paperfires - Hello Poetry

The pigeons croon in the streets Old lullabies from distant places and the crows fight for their morsels under plastic chairs and baking heat And home is where the heat settles Like yellow from angsana trees next to office workers, feet tapping to traffic light beeps There are gods and goddesses in the things we invent: Next day home delivery and good luck rituals Clinking of coins in donation drive tins with the tumps of children’s football out in artificial fields The stars are replaced with skyscrapers The mountains have turned into factories The sea is a port for metal and money The land just a journey to complete But we’ll remember our lullabies through our lit screens and static recordings We’ll hum what the stones have seen and where the waters came from For the birds in the sky say koel, and the roosters still run on concrete And in every crack in the wall we find DNA from our history

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Apr 22

Apr 22, 2026 at 4:39 PM UTC

Changing Tides

The pigeons croon in the streets Old lullabies from distant places and the crows fight for their morsels under plastic chairs and baking heat And home is where the heat settles Like yellow from angsana trees next to office workers, feet tapping to traffic light beeps There are gods and goddesses in the things we invent: Next day home delivery and good luck rituals Clinking of coins in donation drive tins with the tumps of children’s football out in artificial fields The stars are replaced with skyscrapers The mountains have turned into factories The sea is a port for metal and money The land just a journey to complete But we’ll remember our lullabies through our lit screens and static recordings We’ll hum what the stones have seen and where the waters came from For the birds in the sky say koel, and the roosters still run on concrete And in every crack in the wall we find DNA from our history

24

The machines imagine themselves as fish Throwing against the upwards river dream Gold and malleable Iron and corroded The dragon kings cheer For their perpetual struggle Throwing them insects and the like Trading off gossip and snake wine Gods laugh when animals learn to speak When the carp fill their gills Yearning for the surface And the sky for their praise They swim headfirst into flying Imagine that Above the golden gates And crashing into reality

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Mar 11

Mar 11, 2026 at 2:49 PM UTC

Too many in the sky, too little food to feed

The machines imagine themselves as fish Throwing against the upwards river dream Gold and malleable Iron and corroded The dragon kings cheer For their perpetual struggle Throwing them insects and the like Trading off gossip and snake wine Gods laugh when animals learn to speak When the carp fill their gills Yearning for the surface And the sky for their praise They swim headfirst into flying Imagine that Above the golden gates And crashing into reality

16

Flying felt more like falling fast, from the sea into the quiet sky. Terror like fish broken from a swarm, exhilaration like a swallow dodging from teeth. Next, I run blind through broken hallways, with moss lined brick walls, and mist covered panes. Echos chase me from dead end to stairwell, a maze embedded into a hunting ring. Finally, the rooster crows, the sun like a melody, tears dry from my eyes, air a pillow on my face. I reach out, reverent with frigid hands, I’ve travelled far, I wish to be free. Then I wake with a start, dream fading fast. Nothing remembered, nothing achieved. Except a faint feeling of loss within, like snow in a torrent stream.

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Feb 24

Feb 24, 2026 at 1:08 PM UTC

Dreamers Soliloquy

Flying felt more like falling fast, from the sea into the quiet sky. Terror like fish broken from a swarm, exhilaration like a swallow dodging from teeth. Next, I run blind through broken hallways, with moss lined brick walls, and mist covered panes. Echos chase me from dead end to stairwell, a maze embedded into a hunting ring. Finally, the rooster crows, the sun like a melody, tears dry from my eyes, air a pillow on my face. I reach out, reverent with frigid hands, I’ve travelled far, I wish to be free. Then I wake with a start, dream fading fast. Nothing remembered, nothing achieved. Except a faint feeling of loss within, like snow in a torrent stream.

16

We learn truth from glossy pages and history from yellowed ones The mouth of man can never be trusted and the eyes of the mass will never be true How do we look beyond our scrying crystal screen Suffering from long distance sympathy and rose-tinted apathy The sun sets on every horizon and the media men pack their scripts It has happened before, it will happen again and I don’t know where on the line I’m standing in

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Jan 31

Jan 31, 2026 at 2:17 PM UTC

Synthetic diamonds cut just as rough

We learn truth from glossy pages and history from yellowed ones The mouth of man can never be trusted and the eyes of the mass will never be true How do we look beyond our scrying crystal screen Suffering from long distance sympathy and rose-tinted apathy The sun sets on every horizon and the media men pack their scripts It has happened before, it will happen again and I don’t know where on the line I’m standing in

12

I spend my days Like living pay check to pay check Waiting to wake in the morning And waiting to leave when it’s dusk The old rabbit is still alive Grumpy and with cataracts If he dies this year, maybe I’ll grow up Under my paid rooftop My time passes with checkups as bench marks Trickling closer by the generation Clinic reports and hospice visits Everyone seems to need it And there’s in a limbo between my first internship And my sister’s first job Where we’re put up for auction for LinkedIn stuffing and summer money I mourn the heralding of a driver’s license And the distant battle for the car For my father loathes to see a dent But my mother cannot walk far But can’t I dream Sandcastles in the backseat Just one ride longer Before I’m the chauffeur in the rainfall For the rabbit grows old And the dog is next And my childhood is laid to rest

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Jan 10

Jan 10, 2026 at 5:25 AM UTC

Deck Pitch for a Shut-ins Plead Case

I spend my days Like living pay check to pay check Waiting to wake in the morning And waiting to leave when it’s dusk The old rabbit is still alive Grumpy and with cataracts If he dies this year, maybe I’ll grow up Under my paid rooftop My time passes with checkups as bench marks Trickling closer by the generation Clinic reports and hospice visits Everyone seems to need it And there’s in a limbo between my first internship And my sister’s first job Where we’re put up for auction for LinkedIn stuffing and summer money I mourn the heralding of a driver’s license And the distant battle for the car For my father loathes to see a dent But my mother cannot walk far But can’t I dream Sandcastles in the backseat Just one ride longer Before I’m the chauffeur in the rainfall For the rabbit grows old And the dog is next And my childhood is laid to rest

27

It’s the mosquito in my ear begging and begging and begging To finally die as I hold its wings and it gorges herself on blood It’s an excuse A facade There’s an itch in my jaws and a lump in my bones and I’ll keep scratching into viscera Citing bites and weather and dengue fever We’re sick sick sick to the core Mundane and boring and normal I’m sick sick sick of walking And never dreaming about more I better ace that interview I better ace that interview I’m never better than I think I am I better ace that interview Riddle me this oh superstar What do you do when you lose your car When you’re left with both feet deep in a ditch When you never even left the start My paint only dries when I’m all alone The varnish only yellows when I talk The only hands I hold are the ones on a clock With my glass slipper crushed on the rocks

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Apr 25, 2025

Apr 25, 2025 at 2:37 PM UTC

Average college crashout

It’s the mosquito in my ear begging and begging and begging To finally die as I hold its wings and it gorges herself on blood It’s an excuse A facade There’s an itch in my jaws and a lump in my bones and I’ll keep scratching into viscera Citing bites and weather and dengue fever We’re sick sick sick to the core Mundane and boring and normal I’m sick sick sick of walking And never dreaming about more I better ace that interview I better ace that interview I’m never better than I think I am I better ace that interview Riddle me this oh superstar What do you do when you lose your car When you’re left with both feet deep in a ditch When you never even left the start My paint only dries when I’m all alone The varnish only yellows when I talk The only hands I hold are the ones on a clock With my glass slipper crushed on the rocks

26

The metal streets whir And the buildings creaks with the shuffling of gears Progress and movement pumped with hydraulics Steadily compressing us into a cube of 1s and 0s But here I will sit in the centre Palms pressing into the walls hunched over a children’s book First key to my world, First window to my mind These pages folded into Prometheus From spark to fire to light Those podium sitting, silver-eyed, shadow-head figures Look through binoculars searching for Secrets in their numbers and passwords in their data But here in my shoebox observatory I will hold the library of Alexandria And I will not let the future burn again

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Sep 29, 2024

Sep 29, 2024 at 9:04 AM UTC

Path to Future City

The metal streets whir And the buildings creaks with the shuffling of gears Progress and movement pumped with hydraulics Steadily compressing us into a cube of 1s and 0s But here I will sit in the centre Palms pressing into the walls hunched over a children’s book First key to my world, First window to my mind These pages folded into Prometheus From spark to fire to light Those podium sitting, silver-eyed, shadow-head figures Look through binoculars searching for Secrets in their numbers and passwords in their data But here in my shoebox observatory I will hold the library of Alexandria And I will not let the future burn again

19

Standing in the blue light Visible for all but eyes I’ve got ghosts that take my place for me Golden dust when sun goes low Sifting through the air and snow Don’t forget me when I never show You’ll know when I come home I’ve got things I have to do ***** dishes, ***** shoes These bleached hands are not meant for you This blood, these veins I’ve traded it all off for Grand escapes Can you tell I’m making it up each day? It’s too late to say that I’m not the same Go ahead, pull the trigger This is bigger than us both Even if it’s just beginning There’d be meaning in it too I’ve made my bed Will the world sleep in it? Even if you’re late Can you say that it looks pretty? Mongrel in an alleyway Bleeding but I’ll never say You’re the snow I stain my virtues on Skin me like an animal Gentle hands and carved out bones Will you still smile when you see my ghost? Only you’ll know when I’m home

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Sep 26, 2024

Sep 26, 2024 at 12:47 PM UTC

These delusional mantras

Standing in the blue light Visible for all but eyes I’ve got ghosts that take my place for me Golden dust when sun goes low Sifting through the air and snow Don’t forget me when I never show You’ll know when I come home I’ve got things I have to do ***** dishes, ***** shoes These bleached hands are not meant for you This blood, these veins I’ve traded it all off for Grand escapes Can you tell I’m making it up each day? It’s too late to say that I’m not the same Go ahead, pull the trigger This is bigger than us both Even if it’s just beginning There’d be meaning in it too I’ve made my bed Will the world sleep in it? Even if you’re late Can you say that it looks pretty? Mongrel in an alleyway Bleeding but I’ll never say You’re the snow I stain my virtues on Skin me like an animal Gentle hands and carved out bones Will you still smile when you see my ghost? Only you’ll know when I’m home

33

Doorknob parties like every ghost of a hand That passed the threshold of Route and routine Sometimes I feel the grooves where your fingerprints Burned acid into the brass It was boring Wet cardboard and drywall We say goodbye like any other day Stange how the quiet feels heavier than the talk But carry it anyways There’s a meaning in that too

0

Sep 6, 2024

Sep 6, 2024 at 11:49 AM UTC

Prom tears

Doorknob parties like every ghost of a hand That passed the threshold of Route and routine Sometimes I feel the grooves where your fingerprints Burned acid into the brass It was boring Wet cardboard and drywall We say goodbye like any other day Stange how the quiet feels heavier than the talk But carry it anyways There’s a meaning in that too

11

When I talk to eyeless peers Inane weather and harmless gossip my voice echos in my head Perfect moment, perfect answers But I sometimes fear they hear incomprehensibility in my words uncanny in my personality So, for safety, I resort to binary I grow flowers in my lungs to cover the rot in my teeth Sugar-spun cigarette melting when I breathe Recoil from comprehension offer the barest curation I live forever in those three dots below my name in your inbox I find all the things wrong in me and justify chemical imbalance and medweb certified But I know, gently, when the house is quiet I only face my terrible self in the silence Just a conversation with the mirror just a prosecution in these eyes And no one else to know me but my doppelgänger mind

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Aug 7, 2024

Aug 7, 2024 at 12:10 PM UTC

Ms Mystery

When I talk to eyeless peers Inane weather and harmless gossip my voice echos in my head Perfect moment, perfect answers But I sometimes fear they hear incomprehensibility in my words uncanny in my personality So, for safety, I resort to binary I grow flowers in my lungs to cover the rot in my teeth Sugar-spun cigarette melting when I breathe Recoil from comprehension offer the barest curation I live forever in those three dots below my name in your inbox I find all the things wrong in me and justify chemical imbalance and medweb certified But I know, gently, when the house is quiet I only face my terrible self in the silence Just a conversation with the mirror just a prosecution in these eyes And no one else to know me but my doppelgänger mind

24