Poetry: Selections from M. Lee Woe

I’d Rather

I’m…

Terrified to go back home

To lose everything I’ve worked for 

and go back to that hell hole

A child 

Should never fear home

The place they grew up in

The place that should be a haven

Bow

To God, to the Father, to the Almighty

Kneel

To the parents who gave you life

Bleed

As a punishment for your crimes

I’m

Terrified to go back home 

I’d Rather

Die

Anxiety Driven Insomnia

Now…


What happens now?

I feel like I'm

floating through space.




No hope,


No danger


Only a question


"What now?"


Mind is empty


Chaos hushes


As I float


further away.


Lingering sounds


won't let me rest


as it repeats:


"What should I do now?"


We stay empty


We stay silent


We stop thinking.


"What now?"


Nothing


There is nothing


We do nothing

We sleep

“Okay,

but

Just one question:

I must ask

Please tell me

What now?”

M. Lee Woe ran away from an abusive religious home at the tender age of seventeen. Today, she works as an analyst for a fortune 500 company, is Co-Owner of Outcast Press, and owns interestcircle.com (an up-and-coming social media website where writers and anyone with similar hobbies and vocations can gather and collaborate.) Obsessed with serial killer documentaries, her short story The Secret Smile (A story about an on-campus serial rapist) will be featured in the anthology In Filth It Shall Be Found releasing in the fall of 2021. Woe is also the author of The Krovs Trilogy.