The thoughts keep coming back
The ones that force me to remember
A few years ago
I had to endure
Your sharp teeth
Among my delicate flesh
Bruising my skin
When I kept telling you to stop it
When I kept trying to push you off of me
Screaming
Crying
Because I didn't want that
I didn't want you,
My step-sibling,
To give me hickies
Around the age of 9
I was scared
But you wouldn't budge
You just continued to create them
As if it was normal

You'd try to make me hide them
As if you painted black marks
On a board
And tried covering it over
With white
Every foundation we tried to use
Wouldn't be able to work
Because it was too light for me
And was dried out
And I would have to cover it
With my hair

I would have to live with the fact
That no matter what I try
To bring attention to
The hickies
You left on my face and neck,
No one would believe me
Or do anything about it
There was absolutely no discipline for you

Terribly tired of being your toy.

Believes in nothing, not dark or light,
No stars to lead through endless night.
Mind a void, heart adrift,
Soul untethered, lost in rift.

No gods to call, no fate to trust,
Just fleeting moments that turn to dust.
Search for meaning but find none near,
Tell me love, is it lonely out there?

can i stitch myself into you
so my hurt becomes yours
and yours becomes mine?
can we heal each others scars
and halve the pain?
can we travel the world
and grow lemons
in the backyard of an old house?
can i share a life with you
or will the weight of our problems
sink the stone to the bottom of the river?
because i promise you
when the scars keep opening
and you can't hide them anymore
i can't promise to fix you,
but i know you won't bleed out alone

wandering through the woods
the darkness all-consuming
holding the shards of a life lived
and dreams exhausted
the voices whisper
NO STOP PIECE ME BACK
PLEASE PLEASE
PLEASE
but the glass cuts
so it's dropped

falling

Step by step,
no louder than breath—
I walk beside
what isn’t mine to name.

No banners,
no blueprints,
just this sound
of stone learning softness.

You open a window.
I keep the door unlatched.

Let fear finish its echo.
Let the dark chants drift.

Not all ruin is ending.
Some of it
is soil.

The flower needs rest,
so winter tucks it beneath the earth,
letting it sleep until spring.

The sun needs rest,
so the clouds and rain embrace it,
shielding its warmth for another day.

My heart was heavy, so I wrote, turned ghosts to words, let poems float. You read, you stayed, you understood—and that alone made bad days good.

So here’s my thanks, a whispered sigh—
I’ll step away, but not goodbye.

you rip apart the seams of this family
you are a hurricane and we are the destruction in your wake
you are a wildfire and we are burned
you are an earthquake but you aren't the one rattled
you have caused mass destruction and singed everyone you touched
you hate us
you natural disaster

skin stretched over bone
nearly translucent
almost disappearing
fainting
dizzy

falling


falling



falling




fal­ling

Some days, I avoid the mirror,
as if its glass might speak.
As if it might tell me all the things
I already whisper to myself.

I tug at fabric, shift my stance,
try to fit into spaces
that never seem meant for me.
Like I’m always too much, or not enough.

I trace the outlines of who I wish I was,
sketching softness into strength,
erasing the parts I’ve learned to hide,
as if beauty is something I have to earn.

But I am not a mistake,
not a problem to be solved.
I am a story still being written,
a masterpiece still in progress.