I lost my life when the giant wave
came crashing. I was deep in the sea,
swimming against the current,
trying so hard to break free.
I think that day I broke free.

I still recall this moment, when the water
filled my young body with its warmth.
And then they found it on the shoreline,
cold and stiff. I still see it all.
It was long time ago, but I still see it all.

And they took the white body with them, like sea shell collector
takes home the little conches he'd found in the sand.
And they kept the memory of it for so long,
till they themselves became the memories when they died.
And they kept me tight in the pocket of death, till they died.

They call it a temple of knowledge and thought,
A place where young minds are carefully taught.
But what is the lesson? What is the rule?
That learning doesn’t happen at my school.

The classroom’s a stage, the script is rehearsed,
Yet passion is absent—just boredom dispersed.
The teacher recites, but they barely engage,
Tenure protects them, and they never must change.

I ask, Why do I need to memorize this?
They smirk and respond, Because it’s on the quiz.
Centuries of knowledge forced into my head,
But not a **** skill for the life I will tread.

They pile on homework, assignments unceasing,
Stealing my time; my patience decreasing.
It teaches me nothing but how to endure,
A childhood lost—stolen, for sure

They claim to be guides, but barely take part,
More focused on grading than igniting a spark.
If I miss one step, if I fail one test,
I’m labeled as lazy, as less than the best.

Straight A’s mean success, so I play their game,
But knowledge? Oh, no—that's not why I came.
I memorize, cram, then let it all go,
The second the test ends? ****...

I don’t know.

They call us the future, yet chain us to past,
Force us through molds, though none of us last.
We learn to obey, to raise our hand high,
To follow directions— but to never ask why?

For school isn’t built for learners like me,
It’s made for compliance, for mindless decree.
I’m forced to sit here and play through my role
Because learning simply doesn’t happen at my school.

A companion poem to:
When Love Grows Old [1]




a differing perspective,
liking the eye opening
view this occluded,
cloudy closed Saturday,
a morning gray, early days,
it comes with opportunities
aplenty & new word combinations
in a new world awaiting a Magellan
I spy discoverer, and
we
two
have more than 150 years
existence tween us and that
makes me grin, because I anointed
her to a new position yesterday:
Chief Technology Officer

the very expensive machine
that supplies us with energizing
fresh plasma, clean blood invigorating, without which
we could nary drag our antiquated
bodies to the next day,
got on the phone, dialed an
800 number,
stuck het hand deep into it's gizzard innards, and released the
machina from it looping flashing
display of displaying its non-cooperation and its message that
It was unwell, abd she operated,
and made out coffee machine well
again



snd gave us this Sabbath, a reason to be thankful having righted this
left footed poet to a younger
poet boy~man
again, a gain!

there is a place softer than sleep,
quieter than the hush between waves,
where i forget where my body stops
and yours starts—

your lap, your hands, your breath
braiding me into the moment
like a thread pulled through silk.

fingers slow, wandering, learning,
finding stories in my hair
that neither of us wrote
but both of us know.
the kind told without words,
only the hum of a thumb across my temple,
the rise and fall of a chest that is mine
and yours
and ours.

my cheek on your leg,
the fabric warm from you,
the world outside shrinking,
turning to nothing but the sound of you breathing,
the rhythm of us matching without trying,
without thinking,
like we were made to move in the same time.

i could spend lifetimes here,
in the space between your ribs,
the dip of your knee,
the cradle of your arms,
held like something precious,
held like something known.

and maybe that’s it.

not just the warmth, not just the weight,
not just the touch,
but the knowing—
that here,
like this,
i belong.

but i can never let you see this.
never let you read the way i dream of sinking into you,
the way my body aches not just to be close,
but to be wanted close.
to be held because you want to hold me,
not just because i fit into the space beside you.

if you knew—if you saw—
would you pull away?
would the space between us grow sharp,
like silence that means something different than it used to?

so i will press delete.
i will fold this feeling up small,
tuck it between the pages of my ribs,
and pray you never notice
the way i shiver when you touch me.

I don’t need a love that waits outside,
pacing hospital halls with excuses in hand.
I need someone who will sit beside me,
fingers laced through mine like stitches,
pulling me together where I unravel.

I don’t need a love that floats above,
watching from shore, calling me back.
I need someone who will drown with me,
trusting I will rise, trusting I will take them too,
because I have before. Because I will.

We were parallel lines, forever close,
never meant to touch—
until the moment you turned to me,
until I turned to you,
and suddenly, we crossed, suddenly, we changed.
Perpendicular. Colliding.

But love is cruel in the ways it saves.
The only way I knew to love you
was to give you silence. To give you peace.
And so, I did. I let you go,
not because I stopped loving you,
but because I never would.

She is the reason
I count the exits before I sit down.
3 windows, 2 doors, 4 friends to go talk to,
I fold myself small in crowded rooms.
I let my shadow walk ahead—
just in case she is waiting behind me.

She is the reason
my name sounds foreign in my own mouth.
It used to be mine,
warm, whole, sure.
Now it is just a noise I do not trust.
“Matthew” she’d call.

I hate hearing that sound

She—
(is the reason I mistake love for danger)
(is the reason I taste irony in "I miss you")
(is the reason I do not know how to love)

She is the reason
I flinch before I am touched.
I flinch before I am hurt.
I flinch before there is even a reason to.

A hug should be easy, not torture.

She is the reason I can’t say "no."
No is a match against gasoline breath.
No is a door ripped off its hinges.
No is a crime scene where I am the suspect.
(why did you make her so mad?)

She is the reason I smile when I am scared.
A trick I learned to survive.
A trick I cannot unlearn.
A trick that fools everyone,
even me.

—But she is not here.

Is she?
I tell myself she is gone,
but she is still the reason.

She is the reason I run.
She is the reason I stay.
She is the reason I am afraid to be loved,
and the reason I am terrified to be alone.

She is the reason.
And I hate that she still is.

I find myself falling (Again, Again, Again)
I do not mean to fall—
(but the ground keeps tilting beneath me.)
I do not mean to want—
(but the air is thick with something sweet, intoxicating.)
I do not mean to hope—
(but their laughter sounds like a promise.)

I meet a stranger / and suddenly / my heart is writing love letters in invisible ink.
I hear a voice / and suddenly / my ribs tighten like a corset, squeezing out logic.
I brush fingertips / and suddenly / I am rewriting the stars for a future that does not exist.

It happens too fast—
(like a storm that appears from a clear sky, no warning, no mercy.)
It happens too often—
(like déjà vu, like a carousel that never stops spinning.)
It happens without permission—
(like waking up in a dream you did not ask for.)

I do not love them—
(not really, not fully, not yet.)
But my heart does not understand the difference between a spark and a wildfire.

And so I burn.
And burn.
And burn.

Only to find myself—
(again, again, again)
sifting through the ashes.

c0de dr!ps, pixelated dreams—
echoes, lost? yes? no?
404 answers not f0und
&& the moon? fractured, spl!t,
mirrored in a cracked display.
Copy
   % stars flicker %  
       @ random()  
while (night) {  
    sleep = false;  
}  

--> footsteps... static... [redacted]
// who wrote this script?
* DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DECIPHER *
1nput: whispers( )
0utput: [???: unknown source]
Copy
| data.leaks  
| shadows.load  
| reality.corrupt( )
| death.static = imminent;...

It starts—soft,
a thread of sound unspooling in the dark,
a quiet pull at the edge of being.

Close your eyes.

A note bends, weightless,
stretching toward something unseen,
like light slipping through fingertips,
like breath you didn’t know you were holding.

And suddenly, you are drifting—
unbodied,
untethered,
rising through the hush between chords.

Strings shimmer like stardust beneath your skin.
A voice—half air, half ache—
opens like a doorway inside your chest.
The bass hums deep in your bones,
a second heartbeat, steady, certain.

Everything you are dissolves into melody,
into harmony,
into motion.

For a moment—just one—
the world forgets to weigh you down.

And you let go.

I wake up.
But I don’t really wake up, do I?
The bed feels like it’s holding me down—
like I’m trapped inside my own skin.
I think about moving,
but my body’s too tired to listen.
My bones ache.
My mind aches.
And I’m still here.
Stuck.

I run my hands through my hair,
but nothing changes.
The noise in my head keeps getting louder,
like it’s trying to drown me.
Every thought is a weight,
every breath a struggle.
I’m suffocating in a room full of air.

The world keeps moving.
People keep laughing,
but it’s like I’m behind a glass,
just watching—
always watching,
never a part of it.
I can’t reach it.
I can’t reach them.
I can’t reach myself.

Some days, I fake it.
I paint a smile on my face,
tell everyone, “I’m fine.”
But it’s a lie.
A lie I tell so often,
I don’t know how to stop.
The emptiness inside me is too big,
too loud,
but I don’t know how to say it,
so I say nothing.
I hide it behind a smile,
and hope no one sees
how broken I really am.

Other days, I don’t even try.
I don’t have the strength to pretend anymore.
The world feels too far away,
and I’m too tired to care.
Too tired to fight.
Too tired to get out of bed.
Too tired to even keep breathing.
I don’t know how to keep going when
everything feels so heavy,
so pointless,
so wrong.

The light fades—
it’s been fading for a while now.
I don’t remember when it stopped shining,
but I can feel the darkness creeping in.
It wraps around me like a second skin,
and I don’t know how to take it off.
I want to scream.
I want to shout,
but my voice feels broken.
It’s like I’m invisible,
like no one can hear me,
and the silence is deafening.

Everything is dark,
and I’m still here,
fighting to breathe,
fighting to feel anything at all,
but nothing changes.
And I don’t know how much longer I can stay here—
in this emptiness,
in this darkness.
I don’t know how to move,
but I don’t know how to stay still either.
I’m just... here.

It doesn’t ask for permission.
It doesn’t wait for the “right” time.
One moment, I’m fine—
laughing, talking,
doing what I’m supposed to do.
Then the wave hits,
and everything falls apart.
Suddenly,
I’m drowning in my own head.

Sitting with friends—
I’m laughing,
I’m talking,
but inside,
I’m screaming.
I’m so far away from them,
and they don’t even know.
I can’t hear their voices anymore.
I can’t even hear myself.
I’m just stuck—
alone in a room full of people.

At school,
it’s worse.
I try to focus on the words,
on the lessons,
but it’s like they’re not even real.
The paper in front of me is blank,
my thoughts are blank,
and my mind is a million miles away.
Everything spins,
and I can’t stop it.
The walls are closing in.
My chest feels tight.
But I’m still here.
I can’t move.
I can’t breathe.

Sitting at my desk,
the homework’s impossible.
The words blur.
The numbers make no sense.
I want to throw it all away,
but I can’t.
I want to scream,
but I can’t.
I want to run,
but my legs don’t work.
It’s like I’m stuck in cement,
and the whole world is just passing me by.

Sometimes it hits in the middle of a conversation.
I’m talking,
laughing,
but none of it matters.
The words sound empty.
The sounds are hollow.
I just want to disappear.
I just want to walk away,
but I can’t.
I can’t leave.
I can’t do anything.

It hits without warning—
at random,
and it hits hard.
One minute, I’m breathing.
The next, I’m sinking,
drowning in a darkness that has no name.
And I don’t know how to make it stop.
I don’t know how to breathe again.
I don’t know how to live
when every moment feels like I’m dying.