By Bob Christian

Mother

My mother has something about her.
By day, a sense of dedication
She worked hard to provide a happy home.
By night, she desperately tried to keep a vicious
Monster hidden from her children’s tender eyes.

She would always tell us not to worry.
Working two jobs to provide for us,
When our father wouldn’t. This was the woman
Who loved me, even when I couldn’t love myself.
She carried my burdens for me.

Now I’m fully grown, and I know how hard
It is to parent two children well, I’m even more
In awe of her. She sometimes talks so much,
I wonder how she can breathe.
But I’m just grateful I can still hear her.

(C) BobChristianpoetry2021

By Bob W Christian

Please don’t worry, this isn’t written about me, it’s about a close family member.

My morning coffee.
Unlike me, is strong.
I say morning, actually
It’s when I come round.
After another of those,
Unforgettable nights.
I just can’t remember.

Strength, something
I lost years ago. Now
A way of measuring.
How much solution,
Is poured out. While
Revisiting the regrets.
In this endless story.

I’ve told anyone who’d
Listen. While continually
Poisoning myself, slowly,
Desperately. Fighting the
Inevitable. One last shot,
To stop my life, becoming
A sad statistic of addiction.

(c)BobChristianpoetry

by Bob W Christian

So many memories left here.
Photos – a snapshot of you.
Pieces of paper, scattered.
Your essence lingering on,
Haunting this old house.

Reading your scribbled words:
Always thought this moment
Would come without warning.
Waiting for the right time could
Take forever, you see.

We both know it’s been coming
For a while now. It’s not you, it’s
Me. It’s kept me awake trying to
Tell you. I’ve been scared for a
Long, long time now.

I can’t understand how we can
Forgive each other, for words not
Spoken until it’s too late, while trying
To move forward with our lives.
What would Social Media say?

How can someone be around one
Minute, then disappear? How do I
Cope with the disappointment of all
The things I didn’t accomplish?
It‘s best I go. All my love always.

The end, then? Or a beginning?
A whole new chapter in your life?
Left, wondering. Searching for
Clues. Will I ever know
The end of your story?

(c)BobChristianpoetry

By Bob W Christian

Here we are again.

You.
Me.
The silence between us loud enough to rupture my ribs.

I call you companion because calling you monster
feels like admitting defeat.
Feels like saying you win.
Again.
Again.
Again.

You’ve given me so many nightmares,
I should be charging rent for all the nights you’ve made a home in my head.
I wake up sweating through the sheets
like maybe if I soak them enough, you’ll drown in the flood.
Spoiler alert:
You don’t.

Your memories play on loop in my skull,
like a cursed mixtape I never asked for.
And every time I press eject,
you just laugh
and rewind.

I thought I’d outgrow you.
Like acne.
Like imaginary friends.
Like bedtime fears and monsters under the bed.
But instead, you crawled into the bed.
Under my skin.
Built a goddamn shrine in my mind and lit candles for every time I tried to forget.

Aren’t I supposed to be a grown-up now?
Aren’t I supposed to be brave?
Aren’t I supposed to know how to lock the door to my own brain?
Because that’s where you live.
That’s when you thrive
when I’m alone
inside my own skull.

You’ve haunted me like clockwork,
never missing a season,
never skipping a visit.
We’ve grown up together, side-by-side.
Not friends.
More like…
cellmates.

I’ve tried evicting you.
Kicking you out.
Burning the lease.
But you always come back,
like a cockroach in winter,
like bad WiFi,
like me.

Still you’re my oldest companion. I’ve tried
Staying awake, hoping you’d sleep before me.
Tried drowning you – you’ve learnt to swim.

Always awaiting your return now.
I guess
this is what forever feels like
when you don’t get to choose who stays.

(c)BobChristianpoetry

By Bob W Christian

I remember the day that
Time, like your life,
Stopped. Your body,
Laid out like your
Obituary.

Paragraphs of your
Life for all to read.
Documenting the lies
The excuses, the games,
Played.

Hide and seek champ
37 years running
Away. Stretching
Truths, ducking all
Responsibilities.

When it’s my time,
I’ll can rest in peace
knowing, I may be no
angel. Still, I’m nothing
Like you.

(c) BobChristianpoetry

Old School

by BobChristianPoetry

I’m an OG.
Original Geek.
Back when geek wasn’t cool—
it was a quiet kind of rebellion.
Back when liking sci-fi was a secret handshake,
and knowing how to fix a floppy disk
was basically a superpower.

I was 8-bit before it was retro,
before Sega had Genesis dreams
and Nintendo hadn’t even found its Power yet.
We had cassette tapes—
forty-eight kilobytes of pure imagination.
You don’t know the struggle
’til you’ve heard the hiss
of a game loading like it’s whispering
its soul into the screen,
’til you’ve waited minutes
for a world to appear—
pixel by pixel—
while your whole weekend
waited behind a dungeon door.

We lived in basements and back rooms,
summoned dragons from graph paper,
fired imaginary bullets with our fingers,
painted miniatures
like we were building gods.
The dice hit the table
like war drums,
like thunder,
like the heartbeat
of a revolution
no one else saw coming.

Mayor West was Batman.
And Batman?
Was everything.
We didn’t just watch heroes—
we became them.
Every lunch table a secret lair,
every hallway a hidden galaxy,
every insult we ate
was just fuel
for the origin story.

I’m talking
D20-wearing,
Sindarin-speaking,
comic-con-craving,
MMO-grinding,
keyboard warrior
with a spellbook in one hand
and a joystick in the other.

I was lore before TikTok.
Canon before cosplay.
I didn’t grow into this—
I was born with it,
wrapped in a cape,
rocking light-up shoes
and quoting Yoda like scripture.

So yeah—
you can wear the title.
Call yourself geek,
nerd,
fanboy,
fangirl,
whatever fits.

But try walking in these pixelated shoes.
Try carrying this legacy
like a lightsaber at your side.
Try loving a thing
so hard
you built whole worlds
just to live in it.

Because me?
I’m not just a fan.
I’m the blueprint.
The origin story.
The one who rolled initiative
before the world knew
what the game even was.

NB You can also call me Rhiluron of Rivendell

(C) Bob Christian