The engines shriek in silver tone,
a hollow hymn through steel and bone-
and I am drifting, small and alone,
somewhere between your heart and home.
Florida air still clings to me-
that southern, heavy humidity,
the kind you curse so bitterly.
Oh, how I miss your company.
I walked through the places you grew,
through grocery stores that are true to you.
Imagining your laughter too,
in spots painted Carolina blue.
I traced the doors you must have touched,
the tables where your hands have brushed-
and though it wasn't really us,
you felt so near, it hurt enough.
We shared everything, from timezone to air,
the same thick warmth, the same salted glare.
It almost felt as if you were there,
a ghost beside my vacant hotel chair.
Now California waits for me,
wide and dry and far from sea.
But something in the altitude
keeps screaming your name-
don't go.
And somewhere far beneath this plane,
you're staring at your phone again.
I read your words in the quiet rain:
don't go.
Mar 10
Mar 10, 2026 at 1:33 AM UTC
All I am is a woman in a male-dominated world,
and if I complain, then I’ll be waiting,
waiting only for a man to say I’m correct,
to validate my cries, to discover the legends I’ve already lived.
And I’ll be waiting, waiting for a man to tell me feminism is real,
as if it were never his indecent fear.
And I’ll be waiting. Waiting.
Waiting just for him to boast
that my ideas were futile
the day they were born.
And I’ll be waiting, waiting, waiting,
waiting,
waiting,
waiting,
waiting,
for a change.
Feb 27
Feb 27, 2026 at 2:20 AM UTC
I’m getting over you, just wanted you to know.
Three years in confinement,
the cage I built to keep me safe
bars made of your name,
a lock I called devotion.
I hated the idea of change,
the way light sounds when it leaves.
I never wanted to stop loving you,
as if pulling the tide from the moon
but I think now I do.
I say it to build a wall between me and you.
God, I really hope I do,
my hands are finally empty.
Just wanted you to know.
Jan 28
Jan 28, 2026 at 4:03 AM UTC
I drink a cup of water
after every meal,
run the tap till it’s clear.
Shove my fingers down
over and over.
I drink a cup of water after every meal.
There’s a moment
right before it’s clear,
where I think this might be enough,
where my stomach sounds like rain
and I can pretend it’s washing me clean.
The clean is just empty,
the clear is ***** in a way.
I drink cups of water
again and again.
Run my throat till it’s clear
until my insides look like glass
and I can see right through myself.
And as it laughs with derision,
I call it control.
Jan 28
Jan 28, 2026 at 3:55 AM UTC
I observe from a calculated distance,
as if I was Gatsby, concealed amongst leaves and shadow,
watching a light he cannot touch,
his hope held still by branches and restraint.
I too remain elevated and unseen,
rooted in silence peering into a life vicariously.
A life that does not yet know it will be marked.
She moves through corridors of sanctioned noise
with a precision fought too early.
Finding resilience as a survival reflex
her laughter is a functional disguise,
carefully calibrated to deflect inquiry.
While language was weaponized and casual,
lands repeatedly with surgical indifference.
No bruises bloom where people are trained to look.
Only damage that knows how not to tell.
Isolation becomes her elective course.
And at lunch, the floor is where you'll find her.
A bathroom stall converted into a confessional
breath subdivided, pulse monitored.
Fluorescent hymns hum without remorse
as screens confess what mouths would mock;
words they multiply, they return
long after their authors cease to talk.
Home offers corners but no release,
she sits where walls protect and where doors close,
where time feels eternal, where seconds are everlasting,
she holds herself like a fragile peace,
careful not to wake her brutal reality.
Pain evolves into articulation.
Skin becomes a negotiable line
a place where her pain seeks translation,
where inner fractures externalize.
This is not a rehearsal for transformation
but reconfiguration, redesign.
A fervent wish to be rendered differently,
perhaps quieter, sharper, less in rotation,
anything other than this self of mine.
I am nearer now, near enough to know
the breath that breaks before it bends,
then buries it where it never ends;
yet I remain incorporeal,
a presence without means to mend;
she does not see me, she cannot.
For she believes this is how it ends.
For she is convinced methodically,
that abandonment is complete.
What she does not yet comprehend
is that I am her future tense,
assembled from endurance and the aftermath;
I am the consequence of her survival,
the proof despair did not destroy her.
I attempt retroactive guardianship,
but time admits no revision.
I am permitted only observation and inference,
only with my education of regret.
All I inherit is the understanding
of what neglect can make one feel.
So I return to the present
bearing lessons learned too late:
that distance masquerades as innocence,
that silence is often mistaken for strength,
that shuddering does not escalate politely,
when it is expected of you to be brave.
Someone right now is already disappearing
into bathrooms, into bedrooms, into themselves.
Perfecting the illusion of being unaffected
becoming smaller to survive, in a way.
And if we persist in watching from trees,
from the hallways, from moral safety,
we will grow into ghosts somehow.
So let this serve as a vow by me,
to intervene before pain requires proof,
to approach before hope becomes precarious,
to offer presence while it can still be received.
So let this be my final pledge,
to step closer while closeness counts,
to break the silence when mutual feeling is clear,
to offer care before it amounts;
becomes a memory, an aftermath of self-doubt.
Because no one should have to survive
just to finally be seen.
And no one should grow up into proof
that care arrived too late to cure.
Jan 18
Jan 18, 2026 at 3:05 PM UTC
i will destroy myself a million times
over and over again to see you smile.
i took the blame, stayed silent
when you told me he was your best friend.
knowing i’ll never get closure,
loving through self erasure
Jan 18
Jan 18, 2026 at 1:46 AM UTC
When I was nine,
the nights stopped feeling safe.
Every evening had footsteps,
I prayed they would skip my door.
It kept happening,
almost every night
until fear felt like a bedtime routine,
and my own skin forgot it belonged to me.
He left eventually,
back to Iran
and the silence he left behind
was almost worse,
loud with what I couldn’t say.
For four months,
my dreams replayed the dark,
every sleep a rerun I didn’t choose.
But the sun kept showing up anyway,
and one morning,
I realized it rose for me, too.
When I go to sleep now,
it doesn’t win.
It’s mine again,
and it can’t touch me.
Jan 16
Jan 16, 2026 at 5:35 AM UTC
No, I’m not in love with you.
I say it like a prayer I don’t believe
But God, the gentle things you do
The careful way your shadow leans into me
And I reach for a place so far away
Like I’m trying to outrun your gravity.
You remind me of all the safe things,
The kind I swore I’d never need
Like a hand to hold in the dark
Like the quiet between your breath and me
Like watching the same sunset
Over and over, like it might explain us.
Oh, you remind me of all the warm things,
The fragile and the worn things
Like the sweater that you wore in the rain
When you pulled me closer just to feel me shake
Like the dangerous comfort
Of wanting you more than I say.
You remind me of the reasons to take a chance,
Like a kiss I’ll regret in advance
Like the face I’ll never forget
Even when I forget who I am
But oh, my dear, you remind me to glance
And when I do, I linger longer than I should.
‘Cause your smile, it’s impeccable
Like it dares me to believe in the beautiful
And it feels like I’ll never take my eyes off you
Like if I blink, I’ll lose you
Like if I stay, I’ll lose me too
I swear I’m trying to be careful now
Trying not to feel so loud
But your name is in my bloodstream
And your ghost is in my mouth
I keep saying I’m not in love
Like love can’t hear the sound
You remind me of all the soft things,
That break you just the same
Like the moment before you fall asleep
When you almost say my name
And I pretend I don’t hear it
But it ruins me anyway.
No, I’m not in love with you
But God, it feels exactly like I do
Jan 16
Jan 16, 2026 at 5:32 AM UTC
Every face in the crowd has a story rehearsed,
But their voices get lost, like the ones unrehearsed.
I can see in the mirror, I look worse when I eat,
But when I force it all out, I feel more complete.
“Eat as little as possible” echoes her rule,
So I dodge every plate when I’m stuck in a room.
It’s a show for the crowd, but when no one’s around,
I collapse in the silence and let it come down.
One day I’ll make it,
I’ll scream through the quiet,
Till they know my name.
So one day I’ll make it,
One day I’ll make it,
I’ll burn through the waiting,
And I won’t be the same.
Every actor auditions, but one gets the part,
Every hand holds a script, but not every heart.
I was waiting for flags just to call out my name,
Never knew all the winners were told just the same.
Childhood nights, hoping they’d notice me too,
But the letters were written, the choice never new.
Now I bury the yearn and hide it with pride,
But the ache in my stomach still whispers inside.
One day I’ll make it,
I’ll scream through the quiet,
till they know my name.
So one day I’ll make it,
One day I'll make it
I’ll burn through the waiting,
And I won’t be the same.
And the lights will be shining,
I’ll be standing in frame,
All the years I was silent,
Won’t be wasted in vain.
But what if they never,
Remember my face?
What if all of this hunger,
Was only disgrace?
I’ve been carving my body,
Just to fit in their view,
And the pain that I swallow
Still tastes like the truth.
I’ve rehearsed my acceptance
Like a speech no one hears,
Dreamt of walking that stage
Through a sea full of fears.
And if I collapse there,
With nothing to show,
At least they’ll have seen me
Before I let go.
One day I’ll make it,
One day I’ll make it,
I’ll scream through the quiet,
Till they know my name.
One day I’ll make it,
One day I’ll make it,
I’ll burn through the waiting,
And I won’t be the same.
Jan 16
Jan 16, 2026 at 5:29 AM UTC
The bruises on your knees
he’d kneel down for,
hands full of apologies,
regret stitched into his voice.
My scrapes learned how to heal
without witnesses.
I’ve tried so hard to earn it.
Your love is just given.
You are the princess in the photographs,
standing where the light falls naturally.
I’m cropped out,
or holding the camera,
or told to stop standing like that.
And I hate myself
for the envy,
because it isn’t your fault
you were loved out loud.
But sometimes I wonder
who I would’ve been
if I hadn’t spent my childhood
trying to prove
I was worth keeping gentle.
I was never asking for more.
I was just asking
not to be the lesson
in a story where you
were always the miracle.
Jan 16
Jan 16, 2026 at 5:26 AM UTC