Photo by Adrianna Geo
Leaving Too Soon
(Dedicated to my Dear Father)
The earth was hard and frozen
As they lay your coffin in the ground
Something inside has broken
Now that you were hell or heaven bound
I wanted to hear your voice,
Even if it’s cursing us real loud
Just one more chance to rejoice
And to finally make you proud
I have never imagined
How lonely it would feel without you
Always afraid and threatened,
Trying to please you in all I do
Took one last glance at the shell
That locked your spirit, forty-eight years
Carnation, evergreen smell
Mixed with the salted taste of my tears
There was emptiness throughout,
The silence broke by a commanding voice
I jumped and held back a shout,
But I saw the face… it wasn’t yours
First published in Spark Literary Journal in print and online in May 2020.
The Author
E. Izabelle Kassandra Alexander was born and raised in a little village in Hungary. After immigrating to the US, she first lived in New York. There she graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor’s in Information Systems from Monroe College before moving to Chicago, where she earned her MBA in Business from Webster University. In 2013, Izabelle refocused to pursue her life-long dream of writing and began taking writing classes at Oakton Community College and online. Since then, she’s been a member of numerous writing and poetry groups, attending workshops and conferences, continuously updating her writing and editing skills. She’s a single mother. Nature and animal lover. Izabelle writes short stories, creative nonfiction essays, flash fiction, plays, and poetry. Also, she’s currently working on a few novels and a series of children’s books along with illustrations. Publications
Several of her fiction, creative nonfiction essays, and poetry have been published in Spark, a print literary journal, in 2016, 2018, and 2019, and forthcoming in 2020, as well as by The Scarlet Leaf Review on their website in 2018 and in their March 2020 issue. By the Illinois State Poetry Society (ISPS) on their website in 2017, 2018, and in the ISPS print anthology, Distilled Lives, Volume 4, 2018. Also, in Yearning to Breathe, a print anthology by Moonstone Art Center, 2019. By WOW! Women on Writing, 2019 & 2020, in The Book Smuggler’s Den, 2019, by Tint Journal, 2020, in Ariel's Dream Literary Journal, 2020, Unlimited Literature Magazine (UL-Mag), 2020, by Ariel Publishing on their website in 2020, and more. Honorable Mentions, Runner Up, and Finalist She won Runner Up status with her flash fiction “Fragments of Bones” in a contest by WOW! Women on Writing in 2019, and with her creative nonfiction essay "Why I Hate Yellow Peas" in April 2020. An interview was published by WOW in The Muffin on January 14, 2020, and another one forthcoming in June. Her creative nonfiction essays “Disciplined Discipline” (2017) and “My First Camel Ride” (2019), and her flash fiction “Invisible Love” (2018), “Drowning Under Pressure” (2020), and “Yellow Carnations” (2020) each received an Honorable Mention in contests by WOW! Women on Writing while they chose many of her flash and creative nonfiction pieces as finalists. In The New York City Midnight Challenge Flash Fiction Contest, she won the first round within her tier with her flash fiction titled “What Eyes Can’t See” in 2018. Several of her poems, fiction, creative nonfiction essays, and plays had been selected by Oakton Community College over the last six years as a finalist to represent them in the annual Skyway Competitions (eight community colleges competing). To Reach Her You can find Izabelle on her website: izabelle2012.wixsite.com/Izabelle Connect with her on Facebook: fb.me/E.IzabelleAlexander and Twitter.com/IzabelleAlexan3 Support her work on Patreon at www.patreon.com/IzabelleAlexander
E. Izabelle Kassandra Alexander, Illinois