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Poetry Samples

Excerpts from the upcoming collection The Walls Remember Her

Between Both Worlds

Hades wore a woman's face,

Voice a blade, arms a brace.

Her mind, her eyes, her endless falls,

The bed, the stairs, the underworld.

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Lifetimes stolen from her by a man,

Hardened to stone in her trembling hands.

She clutched too tightly, mistook control,

Split and served away her soul.

​

She gave me a crown of ash and bone,

Called me her heir, then left me alone. 

Each minute I swallowed bound me more

A lifetime lived behind her door.​

​

I became her mirror's flame,

Half myself, half her name.

Each day I felt her pull below,

Quiet grief I could not show.

​

But spring began beneath my skin,

A heartbeat small, a garden within.

I rooted myself where the soil was kind,

held him in sunlight, left her behind.

​

Still, she called from the shadowed bed.

Her voice like smoke, fingers spread.

I climbed and descended year by year.

Half in her world, half still here.

​

I was Persephone split in two,

Queen of the dead, mother of dew.

But hear me now, no more descent.

I am the garden's firm intent.

I plant my grief. I live. I mend.

I am the love she could not send.

At the End

I watched you die

Over several hours.

Knelt at your bedside

As your breath grew shallow.

I wanted to go back

But not to see you again.

To tell a younger self

Don't worry, friend,

She will not be alone

When this finally ends.

​

Living Room

I won't treat grief

Like love confined

To a hospice bed,

Sedated, neglected,

Kept quiet to dull the dread.

I don't want to move on.

I want to dance with it.

Sing its tune

At the top of my lungs

In the living room.

Fall to my knees

In a spill of tears.

As proof love survives

All of my years.

Tower of Books

I will inherit a tower of books.

Millions of stories bought.

The walls will sink

Beneath their weight,

Settling where love once sought.

​

Her shelves were bones within the house,

Lined with spines that learned to bow.

Each title, a relic of her escape,

Each margin etched with vows.

​

The pages smell of candle smoke,

Of grief, lavender, and rain.

She underlined what broke her heart 

Then read it once again. 

​

By night, her stories hummed the walls,

soft murmurs through the vents and beams.

Silence learned to whisper back

In a language made of dreams.

​

I grew up in her paper shrine,

Where fiction blurred the air.

She read to remember what she'd lost

I write to keep her there.

​

The house remembers every word.

Pulses beat on every spine and seam.

I live among her gathered words,

Writing our shared dream.

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@longcoolwoman__

Los Angeles, California

© 2025 by E.V. Long

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