A Love Like No Other

Your steady love has saved me,

one more dark wave rising and you

hold my hand, staying the course,

sharing with me your glowing inspiration,

giving me space to expose

my gruesome wounds within.

You do not flinch, or distract, but give me room

to writhe and cry out and then you look at me,

love in your eyes like God at my table,

offering water, acceptance,

and with that acceptance, untellable mercy.

Every night you read to me to keep me afloat,

to cup me in the flow of your voice

reminding me why we are here.

I think you will leave me, here

to implode in this over-a-year pit

of me climbing up to the edges, falling back in,

collapsing on bedrock, but you never do.

You stay and you are steady

and you are a miracle, patient, never

cursing your fate, never letting me go.

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Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2025

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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Published in “Synchronized Chaos” February 2026

https://synchchaos.com/synchronized-chaos-first-february-issue-tba/

https://synchchaos.com/poetry-from-allison-grayhurst-17/

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First published in “Poesy Place” December, 2025

https://www.poesyplace.com/a-love-like-no-other-a-poem-by-allison-grayhurst

You can listen to the poem below:

Over

Under siege like an anthill

invaded upon by an anteater.

Summer is tainted

with humidity and boredom,

intermingled with strong bouts

of unholy despair.

I hear nothing when my hands

are outstretched. I receive nothing

in the hollow of the rock I am

crushed inside of and asked

there, inside of it, to be reborn.

Had I yearning once? Hope? Even

prophecy?

I don’t anymore. For months,

caught in a sticky web transgressing

in spite of rigorous prayers,

crying all the time for no reason

but release.

Time’s up.

Grief has become my skin, not even attached

to external loss, but grafted to my nerves.

impossible to throw off.

It is time now to tear it off,

piece by piece, and peel away what cannot be torn,

and burn what cannot be peeled or torn.

I’m still here, half a soul,

but still a soul

and it is time to claim my territory,

make a story and stay with it.

Light without heat is paint on a canvas,

illusion, no awakening.

Heat up, remembering

I am still here

and I am supposed to be here,

here, listening for a loud-screeching

spawning scream – an ink-spot struggling

creation.

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Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2025

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Raven Cage Zine” December 2025

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KW0UWFfIqyNpYjP2KeJwmAfDqAIlS-ZD/view?usp=sharing

Click to access RavenCageZine99.pdf

You can listen to the poem below:

Surrendered

In the middle –

steady, harsh waves,

salty flavoured ocean,

stranded, treading.

Love comes smiling.

It is a ghost.

Joy comes and passes by.

Purpose comes but floats by

like a jellyfish riding the momentum.

In the middle, tired of treading,

no escape, just the ebb and flow, surging,

retreating waters. What lies beneath makes

no difference because nothing is above

except the burning brutal sun, cloud cover

occasionally, and only air to eat.

Skin cells, bloating. Eyes, unable to keep

open. In the middle

of an endless abyss, all my happy days

behind me.

I hold my hands in prayer position,

arms raised over my head.

I stop struggling to not go under.

I go under and let that weight, the peace

at last, take me down.

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Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2025

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

.

First published in “Synchronized Chaos” February 2026

https://synchchaos.com/synchronized-chaos-first-february-issue-tba/

https://synchchaos.com/poetry-from-allison-grayhurst-17/

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You can listen to the poem below: