Too often, I exchange sleep
For watching the way
The morning light
Reflects off your skin
Your face
Shines
As if something holy
Sometimes I lean in close,
Whisper a few words
I don't mean to,
The words slipping
Out of my mouth
Like a prayer in
My mother tongue
Maybe in your dreams
You'll understand
Each foreign syllable
As they flow
Off my lips
A river of devotion
Rushing downstream
But when you wake
My heart must beat
In a language
It barely knows
You smile
An American smile
I can't emulate
You're shining again,
But this time
It's just you
You beg me
To say it again
As if my heavy thoughts
Were worth holding
Just this once, your sweetness
Swallows me whole
Vulnerability burns
Like the hot tea
Babushkas make
You drink it all
Without hesitation
I never learned
What it meant
To be gentle
I don't dare laugh
Or dance
The bright way
You do
But in a mess
Of soft blankets
Tangled legs
And mistranslations
The dark corners
Of this lonely apartment
Seem to sparkle
Feb 16
Feb 16, 2026 at 1:06 AM UTC
I sit there, exhausted
With my hand supporting my head,
My eyes close.
And as my eyelashes brush my fingertips,
I realize the word gentle
Could be used about me too.
Feb 10
Feb 10, 2026 at 3:11 AM UTC
I never knew where I stood with you;
I wonder if you didn’t know the same.
Sometimes I remember how
I walked across that stage and our eyes met
Just before I was able
To forget your name.
I never told you that I loved you;
You never told me either.
Instead, those three words
Pressed themselves into our skin,
Left us in a daze,
And turned me into a dreamer.
I never thought that you would turn out this way;
You couldn’t imagine being a little ****** like me.
Do tell, old lover,
Do you know what it's like
To step out of the shadows
And be free?
Feb 10
Feb 10, 2026 at 2:59 AM UTC
If each poem
Is a window to the soul
Reading my old words
Makes me wonder if the man if I’m seeing
Will ever be whole
There was a year, once
Where the sight of your curls
Softened my heart,
Brought a smile to my face
And convinced me that I did like girls
But it’s been so long
That the ink on the page faded
I can’t separate
Your hair on my shoulder
From the love that you degraded
I wish I could
Remember you fondly
In some other life
The sun that morning
Makes the thought of you godly
A year has come and gone
Yet still, I see your missed calls
Don’t you know
That even just your name
Makes me wonder how I loved you at all
Because you didn’t
I hold that younger version of myself tight
I’ll tell him that it's all good and well
That he does not know
If he will make it through the night
I’ll whisper in a language
You never cared enough to learn
The deep, monotone pitch
Of my homeland
Where I can never return
So whenever I stumble upon
A few old poems of mine
I’ll cradle each word carefully
For the sake of a young boy
Who insisted he was just fine
But confuse not
My gentleness for sympathy
At you
I bite my thumb
For heartlessness deserves no dignity
Feb 7
Feb 7, 2026 at 9:24 PM UTC
The summer heat bled through every square inch of that attic room
You kept the windows open; claimed it would keep us a bit cooler
I wasn’t so sure, but I kept my mouth shut
The air up in New England wasn’t anything I knew
You brought a beer to your lips, took a few gulps and passed it over
I couldn’t look away this time, as your eyes caught mine
For a fearful few seconds, it felt like you could suddenly see all of me
Every thought I had, and how they were all of you
The can smelled a little like the joint we had shared
A young part of me I’ve started ignoring whispered
That your lips were just there, there where mine were about to be
I looked away, just in case you could see that thought too
The wind would blow South again and took me with it
Secretly, I wished you came with me and I wouldn’t be able to hide
Behind joints and beer cans and cameras and midnight blue
Your eyes would meet mine, everything would come into view
But in this life, I left my heart up in New England
Terrified to run towards you, just as scared to push you away
I didn’t know how to love a man in the light, a man like you
So I stayed put, convinced myself that nothing I felt was true
Feb 4
Feb 4, 2026 at 3:17 AM UTC