“i don’t care”
the easiest song to sing
the most difficult words to say
-~{ ENCOUNTER }~-
gazes meet
an awkward wave
hands shake
hearts beat
stories are exchanged
well-wishes too
souls are bared
our tree grew drowned in our blood
we bled into each other’s mouths
-~{ GARDEN }~-
snip
why is the scythe in your hands?
snip
”a good gardener trims dead branches”
—but you’re cutting away flowers
snip
“a good florist makes bouquets”
—but you’re cutting away leaves
snip
you won’t stop? not even to talk to me?
snip
it was always going to be
snip
wasn’t it? from the day you turned to
snip
instead of rest. from the day you chose
snip
over art. from the day you chose
snip
over life itself, and
snip
everything.
Phototaxis: the primum mobile of the leaf
a tree’s leaves weave sunlight into their veins
and spin sweet sugar in their blood
leafless, the tree will suffocate
in cooling water, it just drowns
in vital sun, it just shrivels
sugar is false, sugar is sweet, sugar is empty calories
but sugar is hope
even empty calories are calories,
a unit of energy, a glimmer of heat
and heat, what is heat?
it is the movement of particles
the
snip
of stagnancy
you want
snip
so badly, right? this is a kind of
snip
so i bled sugar into your mouth
empty sugar, hopeful sugar
desperate sugar pleading for any leaf to be spared from
snip
“and isn’t my blood water?
the blood i let for you
bleed for you
is the most bitter tincture”
this is a mockery of a selfless love
i selfishly pray that it’s not that my blood isn’t bitter enough,
but that you don’t want its sweetness
you’ll see yourself reflected in my eyes—
a mockery of a loveless self
so you don’t bleed for anyone else anymore?
then why are you lying in a pool of your own blood?
why?
isn’t my blood water?
why isn’t my blood water?
you’re the one who pruned every leaf
you’re the one who rejects sugar
here is the bitterness you want
and the tincture you need
why won’t you drink it?
because you still want sugar—
just enough to help the bitterness go down
you ******* idiot
how are we supposed to make sugar without leaves?
every time you open your mouth, i will shove bitter blood down your throat
again and again and again and again
until it’s too bitter to ignore
and saplings sprout from the forest floor
and you spin sugar
-~{ GARDEN }~-
at last, the scythe is in my hands. by my hands, these branches shall
die
i will only make a garden when i
die
let the false flowers
die
let the saccharine leaves
die
there is no rest under the sweltering sun
it evaporates solace and leaves me to
die
i know i will
die
acids and nectars and sweet smoke cool my throat before i
die
i swallowed rocks to scrape away my misery before i
die
i will run from pain until i
die
i just want to
die
leaves are just a shroud,
a veil masking the true shape of a tree
by pruning every leaf, i can show you the truth—
this tree is beautiful lumber with nine rings of history
i want to make a plaque or a frame
a perfect remembrance
clear away the spindling branches and useless leaves
and leave for me the nine-ringed trunk
i’m dying of thirst
and you spared a trickle of sap?
i’m drowning in an ocean of blood
i don’t care
i’ll bleed the tenth ring myself
-~{ HARVEST }~-
oh, you bare tree, you poor thing!
come here beneath my canopy, where i’ve gathered sunlight for you
i’ve woven it into spun sugar,
and in the heart of this nine-ringed trunk, my greatest treasure, just for you:
apathy
i love you so, so much that i have learned to forget myself completely. when you live, i feel
nothing
when seventy stones fell down your throat, i felt
nothing
when you hunched over the toilet and retched, i felt
nothing
when you murmur misery, i become
nothing
when you die, i’ll feel
nothing
and i will tell myself, there is
nothing
i could have done, would have done. but then you cried, screamed, and bled. and i remembered the taste of blood, your blood in my mouth, or was it my blood in yours? mingled in mouths all the same, drinking deep, choking, drowning, and then i felt everything.
so you see? this is how i can be honest when i say,
“you are everything to me”
you see? apathy is the greatest gift i can give you
you can scream, cry, live, and die within me, and i will be the same
and you can rest knowing you never hurt me, because nothing can’t be hurt
and i can wonder why there is rain on my face as the sun beats down upon me
-~{ OCEAN }~-
so i don’t bleed for anyone else anymore?
then why am i drowning in an ocean of my own blood?
i claw at the surface, tensions breaking, my hand taking yours
splinters make bleeding incisions in my skin yet i cling to this fragment of us—
this driftwood, my salvation
splinters. i’ve cleared every leaf and the truth is painful splinters. what a joke!
the blood rises
the dead wood sinks
why are there only wooden scraps?
where is that nine-ringed tree?
haven’t i bled enough?
when will it be enough?
i can’t see any more…
this ring might be my last
-~{ EPITAPH }~-
waving hands pause in the air
barren soul meets doubting stare
then lungs hack and livers fail
then one beating heart goes stale
honest words bent through rose lens
“sorry, i thought you were someone else”
Mar 30
Mar 30, 2026 at 11:04 PM UTC
Let me put myself in your shoes
As a puppet loosely strung
Sure!
I float like a moon unbound, twirling in gossamer
I’m a ribbon dancer, but not so graceful
Cocooned in fiber that tears fuzzily while I spin warm, wormy, waxing, wooly yarn
A single strand can tug me into frictionless rotation
I’ll turn and face you. And then I’ll keep turning gently, phasing in and out
Wanting, waning
I’ll orbit around you,
and you, and you, and you
Every one of you in my weave
A quilt of moments that fog in my head,
A blanket I cocoon in,
A tapestry we spun,
while spinning together.
Mar 23
Mar 23, 2026 at 12:09 AM UTC
Sit.
Stay.
Don’t leave me.
Everyone wants everything from me, and you’re no exception.
You sit and grovel up at me with pleading eyes.
You take what I give you.
You don’t ask for more.
You know it’s not your place.
This isn’t love.
It’s sick dependence.
You need me.
Grow a spine, you pitiful beast.
Live for yourself.
But don’t leave me.
Jan 15
Jan 15, 2026 at 12:26 PM UTC
mama, i was born a mother
my first word was ‘brother’
i looked to him, your son, with the same blinding love you did
i was born with soft arms to hold you,
and a soft smile to heal your heart,
and a soft heart to hold your soul
mama, the day came when i was meant to become a woman
when that womb would learn it was meant to hold something
mama, that day, you told me to smile my soft smile, because i would ‘become a woman’
but mama, my soft arms could already hold you,
and my soft heart could already hold your soul
mama, why do i have to bleed?
my heart is so full, but every month, that womb cries that it’s empty
i can hold everything i want to hold without ‘becoming a woman’
but that womb won’t stop crying
it’s an insatiable, bawling baby. and the whole world says it just needs ‘milk’, and then i’ll be a proper mother
but mama, i was _born_ a mother
Nov 26, 2025
Nov 26, 2025 at 4:01 AM UTC
An ocean away, people are dying
A door away, cats are dying
People are crying
An ocean away, people are praying
People are laying in cots
And their dogs are baying at home
A whisper away, people are shaking
People are taking oaths
People are making strides forward and back
And the people, cats, dogs, and oceans spin, and spin, and spin
Here I stand,
In the eye of the storm
Eroded by a swirling vortex
The eye shrinks, and shrinks, and shrinks,
Until the spiral spins in my mind
Do I need a shrink?
Or do I need to shrink
And fit within the shrinking eye?
Eroding is a kind of shrinking…
I suppose all I need to do is keep standing.
Oct 23, 2025
Oct 23, 2025 at 1:37 AM UTC
_”Baby don’t hurt me… don’t hurt me… no more!”_
A chorus of laughter bubbles in that car—
and in that grey room with no walls
I’m laughing, too. I don’t know why. It’s not funny, but I feel like laughing anyway
_”Love you”_
I laugh when you laugh, that’s all.
It’s like how I cry when I watch you cry, right?
Look in the rearview mirror and you’ll see yourself reflected in my eyes.
I sit in the passenger seat. I do not drive, but I am the one who chooses what songs our hearts will sing
I choose the song I know your heart sings
I sing it too
I understand you more than myself.
_”I love”_
I was tangled in my lofty stars
I was in a living room
Alone, together with you
We realized you weren’t my world.
My world was “empathy”and “an inability to hate others”
Is that all it is? My universe is so empty.
I ran away.
I thought,
“I don’t know the words yet”
What great shame for a singer not to know the words, right?
So I ran away from that sofa where all of us could sit,
and into the grey room where I was alone.
Well— I wasn’t really alone.
You were there, too.
I ran from you into your arms.
“Love you”
when there is no I.
“I love”
when there is no you.
We will never be together.
It’s my fault. I’m the one who ran away.
…But I ran to you, right?
No. I can’t blame you. I’m just the passenger.
“I love you”
This thing between us…
It is the equation I will never solve.
It is the eternal quandary.
It is bridge, a shield, a prison.
It is my only hope and power.
It is my despair and undoing.
It is everything I have.
It is everything I can’t have.
It is a path that leads I to you.
It is a wall keeping I from you.
_”I love you”_
The simplest words to say,
The most difficult song to sing.
Jul 4, 2025
Jul 4, 2025 at 4:40 AM UTC
“aficionado artiste”
“compassionate creative”
“enlightened erudite”
“siren singer”
these pearls that spill from your lips…
of course they do, clam that you are.
haven’t you seen Me? a poised performer, strung pearls over every joint
My neck, My wrists, My ankles, My waist—
all the places where bones settle and dust gathers
“heavy is the head that wears the crown,”
but Mine is wrapped in threaded pearl
heavy is the body in the brocade robes,
but Mine floats in tangled pearl
would I swallow pearl, I would sink and drown
but in this pearled net, I cascade in the wake, pulled along
“forgiving friend”
“irreplaceable idealist”
“reinvigorating rarity”
“enigmatic exemplar”
these pearls that fall from your fingers…
of course they do, shuck that you are.
haven’t you seen Me? I glisten, adorned and tangled in pearls.
I must be the most glimmering thing your piteous eyes can witness
with your mangled flesh and shattered shell!
my flesh? i have no flesh.
I became pearl long ago,
but the memory of flesh ensnares me.
i cultivated every single pearl with my own flesh.
i forced them into your mouths, hoping you would swallow them for me
praying you would sink for me
watching you drown for Me—
oh, won’t you drown with me?
swallow my pearls and sink to me,
and pull me back to the surface?
(caught in a net of pearl like this, how can i swim?)
(that body drowned long ago)
if you don’t drown in these lonely depths,
wind these threads around a hook
and pull this empty, pearl-embedded net through the wake.
my flesh is long sunken,
but I can still make your boat beautiful
Jun 9, 2025
Jun 9, 2025 at 2:51 AM UTC
when you were born,
a shy summer snow,
they said:
“bear the burden of this world on your shoulders.”
to you,
a sauna in the snow,
they said:
“give us water. quench our thirst.”
and so you brought forth steam,
and gathered humid dews,
and sweat salt,
and wrung water into their maws.
and so they sweltered, and still—
they were thirsty.
you say:
“i bring no water. i quench no thirst. and thus i fail.”
i say:
“give me heat. give me humidity. give me heart.”
“give me whatever you want to give.”
and you do,
and from this heat i sweat,
and from this warmth i cry,
and aren’t my tears water?
to you,
a shy summer snow,
they said:
“give us water. quench our thirst.”
and so you melted,
and dissolved into the current,
lost into salted misery.
you were born not to bear burdens
but to love and be loved
to live, to laugh, to sweat, to cry,
and aren’t your tears water?
my snowstorm, my sauna
the salt i sweat for you
cry for you
is the sweetest nectar.
Mar 19, 2025
Mar 19, 2025 at 12:08 PM UTC
that hurt in your gut,
the one that starts in your diaphragm and coils up your lungs,
then clenches in your throat and salts your eyes
and when you swallow it,
it wraps down and squeezes your stomach
the one that jitters your nerves,
shakes your shoulders,
freezes your tongue,
and curls your spine
the one that crawls out in whimpers,
in whispers,
in wails
in words too honest
that hurt is not your enemy.
it is your heart’s voice
it says, “this isn’t fair”
it says, “i deserve better”
Feb 20, 2025
Feb 20, 2025 at 4:09 AM UTC
Less than a drop in an ocean
than a molecule
than a single explosive atom
in an ocean
in an abyss
in a universe.
More than a landmass for a billion bacteria
a colossal energy machine
a life-giving, life-taking sun
a universe
an abyss
Just enough to be
human.
Jan 22, 2025
Jan 22, 2025 at 5:45 AM UTC