shake hands with the most shameful parts of me
graze the gashes dressed in velvet curtains bloodied and dripping
lift the curtains and bore into me softly with your godly eyes, but do not judge me
graze me like cattle taken out to unkept pasture
like watching the paint dry on an unfinished picture
you can drag your fingers across to feel all the mistakes and textures
and edge me where i feel most rejected
rubbing mounds of paint where i decided to just start again
and i think maybe i'd even let you sneak a nail in
but just before reaching the point of satisfaction
like the word itself begs to be carved across my veins
your dry hands are left pushed away, bound and escorted
like the slow betrayal from something you thought could be beautiful
like a failed fatal bullet
or a piercing
S. Azrael
Jan 16
Jan 16, 2026 at 3:23 PM UTC
the air was waiting.
and the trees said they noticed no traces of you
the sky above was my favorite pale
and the grass below was my favorite pale too
along the path
i thought i saw my dad
and i even had time to pass
by the old farmhouse we would sneak up to
the guitar was still there
and no, i won't ever share
the songs we sang with anybody else
because nobody shares the same structure of you
supposedly god makes us
with our entire lives planned ahead of time
but i'd like to pick his mind
to find the reasons why he didn't plan to save us too
on the way back to where this all began
i cut through the woods where i first met you
god when i met you —
i know you still think of how beautiful it was too
and my aching chest starts to collapse as i accept this sheltered truth
and this is where it really begins
with bones shifting and snapping —
fracturing into places where they should've already been
flesh, blood, tears, and organs
rearranged into a finer animal that gnaws to be free from sin
this transformation feels more like an exorcism
i'm left weeping, and licking away old blood
that is scaldingly dripping down my entire body
and now pooling into my once unclean hands
i hear another snap
and in the forest where i thought there wouldn't be a witness
a single fox sits there
and begins to laugh
the laughter rings out in my head
like guitar strings caught in the wind
and all of my unkept promises
are carried on and kept
now through the eyes of foxes.
S. Azrael
Dec 22, 2025
Dec 22, 2025 at 1:16 PM UTC
upon ashed war-torn ground
brittle rusted leaves fall to bear the mark of a new beginning
and soon the naked and embarrassed trees who lay their souls bare will have a newfound confidence in themselves for making it through yet another season so unforgiving
and even the loneliest of trees, though they may struggle to keep their branches still from the gusts of shame with the lack of naked friends to hide behind
please don’t look at me right now
they stand tall despite all the rain and dreadful oceans of storms that rendered them half-dead, numb and snow-blind
they carry on into the next cycle swallowing their pride to muster the leaves of courage they longed to find — always changing form but never losing their unbroken will to grow
S. Azrael
Dec 22, 2025
Dec 22, 2025 at 12:06 AM UTC
as this divider rips through my bones
and headlights begin to fade
remember that i really meant forever
as i prepare for my last grand embrace
why don't you come wrap yourself around me
like this steel clings to my face
like the nails tear into my eyes
witness sacrificial glass and blood take my place
as shards dance along my hands
and i stop bowing to the dead
to bowing towards the airbag next
when i could’ve just opened up
and said what i should’ve said
god send me a new start
one without any broken mirrors
one without an angel
and a hole in every family picture
one without me, or me without them
like they wanted it to be
whatever remains of what i believe
take it into the next life, or finally ******* save me
now and forever, a silent car ride.
S. Azrael
Dec 19, 2025
Dec 19, 2025 at 11:52 PM UTC
i am tormented every night with the memories of friends i’ve never made. each night they hold me, laugh with me, and rejoice in how wonderful it is that we are all queer together. the little time we have feels so warm like a flag on a beach that’s been sitting and getting lightly bleached by the sun. i wake up salted with tears of laughter from the night before and find that all the party has gone. i feel cheated because each night i swear i’m getting closer and closer to actually swimming into their arms. but instead, this morning i am awoken again in a shock to find myself anchored down to a frosted sea. my heart has to reassess the world around and come to terms with the fact that what i submissively held in my glorious bathed-in-sunlight dreams last night, something i’ve always achingly yearned for, was simply never really found. yet i meekly believe that if i force my spiritually tired eyes shut for just a moment longer, i’ll sink through and i won’t be needing to be waking up cold and pitiful without my queer friends, and my soul asunder. i miss my queer friends so much, it hurts me. and each and every morning just feels worse. with each connection more meaningful and understanding than the last, it stabs me deep in my heart each morning knowing i have to let it sleep in the past. i don’t want yet another cruel reminder of something i want that i will never have. just because i’m used to the cold doesn’t mean i don’t enjoy the sunshine raining upon me, gracing my body with the warm and lulling arms of friendship that fill me with a love that is close to godly. i would do anything like sew my eyes shut and drown in pills just so i can see my friends for one warm minute again. yes, again. please dear god, again. to be held, to laugh, and to be understood again. nobody understands how much i miss my queer friends and i would rather sleep forever than be awake and coping with the weathering truth that this connection has been broken. because every time i try to find something real, it has led to me to places where judgement and alienation is all this androgynous heart can feel. the queer friends from my dreams have never once judged me. not once have they made me limp away from disapproving glances, forsaken me in crowds of dismissing masses, it has only ever been in my dreams that i have been given these soothing beautiful chances. i am always to be seen as neutered and sexless, but not as paradisical and ethereal as god intended. perhaps i do moor myself to the glacial shores of my mind because i feel safe in the cold that is close to the coast but i must realize there is only so much healing i can do on my own. in freezing winters, one needs warmth from friendly bodies to hold so i will wrap myself and continue to hold on to a hope. of a day where i find my queer friends, a day where i won’t be nippingly alone.
S. Azrael
Dec 19, 2025
Dec 19, 2025 at 10:30 PM UTC
no matter how much i want to let this sleep / put it down / laid to rest / there’s always something that pulls the lids back / to the things that i can see / but what my heart pains to address / i stand to lose everything i know / i cannot find myself when my blood runs cold / i must accept that these are the consequences / i pray to accept you just the same / but no bed has ever been fit for me / the weight of life left behind / and in my mind / i have painted you so many times / beautifully dancing in a familiar motion / with your eyes locked / and your summer warmth / penetrates the coldest oceans / and if you appeared to me now / just as you do in my tortured sleep / i would surrender in the very same way that you did your trust to me / the agonizing scent of this deep regret / lingers in the sheets from this moment on
and on.
and on.
and on.
and on.
and on.
and on.
and on to the next
i wish to dream as anything else but restless / and turn my second-thoughts to absolution / all i want is to hold you / but what remains are bloodshot memories / tied down to my bed of thorns / from all the future roses / that you never left me.
S. Azrael
Dec 14, 2025
Dec 14, 2025 at 4:01 PM UTC
especially on black and blue twilight nights like this,
graced with december wind and rain droplets
caressing gently as it weeps down winter stone and bouquets of anemone
there’s a sweetly scathing chill that reminds me
of the times where going out shopping with her was what i looked forward to most of all
before the months of having to hear how they were going to split me in two
even now, i still sometimes wish it happened
maybe things would be better that way
me and my father
or maybe just me and my mother
i always got told i looked just like her,
since then i’ve tried everything possible
to exhume the traces of her from my bones
either way, it’s just me now
and on this black and blue twilight night
where the sky is so empty
i feel like even the stars are embarrassed of me
bare tree branches splitting and fracturing
like a deadly disease coursing it’s way through a victim’s brain
or a shatter streaked along an old church window
showing me the multitudes of possibilities and scenarios
you could've done more than just kept my hunger at bay
or let me stay home for one more night
show me the grace that you drop down to your knees for
tell me again, how i should i be grateful
you are the one part of me that isn’t gentle
and yes, on some nights like this
at this point, every night feels like this
it’s almost as though i’ve been forsaken by god
i even try to fix my gaze around the stars to see if i can look him right in the eyes
i would curse him and say things i wouldn’t say to my worst enemy
let alone my own father and mother
but now, i just look up with eyes longing for very abrupt shutting and sigh a pitiful
“please”
strewn about the corner of my rusted mind where a single flickering halogen bulb shines
now, i just wish he would rip me from where i stand
and clasp me in freezing space
where the only warmth is from the stars far away and the sins right behind me
my body limp, head and arms tilted back as if to say
“just do it already”
as he gnaws into my soul held together by a thread
with his pitch-black all-encompassing eye of nothingness
because that's all he's ever wanted me to see
this tomb is my tomb
damp with blood and tears
both cold and merciless
like my creator’s hammer that breaks me into pieces
and there’s not a person alive
that can take that away from me
i know now that i need to hold it in the arms of a mother
a mother who could hold without prerequisite
hold it in the arms of something closer to holiness than blood could ever be
tousle it’s hair gently and kiss it goodnight
look it in the eyes directly and tell it that it has a right to be
S. Azrael
Dec 14, 2025
Dec 14, 2025 at 3:55 PM UTC