Birthday Wishes

by T.E. Loper


	Birthday Wishes

I never gave her a party. Dinner out
became the gift most years, or flowers cut
but not arranged, just wrapped in paper without
a trace of fall; a cake perhaps. But what
would make a perfect day for her would be
a day where nothing special happened at all.
Today I rose and raked some sun-streaked leaves,
and listened to their fragile, fading call:
a dry and helpless whispered breath. Dear heart,
you always told me that your only wish
was just to make me happy. Now apart,
my life as thin as leaves, I ask for a gift:
please rake this selfish soul and help destroy
these painful, happy thoughts, but leave the joy.

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Emotions writing prompt entry

Writing Prompt
Pick an emotion and write a poem of any type.

I chose the emotion of longing for the contest.

My wife died before her birthday last year. When it arrived, I wanted to give her a day just like the ones she liked best: dull, mundane, uneventful. I raked leaves and felt the joy of that simple task fall into a painful longing, like dead leaves to the ground. Neither of our wishes came true.

This is an English sonnet in iambic pentameter.

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The Emotion of Longing

Birthday Wishes

by T.E. Loper

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