And over the specks of dust and rose-colored evenings,
in the melancholic fate of soliloquy;
yet as wretched as her soul be, her very first breath was, “Have mercy.”
 
The pale, starry-eyed of April’s sky ends, and it’s pouring; the trees are swaying in their places; the sun is impressed by the rising of the lilies.
Daunted by the ray of light, quietly caressing its innocence.
 
She looked over the moon, as if it were painted by someone she knew.
In hope, she clenched her fist and whispered again and again and again.
Like the petals of dried daisies fallen from the moon.
 
She knew it’s written on the stars; someone knows her name.
 
The airy summer between spring and March’s language, an imprecise grief of longing,
a desert of bones starved on
an ethereal ghost of past summers and the sickening void of the night sky,
she needed to endure
something in her holler with violence—some rage kept on the other side of her old pillow.
 
And yet it’s still written on the stars—someone knows her name.
 
Where the river flows, she follows.
In hopes she’d be directed to the one who wrote her;
achingly believing she’s the muse this time.
Who else could have written her the way she is?
 
With her eyes the same as the earthly sand,
her lips alive in light gray, with the way she lit up when the moon reveals himself to her,
the sea pushes upon the land as if it were longing to kiss her weary feet.
 
With the way her hips dance when she walks, when she closes her eyes, only she can hear her author’s note at the back of her heart. Slowly yet surely whispering, “It’s written on the stars. I wrote your name, my love.”
 
And so she follows the flow of the river, faithfully locking her eyes in the waters' steepness. She gently brushes the cold river, and so it quietly blushes at the thought of her.

That someone like her was cared for enough by her own artist.

"One firm step," she said. As shallow as she must be, one could think she radiates midnight, and while no one is looking, her lips are similar to Burgundy—soaked in wine and in her drunken state; resting her body as she sat mellowly where no one would choose those seats made for her—deluding herself that there's just too much space in between, and they danced around each other's thick skin while their gazes were fixed on her. "One firm step," she says, straightening her back.
 
Every day, she'd meet her own grim reaper in the shade of the earth's brown mist, kissed by her long, thick lashes as she closed her eyes, surrounded by the people she considered dead. As strange as it was, they didn't know her. There's one string of luck hanging side by side in hopes that she'll live another day.
 
At dusk, she'll attempt to accompany the earth's body at her expense. She'll whisper nice things, and they'll blush at the thought of her noticing them. She'll offer her hand and kiss the molds, and her lips, the tint of burgundy, will now be the same pigment as the earth's body, and they'll chuckle at the sight of her.
 
When the world is laughing at her, death stands still in front of her, waiting for her presence, but she remains still. When the sky cries for her, she gives him rainbows and butterflies, even though he hates them. And when she's alone at night, she kisses the flies roaming around her bed while he thinks of her—but then again, the expression of death is inevitable. It seems like he doesn't want her to be happy. She lets Earth do what he wants with her, even if her skin glows like ivory. She lets him soak her in his dark mists and long-tailed veins, and death starts to interfere again.
 
He shows up in a crowded room with his thousands of soldiers, pretty faces, and partygoers. In his simple armor and at the grocery store, in his childlike appearance and beggar state. She must have been so exhausted from showing up minutes later or arriving at his usual business hour—midnight. Even with the screen, she usually spends the rest of her day. He shows up. Death was persistent. He signifies everything she could've had, even the voices implanted inside her. They named him Death. Sometimes he's a song, a lyric, or an instrument she could not quite understand; the ring before the call was answered; the tap before the keyboard; the lump before it washes down by the water; the movement before she lays her eyes on.
 
He was once a person she grew tired of—but now a metaphor she'll always keep in the back of her notebook. And sometimes, he is an anecdote every old person mentions in their hospital bed. She was shallow, but he was a willow tree.
A swamp.
A locust.
A lover once.

Softly, she ventured into the violent night of May,

Where pitch-black winter soaked her bones.

The sea, full of teeth, bit and insisted as she stood there, unmoving.

It was full of music and empty promises; she let the vastness of the agonizing waves drown her rotting body.

The sharp smell of air reeked of bitter billet-doux.

It had been her three hundred sixty-five attempts to be silent; barefoot, she waited and waited and waited.

Under the moonlight, she appeared as a ghastly ghost.

For a moment, she wondered, “Only the wicked remember the sea’s harshness and stay”—a woman personified as storm, mirroring her rage.

She is a twisted soul; death sighs at the sight of her.

The moon exhausted its entire being. “She is full of herself,” he whispered into the dark, corrupted sea.

She imprinted the sands with her unnerving gravity—she walked, and walked, and walked,
Haunted by her visions and dreams, terrorizing the melancholic earth.

Months passed—it was now September.

She’s restless; all she could do was remember.

She kept bathing in the black sea, passionately driving herself to madness.

She kept being pulled and pulled and pulled,

Until survival was no longer an option—her hair slowly being grappled into the lake of fire.

Her last remaining thoughts were of long-forgotten, enchanting, sweet eyes of his.

She dreamed of him—those big, witchery eyes of his.


She remembered, and so the sea deciphered her yearning and pulled her in.

I'm not as soft as a swan gliding into the poet's lake. I'm not as graceful as a ballerina waltzing in the arena. I am not as calm as the trees attending to your whimsical needs. I am built on ruins; I am something that has been running for decades, and I still think about the house keys I abandoned near the forest; they open the portal to your house. It was my favorite.

I am full of words,
Rotten poetry,
Full of work,
Empty memory.

"I don't know what to write anymore," I whispered. I was a romantic maniac. In me were growing daisies and burnt coffees, orange juices and promised salvation.

It's a funny little detail; now, it's all mishaps and mishandled poetry.

Through the shallows and the shadows, I screamed in horror, and then I felt the mockery of longing.