West Liberty University

Threshold: A Journal of the Arts

Creation

by Lilianna Hardt

I´m Better

by Allyson Hager

I never thought I would get this far

All of my thoughts are sad and dark

The world looks bleak and I’m too meek

To see the brighter side of things

It’s all too tough, like I’m not enough, and I know I’m not enough

Crying, and shaking, like my heart breaking in pieces

I can barely put them together, but I’m better

I’ll tell them I’m better

 

Have you ever felt like there was no turning back?

When the world turns black?

Like no one has your back.

There’s a pit and it’s empty. Nothing to fill it but lies, and an oversupply of worthless alibi’s

I am a pen with no paper

A question with no answer, but I’m better

I’ll pray that I’m better

 

Sadly, I don’t remember how to feel at all

The mask I wear is becoming too small

I bleed, I break, I fall apart

Like glass, I’m left in fragments and shards

But I try to get better, to put me back together

I really do try, but the best I do is cry, and why don’t tears fix our past goodbyes?

Was that a lie?

 

It’s as if my life doesn’t matter

An envelope with no letter

Like whoever said together is forever, or to continue your endeavor despite all your failures, but whatever, I’m better

For now, I’ll say I’m better

Poppies

by Creed Kidney

Red poppies dot my mind,

flowering,

in opium haze.

 

I tend to them alone,

watering them

with my body;

my blood, my sweat

and tears.

 

My essence is captured,

withheld

within their pod.

 

I look to them in silence,

apathetic

in their health.

 

There are those

who trample

my poppies;

there are those

who wish them

dead.

 

Some people ask me to grow

sunflowers,

perhaps,

an ornamental grass.

 

But I will continue to grow

my poppies,

learn to smile

as they thrive.

 

As I lean back into

the opiate,

I remember caring for my flowers.