excuses
excuses
excuses
excuses
excuses
reasons
reasons
reasons
reasons
reasons
to remove me from yourself
courtless alibis
for whom
why
no reason
no reason
no reason
your soulless boredom
suicideless constitution
non-consensual manifest
flesh on Earth
on behalf of noone
breathing each breath
for no one
I used to belong
I used to belong
I used to belong
May 24
May 24, 2026 at 1:44 PM UTC
(An ordinary receipt, doing a better job of keeping track of my life than I do.)
I found it by accident –
a small, crumpled record
of a day I apparently lived
without noticing.
It listed nothing remarkable:
coffee, bread,
a moment I must have walked through
on my way to somewhere else.
It had the date,
the time,
even the cashier’s name –
someone who greeted me
with a politeness
I must have returned
without thinking.
The total was modest.
The moment even more so.
Yet here it was,
surviving longer
than whatever thought
I was having at the time.
A thin strip of paper,
keeping better records
than my memory ever bothered to keep.
It knows the hour
I stood in a line,
the exact cost
of an ordinary afternoon.
Meanwhile I was thinking
about something else entirely –
tomorrow, perhaps,
or some small worry
that has already dissolved.
The receipt remembers
with perfect patience.
I’ve already forgotten the afternoon.
But the receipt
still knows
exactly
when it happened.
Mar 17
Mar 17, 2026 at 5:55 AM UTC
I defeated Wroth on Mount Elbrus
He was bloodied in the snow,
slowly becoming a monolith,
a landmark for skiers and mountaineers
to mark time.
My fists still clenched,
I remained unmoved for a few moments,
watching the snowflakes gather,
as I read the eulogy.
The warmth seeps away
breath by breath from within
as I whisper into the harsh winds.
Words which shall nourish no one.
If Wroth lay bloodied on the snow,
why am I cold?
Mar 16
Mar 16, 2026 at 2:35 PM UTC
love is a block of cheese
with holes in it —
enough space for warmth to pass through
and pollinate a ****** heart,
enough to rot from within.
Mar 16
Mar 16, 2026 at 1:25 PM UTC
Mosquitos under the lampshade,
dilly dallying without care —
a drop here, a drop there,
then drinking some more
to sober up in the morning.
My ankles are stiff
from holding up empty weight.
Old promises flare up
and shed like dead skin,
but the memories remain —
this time, without the foolhardy
beliefs of growth.
Mar 16
Mar 16, 2026 at 1:18 PM UTC
germs love a loaf of bread thrown away without regard —
riverine dolphins in the Brahmaputra
are blind, not hopeless.
They want to live.
Wildebeest form a cyst
where a lion's fang penetrated,
fooling death.
Why can't I be a loaf of bread
or form cysts?
Mar 12
Mar 12, 2026 at 3:50 PM UTC
It's been eight months or so.
Summer arrived before winter clawed away
the final leaves from the withered trees.
Dried leaves dewed in sweat,
besmirched upon the warm, wet ground,
wishing to be petrified, but here they remain,
dying a slow death in the heat.
I gave you the words you needed
to sever me from your life.
You'd accuse me of a wrong doing,
and I'd stand witness against myself in my own trial, this life.
You'd say I was unfair, rude.
I'd say I was sorry, and that it was all my fault.
You'd say you stopped talking because you felt insecure, I accepted. Even though I knew of the surgical precision
with which you severed me from yourself.
I was the whetstone, the sword, and the executioner,
you merely watched.
How can one be so foolish?
Perhaps I was desperate for love,
perhaps I romaticized you,
perhaps I idolized you into a figure of worship.
But were the prayers meaningless?
The words of affection, and of assurance,
were they meaningless to you?
You received them so easily.
Where is my reward?
Where are the fruits you promised to bear?
Where is my love?
Mar 5
Mar 5, 2026 at 4:31 PM UTC
Thoughts erode in a loveless soul
like plants showered in pesticide
fruitless is the existence of thought
bountiless is the necessity for speech
Feb 16
Feb 16, 2026 at 6:21 PM UTC
sitting with the taste of me
sitting with the stench of me
minutes before starvation
that odd warmth
when hunger forgets
to caste a scar
that odd warmth
even when I remain without you
outburst of coffee lozenges
throughout the day
a cigarette for a soul
high on sugar
high on your sweetness
a few moments of solace
before the taste of me
Jan 18
Jan 18, 2026 at 12:19 PM UTC
Home sweet home.
The journey from rickshaw to rickshaw
is perilous.
Suspicious soup and odd shaped boiled eggs
being sold on the street,
where buses line up for diesel,
and hawkers sweep the streets.
I never see those eggs anywhere else.
I never see those faces anywhere else.
Only in twilight,
when the air is heavy and cold,
and there’s a particular sharpness to people,
and definite danger around every corner.
Opened the lock, and called out to mother.
Once, twice, thrice.
She was in her room,
door’s open.
No answer.
She couldn’t hear me, she said.
I went to my room,
door’s closed.
Listening to Cigarettes out the window by TV Girl.
There’s an odd loneliness.
An odd silence.
My lips murmur,
hesitant to call out your name,
but no tears flow
I should freshen up.
Jan 14
Jan 14, 2026 at 7:22 AM UTC