Nameless Here Forever

Something in the manner the June sun slants through my bedroom window sears my heart.

It burns through, red-hot, singeing its muscles and sinews but not its memories.

For it was on a blistering day like this that terror, treachery, vengeance and death engulfed.

A whirling hate storm, sowed by unknown faces in unknown places, which ravaged my known.

We could neither resist nor understand these demons who killed without remorse.

Who left us with our dead, the dregs of our lives and nameless here forever.

My homecoming, ten years hence, brings deep summer sadness, which will remain within forever.

From Guest Contributor Chitra Gopalakrishnan

Cold

He’d never told a girl that he loved her before. The anxiety was far worse than a first kiss, his teeth chattering as if he’d been blasted by cold air. Although the June night was hot, she rubbed his arms, to warm him.

He started a couple of times, the vibration of his teeth getting in the way. Finally, amid a sparse chorus of crickets and the buzz of the street lamp over head, he said the words.

She responded by kissing him and holding him tightly, but that summer she would never say the words he craved to hear.From Guest Contributor Ran Walker

Ran is the author of 24 books. He teaches creative writing at Hampton University in Virginia. He can be reached via his website, www.ranwalker.com.