2nd Place Winner

Homeless
(A home without love)
By David Frankina

No matter the home
Where I may reside
The emptiness will be
Both around and inside
No feelings, nor love
Will ever be found
For there’ll never be
Any loving family around

It’s a place where
All my yesterday’s die
Where dreams and hopes
Bring tears and cries
Where all that’s past
Can overwhelm me
Where what could’ve been
Will always torment me

No longer a father,
Only an empty shell
Abandoned in a place
That’s a living hell
They call it living
But it’s ongoing pain
A place that forever
Where I will remain

For me yesterday’s certainties
Have become today’s doubts
Causing feelings of despair
That settles all about
I fear and dread
What tomorrow might bring
More of that which
Will never be changing

So much is unknown
About who I am
My life has flowed
Like water over a dam
All of its goodness
Now quietly streams away
Nobody has diverted it
To flow their way

Forgotten in their mind
Bled from their heart
Only in their memory
Am I still part
Why can’t the family
Who’s from my seed
Give love and forgiveness
That I desperately need