a flicker a spark (the night is)
only a little ache of waiting

rolled tight as a whisper this
cigarette (breathless
paper prayer for) nothing

the flame doesn’t soothe
but it dances,
doesn't it? doesn’t it?

ash falls into
the quiet
I try to call sleep (a lover
who never answers, a lie
I am too awake to stop believing)

another spark
the night twists longer (a thread unspooling)
& my mind unravels (a mad clock
that forgets how to stop ticking)

and this manic silence,
this endless
yes,
no.
yes,
no.

until the stars mock me
& I burn away
waiting for sleep or
the courage to stop pretending
I’m not the flame.

Empty plates stacked high,
Lonely hearts in wrappings torn,
Love fades with the waste.

things break—
(always)—the weight of
air bends glass
the soft touch of
a hand can ruin
the threadbare lace of time.

see:
the bridge collapses
not from thunder but from
a whispered wave;
& leaves
never fall without breaking
into rain.

even stars crackle—
embers of light split
across the Architect's canvas,
threadbare constellations
that no longer
hold.

but perhaps
(it is written
in the marrow of creation)
that breaking
is not ruin
but a turning:

this shatter is the song
of a world remade,
of a sky that bleeds
its gold into
the earth.

(even the great
Architect, it seems,
lets things fall)
so that
we may learn
to build.

The body learns to lie before the mouth does.
She moves like seaweed caught in a current,
the siren song of her hips pulling others closer—
a collision, a shatter.
Hormones bloom like coral,
bright and false,
a reef of dopamine
where nothing survives for long.

Reality is a cruel lover;
its hands too heavy,
its voice too loud.
She asks herself,
do you still wait for love?
do you still have patience for the breaking?

When she confronts him,
his grin splits his face like a wound,
a predator's smile,
the sound of firecrackers between them,
smoke where the truth should be.
He speaks of a *******,
of giving his power away,
of someone else making his choices.
She cannot decide if this is freedom
or just another kind of cage.

She remembers herself,
the way tequila burned her throat,
the way she burned brighter,
a girl in red,
posed naked under the gaze of men
who painted her as both light and shadow.
She trusted their hands before they betrayed her.
Before she turned cold.
Before she fell silent.
Before she hid her fire.

Now, she is the ocean’s daughter,
sinking deeper,
listening to the song of water
as it whispers secrets only the drowned can hear.
She wonders:
Do the waves ever grow tired of crashing?
Does the salt remember being a tear?

She lets herself drift,
thinking maybe, just maybe,
the pressure of the deep
is a softer weight
than the heaviness of love.

Fingers trace her face,
water whispers soft goodbyes,
grief flows like the stream.

Silent ruins stand,
Ghosts of a lost world whisper,
Dust cloaks barren dreams.

The walls breathe in static—
a hum, a crackle, a whisper of wires
pulling tight around my throat.
Every sound a gunshot.
Every shadow a knife.
The milk spills,
a galaxy spreading across the floor,
an apocalypse in white.

Outside, the neon world churns,
spitting teeth, shrapnel dreams.
Everything slick, wet, sharp.
The streets groan,
their intestines spilling out
in the form of cracked asphalt and broken glass.
I can’t leave;
I won’t.

Inside, the air thickens,
a syrup of dread.
Home is a box,
four corners dripping in soft rot.
I sleep under the table
because the bed is too open,
the ceiling too close.

An old television flickers in the corner—
faces in grayscale,
lips moving with no sound.
I try to pull their words apart,
but they squirm like worms.

Every second fractures,
splitting into shards.
Each shard digs in deep—
a hiccup, a phone ringing,
a window slammed shut
by the hands of ghosts.

I try to glue myself together
with the thought of silence.
But silence is a gun too,
a loaded chamber waiting to click.

The wolves circle out there—
dressed as mailmen, as friends,
as my own reflection.
I clutch the blanket,
a shroud, a shield,
a joke.

Safe.
Safe?
Safety is a story they sell in pills,
in pamphlets, in soft voices
that drip honey and venom.
But the wolves are here.
The wolves are me.
The wolves are you.