How Far the Sun Dogs Run

By Samantha DePergola

In a world where so many people have experienced tremendous loss and pain, it's easy to go through each and think it's normal to feel like that. Because if it wasn't normal... Wouldn't you be able to express how you feel? This chapbook contains poems that explore grief, healing, anxiety, trauma, and mental illness. "How Far the Sun Dogs Run" explores the fantasy and mythological worlds one might use to cope while putting that pain and grief into words. Featuring over 25 poems, this chapbook promises a hard-hitting journey from beginning to end from poems titled, "Death Won the Game" to "A Thousand Different Lives". 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Samantha DePergola
• Release date: Apr 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201424138

Samantha DePergola

I've always grown up loving to read, write, and fall into other worlds. I'd spend hours upon hours reading to the point where I'd fall asleep too late and wake up exhausted. For a while, I had told myself that publishing a book was too daunting. That my writing was better off private. Throughout the pandemic, I began to read and write more than ever before. It began a process of healing after dealing with so much trauma. The tell tale sign of good writing is your reader taking away something from it that answered a question they may have never known how to answer before. I hope that, within my own writing, you find an escape to another world and an answer to your question. 

Book preview

Death Won the Game

My name was Death,

And I won the game.

I knew it the moment I saw you falter

Your smile disappear,

The light from your eyes fade.

I heard your voice,

Calling out in the void,

Yearning for release.

Your heart trapped in a glass box,

Feelings on show,

And the audience turning away.

A performance no one wants to watch,

Someone being dragged down into the pits

Burned by the hellfire

Of their own soul being torn apart

By the thoughts that everyone else ignored.

But it was I that promised

I would listen,

Was it not?

You crawled towards me,

Reaching for the glass,

Pounding in desperation...

I placed a hand

Where your knuckles started to bleed.

I traced a line,

Where the tears were running down your face.

I watched in morbid fascination.

I saw you destroy yourself,

Listened to your cries, pleading,

As the audience walked away and the lights dimmed.

My eyes glanced over you,

Noted your sadness.

One word- and I had your heart in my hand.

My name is Death,

And I won the game.

Time and time again, the audience walked away.

Every drop of blood and tear that was shed,

I listened.

The Poisoned Chalice