

Funny how you can read a book & pick it up a few years later to see something new that catches your eye.I apologize, the 'quote' feature is hard to access via Android.   ~V.



THE DIFFERENCE NOW

The difference now
is when pushed
I push back.

The difference now
is when I'm hurt
I'll cry
openly
unashamed.
   Why should I hide it?
    Or pretend that I don't care?
    You know you hurt me.
    My pretending only helped you, 
           not me.

The difference now
is that I'll fight for the life
I want to live
and not the one
you think I should live.

The difference now
is that I make the definitions
and throw yours away.

The difference now
is when I walk in a room
and you guiltily look at each other and stop talking
I'll wonder who you'll blame
for the problems in your life
after I move on.

The difference now
is that when you're laughing
behind my back
I realize I must be ahead of you
and I'll keep going.

©Cherie Burbach

[Devlyn]

Very nice, Valerie! I post from an Android all the time. Twice (in two years) I've had the clipboard freeze on me and I end up with an inoperative cursor. Clearing the clipboard works to fix it. Hugs, Devlyn

[Arch]

I like the image in the last stanza, but this poem doesn't have any particular draw for me. It has no style, no awareness of rhythm or language...it looks like something dashed off on a whim and then not revised. It might as well be prose, but it wouldn't be very good prose. Still, it's not the awfullest poem I've read...

[Valerie]

I like the image in the last stanza, but this poem doesn't have any particular draw for me. It has no style, no awareness of rhythm or language...it looks like something dashed off on a whim and then not revised. It might as well be prose, but it wouldn't be very good prose. Still, it's not the awfullest poem I've read...

"It's not the awfullest poem I've read."   <---- made me LOL more than necessary; dunno' why.  Yer'right, though...as far as poetic quality, it doesn't draw me in.  It was more the sense of freeing oneself from the dictates & expectations of others.