I searched for it
beneath the willow tree
that flowed by the stream
that laughed at my childhood dreams.
I looked for it
in the pool of tears
from the ****** at the bar
and the bloodstains on the jukebox.
I sniffed the air
in the bathroom
at the back of the bar,
thought I smelled it,
but it was only **** and *****
I looked at the altar
in the church
and the graveyard by the big oak tree,
and I thought I saw it
between the cracks in the headstones
where the plastic flowers lie.
I crawled under couches
and pulled the refrigerator out.
I looked in the cat’s mouth
when it gnawed on a sparrow,
thinking maybe the cat
or the sparrow had my answer.
I stepped on sand
by the Pacific Ocean
under that March Hare moon,
listened to the waves whisper,
hoping they’d tell me.
I tasted it
in ****** Mary mornings,
spicy and red,
tomatoes and *****
burning my throat,
scarring my tongue.
I ran miles
in alleys, in every direction,
with the walls
and the **** of the city pressing in.
Footsteps stalk
like angry ghosts,
thinking maybe
the chase itself
was the answer.
I saw it
in dilapidated motels
that smelled like dollar perfume
and despair.
Thought I found it
running down a sewer
where the lamplight
fell on the cracked concrete.
I argued with strangers
over Styrofoam cups of whiskey,
traded words for wisdom
that they didn’t know
they had.
I listened to John Coltrane
and Miles Davis
at three in the morning.
Saw the amber notes
hang like phantoms in the room,
tasted the melody,
harmony burned into my brain.
I smelled it
in libraries.
I felt the librarian’s *******
and inner thighs,
hoping, praying
it might be hidden there,
or in the old books,
stacked high with dust
and old confessions.
I tripped through homeless shelters,
stumbled through parking lots,
past the blinking neon signs,
wondering where the magic went.
When I was younger,
I chased it
through marriages and divorces,
through laughter and screaming,
moaning to spilled drinks
and broken promises.
Through nights
when the ceiling fan
turned slow
as a dying clock,
I dug dirt
in the Iowa farmlands.
I asked Hemingway
and Steinbeck
and the brown spider
that smiles
in the corner of my room.
None of them
said a **** word.
I walked centuries
in my mind,
climbed stairwells
that smelled like hate and ***
peeked behind mirrors,
and breathed in the smell of mercury dimes.
I listened for it
in the crack of doors,
in the hum of streetlights,
in the hiss of morning buses
as they drove the city awake.
And finally, finally
I found it
on a little shelf
behind my heart,
curled in the corner,
furry
and dreaming
of cattails and canned tuna.
Mar 8
Mar 8, 2026 at 11:17 PM UTC
I remember her house on 58th Street,
always dark, always black curtains,
the smell of mothballs and cobwebs
seeping through the door.
Some said she was a witch.
Some said her children had died.
Some said a boy had gone missing
and was locked in her closet.
We never knew if it was true.
She had a dog, Boy Dog,
scruffy, growling, lurking by the porch.
In autumn, walking home from school,
I’d get up the nerve and pass her house,
sometimes catching her in the upstairs window,
all in black, watching, smiling.
One afternoon, we knocked on her door,
heart hammering, voices shaking.
She answered, said she needed to grab her sweater.
She came back out, hands empty, eyes wide.
“I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do,” she said,
raising her hands and walking toward us.
We ran, heart pounding,
like we were trying out for the track team.
And sometimes, just sometimes,
I wonder if she was laughing,
or crying, or both.
Mar 8
Mar 8, 2026 at 11:16 PM UTC
You take the
small pleasures when
they come,
like vanishing gnats.
The black cat rolls on
the freshly vacuumed
carpet,
reaching every spot
and fiber, to satisfy
the deep need for relief.
My good friend died this
morning.
Cirrohis--his lover became a killer.
************ I'm sick of
death.
Neon orange sadness.
Three beautiful orphans behind.
The cubbards need to
be organized,
and every rotten thing in
the fridge needs tossed away.
This gray day
needs me back in bed,
covers over my head,
and a sunrise that
deletes everything.
Mar 8
Mar 8, 2026 at 10:28 PM UTC
We venture forth
into the inky black
of the unknown—
hand in hand,
into a darkness so deep
we can’t always
see one another’s faces.
But the touch—
that gentle certainty—
remains.
Your hand in mine,
mine in yours.
A silent promise
threaded through
tense fingers
and quiet breath.
We are not alone.
Even when
complete blackness
wraps the world
and sight abandons us,
we do not falter.
We walk in unison,
blinded yet
bound by something
stronger than light:
faith.
Faith
that even adrift,
we will always
drift
toward the same shore.
That our steps,
though unsure,
are attuned
to the same places—
to the quiet gravity
of home.
We will always
find our way.
Home
is where
we are
together.
Mar 8
Mar 8, 2026 at 10:28 PM UTC
Past my skin you'll find my soul,
But you never bothered to look anyways.
Your fingers tracing along me.
across my body, the miles and miles of skin, enough space to wander, to cover, to smother, to hide me.
Run your hands up along my ribs - the cage - feeling my chest rise and fall with each breath you stole,
always breathing in the scent of you.
You lock your eyes on something
other than unlocking my cage to find my heart.
You always favoured the outside parts
rather than the depth that waited beneath it. Begging to be seen.
Without a performance.
Running out of time - we ran out of time.
Never enough time for you to stay.
Never enough time for depth that lied beyond my body.
You lead me through the forest,
always finding your way back to the path - somehow im still lost.
The clouds turned grey
and the light turned to dark as i spent more time trying to escape,
I saw through the trees in the moonlight,
but the moon looked wrong; almost false, I saw your reflection.
It flickered from time to time but too quick to catch it.
Too quick to hold it.
Too quick to ever find the warmth that held my face the same way you did.
Ever again.
Suddenly, im back in my room, you in yours. Only my walls carried the sound of my cries, you'll never hear.
Mar 8
Mar 8, 2026 at 10:27 PM UTC
My darling, you are the light that brightens the room whenever you walk in
Your soul captivates everyone who surrounds you
Your beauty is something so precious that it shouldn’t be shared with everyone, but only with those you choose to share it with
Your heart is what I long to own, what I wish to be a part of, but I don’t think that I am
I wish I were worthy of calling you my own, but unfortunately I am not
But you, my dear… You deserve all of the love and happiness that comes your way, and I can only hope that I may still be in your life, if only as a friend to see it
Mar 8
Mar 8, 2026 at 10:27 PM UTC
The silence falls, heavy with years of
longing
for safety.
And there you are, preaching about how
sin is the only thing that can
separate us from God.
I wonder if you're listening
to yourself, to the
echoes of truth in what you don't say.
You sinned.
You separated yourself from God.
Did you come back?
Ask for forgiveness from Him and just
forget about me?
No repentance,
No forgiveness,
No salvation.
The words burn
like the years of being
Slowly
Deliberately
Touched
by the flames you lit
when you threw a match
on my childhood.
I learned everything
you taught me
about how I was
nothing
but a solution to a problem
you didn't really have.
The only thing
wrong
was
you
not knowing
how to make yourself feel better
except by making someone else feel worse.
And now
this moment is filled with
me
feeling worse
without you even trying.
Your voice from the past
blends with your voice now
in layers that spill over each other
until all I hear is the noise of
my mind shattering
as you push your way
inside.
I freeze at the onslaught,
longing for safety,
for silence,
but the old whispers are back,
telling me I'm nothing,
slipping through cracks I didn't know I had
in walls I built as a child.
There is no closure,
just the rise and fall of your voice,
timeless,
and my breath
trembling
in its wake.
Mar 8
Mar 8, 2026 at 10:26 PM UTC