I’m slipping down the embankments of Your scripture Sadness is pooled at the bottom And the loneliness can’t resist her I’m so afraid to be seized by the icy knowledge After all, I’m totally uncouth and unpolished (Will there be a rowboat for me) Father, I fear I’m losing my grip Never again will there be a venti cold brew In my future, Never again a neck to stick out for you No way to send a voicemail or pleading text Instead, I’m toggling between the hands of Memories, Constant drive-bys through my mind And the helplessness of what could be next Copyright c Kimberly Virga 2026

I can’t keep up with this octopus of myself The parishioners hemming and hawing As I try to wield eight arms full of burden, of Groceries, of love and sadness But they just see me clawing The sacrifice for having so much to hold But you can never really grab it My tentacles have been tailored specifically for Taking hit after hit, not the good kind So the purposes of my pain exposes A wagering sort of mind, out of habit Moon is dire, blotted out, beyond this hazy June frame And the trouble is the darkness, She always calls my name Copyright ©️ Kimberly Virga 2026

Write the most heartbreaking poem you can… using only 4 lines. Not twenty. Not ten. Just four lines powerful enough to leave a scar on the soul. Sometimes the shortest poems carry the heaviest weight. Dig deep. Be honest. Break our hearts a little. Drop your 4-line poem in the comments below. ⬇️

Want a devil to hide from? Greed has two horns Sneaks up in the dark I prefer to breathe Listen to greed Tell em heres help What you seek Won't be found Or ever complete How much is enough Just a little bit more

I have watched grown men cry in grocery store parking lots over things they swore. They were buried years ago. Funny thing about grief it doesn't stay buried. It waits. Like an old dog on a porch listening for a truck that ain’t coming home. People talk about healing like it’s some clean white hallway with soft music playing and sunlight through the windows. That’s bullshit. Healing is eating cold pizza at two in the morning because sleep won’t touch you. It’s staring at a toothbrush that hasn’t moved in years but somehow still feels used. It’s hearing a song in Walmart and suddenly forgetting how breathing works. I used to think strength looked like mountains. Now I think it looks like an old woman showing up to work the day after her husband dies because life doesn't stop collecting rent. I think it looks like a man sitting in his truck wiping tears off his beard before walking into a room pretending he’s fine. I think it looks like survivors. And God, There are so many of us. Walking around carrying invisible fires inside our ribs. Smiling in family photos while entire wars rage quietly behind our eyes. Some people lose houses. Some lose marriages. Some lose faith. Some lose themselves so slowly they don’t even notice until one day their own laugh sounds unfamiliar. Me? I lost the future I thought I was promised. That one nearly killed me. Not all at once though life’s more artistic than that. It peeled me apart slowly. Like paint weathering off an old barn. One memory at a time. But here’s the strange part nobody tells you. The broken ones notice beauty differently. We hear loneliness in train whistles. See entire stories inside abandoned buildings. We understand storms because we’ve survived them. That’s why some of the saddest people still make the world laugh. They know darkness intimately. They learned humor the same way candles learn fire. Out of necessity. And maybe that’s what being human is not avoiding destruction but carrying hope