"The Harpy"

Blizzard Entertainment

 

Above all, she soars
Her vicious talons sharp
She swoops
Her wicked claws rip and tear
Into her own children
Cruelly she slices her prey
Ignores their anguished cries
Her evil hunger feeds upon the flesh of her babies
She devours their adoration
Her soul-eating cravings insatiable

Copyright 2019 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman               

"Indulged or Spoiled"

A coin flip—

            Indulged

                        with

                                    nourishment

                                                attention

                                                            opportunity

                                                                        freedom

OR

            Spoiled

                        by

                                    coddling

                                                yielding

                                                            pandering

                                                                        capitulating

            Indulged

                        with

                                    comfort

                                                ease

                                                            safety

                                                                        certainty

OR

            Spoiled

                        by

                                    luxury

                                                indifference

                                                            idleness

                                                                        privilege

Copyright 2019 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

                                                                       

"Forgiveness"

 

 I wanted to blanket you in gentle warmth,  

            swaddle  you, protect you  

Never dreaming that you suffocated  

            under the weight of my attention  

I longed for you to mirror my heart  

            —mimic my words  

            —morph into my Mini-Me  

And I snipped away your identity  

And shaped you into a paper doll  

            that no one else can love  

When convenient—  

I mended your heartbreaks  

And fought your monsters  

I also shared our intimacies  

            —in gossip  

            stripping you to bare bones  

My love— 

            So wrong in intensity—  

whipped between over-indulgence and neglect  

On and off  

And on again  

            Leaving you heartless  

Copyright 2015 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

 

 

 

"His Easy Smile"

They believed his easy smile   
the laughter at all the right places   
while he cloaked his deception through necessity     
as the world within him clung to distortions   
Illness subtly ate at his reason   
making it impossible to disguise the turmoil within   
unless he buried it under the things he loved:   
games, computers, politics, religion   
Intellect guided him to delude   
to use his words to hide his thoughts   
Need shepherded him to security   
safety with the familiar:   
church and keyboard, childhood ritual and digital certainty   
where he shared with his surrogates     
the Truths he let them see   
Security in his world narrowed down   
into a box of silent despair   
broken only by the words, “I love you”   

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Her Fall"

 

I held your tiny hand, tugged you away from danger    

            carried you safely to the other side    

I protected you from water’s edge and ocean’s undertow—      

            the drowning tears of your uncertainties   

I watched from the sidelines as you changed—  

dwindling into someone I no longer recognized  

Now, dismay burdens me,    

cements me in place as you scale the precipice  

I call out, “Don’t! Turn back! Wait for me!”  

            as your compulsion drives you higher, higher  

I perceive the cracks in your mask  

            even as you disillusion those who still believe in you     

I reach futilely skyward, my feet anchored in place,  

            unable to halt your ascent over crumbling rock  

I try, and try again, to guide you to sure footing      

            but you ignore my words, indulging in illusions of independence  

I weep, a witness to your self-destruction,      

as your frailties and obsessions force your fall 

 

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

  

"Her Fall"

 

I held your tiny hand, tugged you away from danger    

            carried you safely to the other side    

I protected you from water’s edge and ocean’s undertow—      

            the drowning tears of your uncertainties   

I watched from the sidelines as you changed—  

dwindling into someone I no longer recognized  

Now, dismay burdens me,    

cements me in place as you scale the precipice  

I call out, “Don’t! Turn back! Wait for me!”  

            as your compulsion drives you higher, higher  

I perceive the cracks in your mask  

            even as you disillusion those who still believe in you     

I reach futilely skyward, my feet anchored in place,  

            unable to halt your ascent over crumbling rock  

I try, and try again, to guide you to sure footing      

            but you ignore my words, indulging in illusions of independence  

I weep, a witness to your self-destruction,      

as your frailties and obsessions force your fall 

 

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman