twenty years

twenty years you’ve been gone &
that’s just how long you’ve been dead
in life you were gone, too
i was a pool you’d drown in
if you got your feet wet
you kept your feet dry

how hard to hold the truth
like a bitter seed under your tongue

at the end you spit it out

i’d guessed what you said before
your tongue stilled for good

i had eyes

i said i forgave you

it was my turn to lie

Photo by James Barr on Unsplash

Written by 

Anne Leigh Parrish is an award-winning author of fourteen books. Her work has won many honorable awards such as: 2021 Story Circle Sarton Award Finalist 2021 Independent Publisher Book Awards Bronze Medal Winner 2020 Eric Hoffer Grand Prize Short List 2020 Eric Hoffer Award, Honorable Mention, General Fiction Category 2017 Maxy Awards, Best Fiction Winner 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards Silver Medal Winner Anne Leigh Parrish’s new novel, The Hedgerow, appears in July 2024 from Unsolicited Press. Diary of a False Assassin, her next poetry collection, will arrive in December 2024, also from Unsolicited Press. Recent titles are A Summer Morning, a novel; An Open Door, a novel, and If The Sky Won’t Have Me, a poetry collection. She is the author of ten other books. She has recently ventured into the art of photography and lives in the South Sound Region of Washington State. Find her online at her website, Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads. Explore her photography at www.laviniastudios.com.

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