I ride the carousel, round in my mind,
Each figure a name I swore I’d forget
A sardonic grin on the face of time,
Spinning through kisses and cold regret.

He whispered in lust making false vows,
Then vanished into the dark of night.
The shame still stains my silence now,
A bruise that blooms beneath the light.

Another wore dreams like a cheap disguise,
Painted in promises, glossed with gold.
But the facade cracks beneath his lies,
And love runs dry when hearts grow cold.

They repeat like haunted tunes,
Ghosts dressed nice, soaked in sin
A dance beneath a distant moon,
Where every ending dares begin.

Still I continue, I never learn,
Addicted to the aching thrill
To love that sours, to bridges burned,
To wounds that beg to open still.

She is not where the candles glow—
not in the choir, nor the scroll.
She is where the mirrors sweat,
where names are forgotten
and longing is whole.

She waits in the ache before sleep,
in the bruise behind every “I’m fine.”
She hides in your bones like a breath held too long,
a hymn that refuses to rhyme.

She is not light.
She is what makes light burn.

She is not love.
She is what love remembers
after it’s been consumed.

So if you kneel, kneel naked.
If you pray, bleed truth.
She does not come for pretty boys—
She comes for you.

My hands grow tired
  trying to hold onto sleep—
gripping fragments of tension
  while my thoughts drift too deep
to be attentive, to pay attention
  to what the world calls worthy.

I swim in the farthest corners
  of thought—beyond my depths—
yet I never run out of breath.
There’s freedom in this dive,
  in expressing all I feel.
This pen is the extension
  of my soul’s most honest reach.

Above a mantelpiece,
  I search for a worth I could call
my dear—starstruck like a deer
  beneath hunting lights.
And though *******, the trophy
hunter loves the chase
  more than the prize.
That, too, is a kind of art.

By genuine reflection,
  I still call myself an artist—
one still learning the form,
still finding the lines
  between vision and mastery.
The lessons are never done.

What I hold in my hand
  feels like something from a
Divine hand— a gift placed gently
  by a hand not my own.

Art is adamant progress:
unyielding, sacred, slow—
  but still,
  I move.

I bite.
Not with teeth.
with silence,
with sharp glances,
with walls built higher than your reach.

I’m not cruel.
I’m just tired
of being kind first
and torn apart second.

You call it attitude.
I call it armor.
Because being soft
never saved me.
It only made the fall hurt more.

So I speak less now.
Agree less.
Trust less.
I pull away before someone has the chance
to walk out first.

It’s not that I don’t want love.
I’ve learned that even “I care about you”
can come with conditions.
Even soft hands
can leave bruises
you can’t see.

I bite
because once,
I didn’t.
And it nearly broke me.

I sit there in my room each night
Wondering if this is what life is supposed to feel like

In my room, I cry alone
Just wishing I was ever known

I sit there on my comforting little bed
My safe place, crying till my eyes get red

I have a family, friends and more
But feel like i'm locked in a cage behind my door

I sit there on my bed every night
Just praying for me to feel alright

I put a smile for everyone there
Pushing down this feeling of despair

What’s life is like for others, I wonder every night
Just dreaming, in my bed, trying to feel alright

I sit there in my room each night
Wondering if this is what life is supposed to feel like

The rays of the sun
splash across your face—
so familiar,
so known,
yet somehow
so incredibly far away.

Angel kisses
dance along your skin,
cheeks flushed
with shades of cerise.

Your smile is my haven
from dark, from light,
from every shade of confusion.

I find comfort in your eyes,
losing myself
in the waves of ocean within them.

Not even the gods themselves
have held such beauty.
What a masterpiece
the world has made in you.

My usual jealous eyes
are clouded by amazement.
All I can do is hope
you'll let me stare
a little longer.

And still—
I can’t help but despise the thought
that others get to feel this too,
that you make them
feel
so.

you, me
sunscreen lines
hot concrete
public pool
wasps clinging to hazy poles supporting scratched-up waterslides
that made us scream:
both the slides
and the wasps
but we always laughed it off
in the end.

when we sit down the sunset will follow.
i hope we do it all over again, tomorrow...
pretzel cup cheese-induced teenage chlorine dreams
the summer i turned fifteen
i thought you
i thought we
were everything