Day 9 - PAD Challenge - Exploding Shelter

Today we reach Day 9 of the Writer's Digest 2014 April PAD Challenge... I saw the prompt this morning and smiled. It felt promising. Write a shelter poem. I had images of writing something about an animal shelter or about my appreciation for my home or about all the various places I've found shelter over the years. I tried writing a few of those, but the words refused to cooperate. I ended up with a far different concept for my shelter poem once I stopped trying to fight the image in my head and the emotion in my heart.

Here's my shelter poem...

Exploding Shelter

Life rained on our heads
You tried to shield me
The devastation of truth
Wreaks as much havoc as a bomb
When deception blows apart the casing
Spilling forth all that’s hidden inside
The layers of deception meant to protect
Become shrapnel flying through the air
The force of the explosion wounding
The outer fortress around vulnerability
Leaving broken hearts and souls in the wreckage
When the shelter of deception
Is blown to bits by the truth

Exploding to escape
T. L. Cooper is an author and poet whose work aims to empower and inspire through an exploration of the human condition. Her poems, short stories, articles, and essays have appeared online, in books, and in magazines. Her published books include a collection of short stories, Soaring Betrayal, her Silhouette Poetry Series, and a novel, All She Ever Wanted. She grew up on a farm in Tollesboro, Kentucky. She currently lives in Albany, Oregon with her husband and three cats.

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