Happy Forth of July : )

Since I was young,
I’ve lived in the in-between
a mind always wandering,
slipping beneath the surface
of ordinary moments.

I remember being very little,
winter pressing against the windows,
a decoration tapping the glass,
the snow falling soft as breath.
I would sit for hours,
just watching.
That quiet
was a world unto itself.

I could watch the sun set
and feel the whole world soften,
or trace the wind
through the leaves
like it was telling me
something only I could hear.

Time bent around those thoughts
hours, days,
evaporating like breath
on a cold window.

Even then,
I was searching,
though I didn’t know for what.

Now, the thoughts
have turned inward.
Still wandering,
but deeper now
am I growing?
Is this meaningful?
Is what I’m doing right?

And still,
it’s easy to get lost in them,
to lose time,
to drift.

These thoughts
soft as a breeze,
sometimes paralyzing,
always persistent
are my compass and my undoing.
They keep me aligned,
even when I question
every step.

They’ve become the soil
from which I know myself,
layered with doubt,
but rooted in reflection.

They’ve shown me
how I’m stitched to the world:
to the wind,
to the fading light,
to the hush
that follows deep seeing.

And when I return,
I carry more questions
not answers,
but invitations:
Am I slowing down?
Am I really seeing?

It’s not escape.
It’s return.
To wonder,
to stillness,
to the place where thinking
becomes a kind of prayer.

I search for you
in the stars,
in the shimmer between planets,
in the way moonlight
folds itself across empty sheets
like a question that never needed an answer.

I lie awake at night,
staring at the sky,
as if the constellations
might shape the contours
of a presence I once knew,
as if the hush between stars
could hold a trace of your breath.

I search in the shadows
With reverence
behind each heartbeat,
each flicker of thought,
that still hums through the bones.

You're in the pulse
of every breath,
the sacred stillness
between inhale and exhale,
a quiet echo
threading itself
through the silence.

But the absence
is its own kind of presence
a hollow that holds,
a sky that listens,
and still,
I search,
as if finding you
would not complete me,
but remind me
of who I’ve always been.

And I keep searching,
in the soft spaces
of breath and shadow,
not out of need,
but because something in the stars
still speaks in your language.

Some days,
it feels like I am outside myself
watching my child-self drown
beneath a skyless surface,
eyes wide, arms reaching,
and I, the adult,
do nothing but stare.

The water is still,
but heavy,
each second dragging me down,
each memory a stone.
My child-self drifts deeper,
hair flowing like seaweed,
a mouth open but silent,
watching the shape of me
blur in the distance.

I see the small hand
reaching upward
not angry,
not afraid,
just desperate
in a quiet, aching way.

And I,
frozen,
feel sorrow crack open
like a fault line,
a grief so old
it forgot how to scream.

I want to dive,
to pull them up,
but my feet won't move.
I don’t know why.

Maybe it’s too late.
Maybe I never learned how.
Maybe I believe I’m the one
who let them fall.

And still,
the hand rises,
the eyes search,
while I remain above,
a ghost
with lungs full of air
and a silence I can’t explain.

I will not lie on my deathbed
haunted by the ghosts
of dreams I left unborn,
of words swallowed
like ash and regret.

The voice in my head
a relentless whisper,
an ember refusing to fade:
Go forward,
Go further,
Or burn alive in the silence.

They call my sky too wide,
my dreams reckless,
as if their fears could cage
my endless horizon.

I burn hot like fire
a fury ignited
by the smallness
of their projections,
the cowardice
of chosen comforts,
a daily surrender
to empty routines.

I rage against shrinking,
against the numbness
of a life untested.
Let them choose ease;
I will chase obsession,
run wild into uncertainty,
and carry my dreams
like flames
into the dark.

I am a prism that only reflects one color at a time.
Obsession my god, my gravity
pulls all else into its orbit.

I’ve seen weeks dissolve like sugar in water,
all for a single pulse of focus,
a voice in my head saying more.

The devil is not separate from me
it is the whisper I cannot unhear,
the flick of a tongue inside my skull,
telling me I am powerful
only when I burn.

As a child, I threw fire just to feel seen.
Chaos raised me, and I mistook
its screaming for music.

Now I chase purpose like a vein
that never opens deep enough.

And when it breaks
when the high exhales
the silence is infinite.

Emptiness like a cathedral
where I kneel before no god,
just my own echo.

I am trying to be the angel on my own shoulder,
but the war never stops.

I need not one flame,
but many small fires.
Let balance be a kind of heat,
enough to keep me warm
without devouring the room.

It was a gray winter day
sky low like it wanted to crush me,
the trees stiff and bloodless.
I was walking with my friend,
boots crunching dead leaves,
when the bullet cracked the silence.

It screamed past my ear,
a wasp of metal and ******.
I didn’t see the gun,
just felt the world split
air sliced like skin,
reality flayed open.

The shot missed.
But it hit something inside me
struck the boy who thought the world was safe,
buried itself where no one could pull it out.

I woke before the sun
not because I had to
because I wanted to.
Tied my shoes like it mattered.
Because it did.

Eight hours in the gym,
Every shot had rhythm,
every move, precision.
I wasn’t just good.
I was gifted.
I knew it.

No one saw me fold into crossovers
like breath folding into wind.
No one saw the nets whisper
my name back to me after each swish.
No one said keep going.
No one said I believe in you.
So I stopped.
At thirteen, maybe fourteen,
I unlaced the dream.

Not because I lacked fire
but because I got tired
of carrying it alone.

I think of that boy now
not the one who quit,
but the one who could’ve gone all the way
and it stings.

Because greatness
isn’t always lost in defeat.
Sometimes, it’s buried
under silence.

Some nights I am not running
I am still.
Not happy, not sad,
just not hungry for more
because for a moment
I forget what I don’t have.

I make a home out of this silence,
lay down my fears like coats
on the cold floor of my heart,
and sit.

But then comes the boy.

The one with dust in his lungs
from screaming into pillows,
with hands too small to hold
the reasons no one stayed.

Even when I dress him
in the things I’ve earned
he still stares at me
with those ******* eyes,
asking why it still hurts
to be.

He doesn’t care
that I built something from fire.
He only asks
why the fire’s still inside me.

And some nights
I want to take a blade of thought
and cut that voice out,
carve away the part of me
that says I’ll never be whole,
never be worth the air I breathe.

But I get up.

I build again.
I shake hands, send emails, lift weights,
try to sculpt a man
from the ache of not being valued.

Every win is a window
I climb through
just to see if he’s still there.
And he always is
barefoot, bleeding
on the glass I left behind.

What no one tells you
about childhood trauma
is that it isn’t a story
you grow out of
it’s a script your bones memorize,
reciting it silently
even as you sing of peace.

Even with everything,
the boy survives.
And maybe just maybe
he’s waiting not to be fixed,
but to be heard.

On golden shores I dream of building,
a home where sunlight softly spills,
where lavender skies kiss turquoise waters,
and whispers dance on windowsills.

In southern France, where oceans breathe,
my house will rise from sand and sea,
yet its heart won’t beat in timber beams,
but in quiet peace, inside of me.

This home, no fortress carved from stone,
but woven from serenity’s thread
no voices raised, no stormy echoes,
only harmony gently spread.

For I've known walls that trapped my shadows,
corridors haunted by younger pains;
rooms where childhood's wounded whispers
painted darkness in cold refrains.

My lowest self still walks those hallways,
a ghost imprisoned in yesterday’s gloom.
But now I dream of doors wide open,
air scented softly by jasmine bloom.

In rooms adorned by tranquil silence,
curtains stirred by a tender breeze,
every space is filled with kindness,
each breath a note of calm release.

I’ll stand, in highest being,
bathed in sunrise, pure and clear
my spirit dancing, unafraid,
safe and whole, untouched by fear.

For homes aren't merely walls and rafters,
nor roofs to shelter from the rain;
they are sanctuaries we carry inward,
hearts where peace can bloom again.

So by the sea, I'll lay foundations,
a sanctuary true and free,
where my highest self awakens,
finding home at last in me.

I watch him now
the little boy I once was,
arms wide open, spinning beneath
his first snowfall,
eyes lit with uncontainable wonder.
Snowflakes kissing his cheeks,
melting into laughter,
nothing more precious
than the delicate miracle
falling softly from the sky.

There he is,
pure and weightless,
untouched by the gravity
of worthiness and achievement.
No goals set, no mountains yet to climb
just a gentle whisper from the clouds,
telling him it's beautiful
simply to exist.

How did I lose him?
Where along this winding path
did I trade wonder for worth,
presence for purpose,
and quiet joy
for the endless hunger
to prove I belong?

I’m here,
watching a video of innocence
that feels worlds away.
I miss that child
who knew no moment
was ever wasted,
that happiness was not
earned, but given freely
like snow.

Let me find him again
in gentle silence,
to hold the falling flakes
in palms not burdened by ambition,
to taste the air
without guilt or shame,
to breathe deeply
and remember that
before everything else,
I am allowed
to simply be.

They ask where we go when the breathing stops
when the lungs grow still and the hands fall open.
But nothing in nature is lost,
only changed.

Your atoms, forged in the cores of stars,
traveled billions of years to make you.
Each carbon thread in your chest
once belonged to a forest,
a comet,
a lover’s whispered breath in ancient dusk.
Energy doesn’t vanish it shifts.
That’s the law. Thermodynamics, first and final.

You were never just skin and thought.
You were borrowed stardust,
held together by delicate electromagnetic songs,
a fleeting arrangement in the symphony of entropy.
So when your heart slows and your neurons dim,
the song doesn’t end.
It just passes on
into roots, into rain, into flame.

You’ll feed the trees that cradle new nests.
You’ll drift in the ocean’s salt kiss,
become part of someone’s laugh,
the warmth between clasped hands
on a night when someone needs reminding
they are not alone.

The mind yes, it’s complex:
trillions of synapses,
patterns folding into patterns
like galaxies inside thought.
And still,
consciousness remains a riddle
even the brightest minds can’t fully name.
But if it is energy
a field, a wave,
then who’s to say it doesn’t echo?
Resonate?
Return?

I like to think
you become a language the universe still speaks
in wind through grass,
in quantum fluctuations,
in the silence before someone says,
I miss you,
and suddenly, they feel you there.

We do not vanish.
We reappear.
In form, in feeling, in frequency.
Every goodbye is a redistribution
a love note sent across the fabric of space,
waiting to be read
by someone
who still believes
we are all
one thing
reaching for itself.

Love me with chaos,
whisper poison into kisses,
a taste of honey masking venom
my sweet ruin,
my favorite destruction.

Hate me gently,
wrap bitterness in velvet promises;
your touch is fire,
a warmth I crave
though it burns me raw,
leaving scars I wear proudly.

Keep me addicted,
always searching for that rush
the dizzying high
of your stormy eyes,
your distant voice,
your fleeting approval
that keeps me begging,
breathless at the altar
of my own undoing.

I know you’re danger,
yet danger feels like home.
Your love’s a fever,
and I shiver willingly,
caught between
the poison and paradise
of loving and hating you.

Love me with chaos,
whisper poison into kisses,
a taste of honey masking venom
my sweet ruin,
my favorite destruction.

Hate me gently,
wrap bitterness in velvet promises;
your touch is fire,
a warmth I crave
though it burns me raw,
leaving scars I wear proudly.

Keep me addicted,
always searching for that rush
the dizzying high
of your stormy eyes,
your distant voice,
your fleeting approval
that keeps me begging,
breathless at the altar
of my own undoing.

I know you’re danger,
yet danger feels like home.
Your love’s a fever,
and I shiver willingly,
caught between
the poison and paradise
of loving and hating you.

Oh, how I long to float,
to drift forever high
above whispers,
above hauntings
of voices that never sleep,
tethered to midnight's heavy breath.

Suki's voice spills softly,
like honey dripping
through the cracks
in my splintered walls,
her melodies a gentle ghost
that cradles my aching bones
in velvet lullabies,
each lyric pulling me deeper
into a sweet, nostalgic hurt.

I wish to run
wild, reckless, untethered,
like Lana del rey racing
down endless highways,
hair tangled by freedom,
fluttering in moonlit wind,
eyes blurred with tears and starlight.
Even if she's running
from shadows of herself,
in that fleeting escape,
she becomes poetry,
untouchable, eternal, beautifully lost.

Yet the night always finds me,
bringing whispers that know my name,
aching, relentless, familiar
a voice that is mine,
yet feels stolen,
trapped inside
a skin I never chose.

As music fades
into echoes of longing,
I'm left wondering
does freedom ever come
without running away?

Some days, I face myself
in the quiet glass
eyes meeting eyes,
yet the gaze returns from years ago,
a child drowning silently
beneath an unbroken surface.

Hands reaching upward,
begging invisible arms to save him,
lungs aching for air
in an ocean he never chose,
and I'm trapped here, helpless,
watching through the mirror.

How cruel it is
to be prisoner and warden,
to hold the keys yet remain locked,
bound by fears I never planted,
haunted by waters
I was never taught to swim.

The anxiety pools heavy
like lead beneath my chest,
sinking deeper
into memories that grip tightly,
asking myself endlessly,
"How do I save the child I still am?"

And the nausea rises
it knows the truth:
I’ve been victim to my reflection,
punished by ghosts of a past
where control slipped through my small fingers,
like water through open hands.

Yet, still, I return to this mirror,
hoping someday to find
not a child desperate to survive,
but one held safely above water,
breathing freely,
and no longer captive to myself.

When the world turns heavy, and silence is loud,
when shadows find you, alone in the crowd,
know there's a corner reserved for your peace
a quiet place where your burdens release.

I promise you softly, without words or sound,
in every chaos, my heart will be found.
Not as a whisper or faded farewell,
but as strength you can hold, as truth you can tell.

In midnight moments, when sorrow is deep,
I'll be your comfort, your guardian of sleep.
Even if you can't see or hear me there,
my love surrounds you, my heart fully aware.

For some bonds, defy time and space
unfading, unyielding, impossible to erase.
If ever you fall, lost and unsure,
my soul will remind you of all you endure.

So when life feels cold, when your strength wears thin,
remember my heart, always rooting within.
Forever in your corner beyond distance, above fear,
my soul stands quietly, unwaveringly here.

At seven, my heart learned sadness
a quiet theft of innocence,
the gentle pulse of life against my chest,
teaching me how fragile
forever truly is.

Days shrank to precious minutes,
as if holding you closer
could somehow slow time,
your warmth a whisper
I begged to keep hearing.

The morning arrived uninvited,
unfair in its sunrise,
forcing goodbye from lips
too young to speak such words,
a child waving softly,
unaware how final
goodbyes could be.

Years stretch now behind me,
but that day remains
pressed inside my chest
like an old, familiar ache
the sting of tears fresh
as if you’d left this morning,
not a lifetime ago.

I can still feel
your fur beneath my fingers,
your small body breathing gently,
the world unfair in ways
I learned too soon
and never forgot.

After all this time,
that first sorrow lingers,
unsoftened by age,
unfaded by memories,
the heart of a child
still grieving, still holding on
to what it never learned
how to let go.

Throughout the day,
in quiet passing moments,
there’s always something,
some gentle nudge,
pulling my thoughts toward you.

When I glance at the clock
there it is again:
3:33.
Numbers aligning,
perfectly placed,
whispering softly,
like the universe’s private joke,
telling me you’re somewhere
thinking, feeling,
existing
in the same world as me.

Sometimes,
in the heart of night,
I wake without reason,
eyes adjusting in the dark,
and there
again
the soft glow says:
3:33.
It’s quiet, familiar,
a cosmic wink,
the gentlest reminder
that life’s mysteries
tie me softly back to you.

In these tiny,
perfect alignments,
time pauses
just long enough
to whisper your name.
It’s the universe’s secret
and mine
this silent reassurance,
this quiet truth,
that somehow,
at 3:33,
shares a delicate moment
of connection.

Each day I move with purpose
not to become someone new,
but to return
to who I’ve always been.

We grow up thinking we’re flawed,
like something’s missing.
But no one is broken
some just started farther from the line,
had to climb a little more,
push a little harder.

Still, the choice is ours.
Growth is a habit,
a quiet decision made in the mirror,
in every rep, every breath,
every moment we decide to show up.

I’m not chasing perfection
I’m stepping into alignment.
Not fixing,
but remembering.

This is what freedom feels like:
living each day
as a reflection of your truth.

Peace isn’t passive
it’s earned
in motion,
in effort,
in choosing the path
that builds you.

And every day,
I choose it again.

When I was young,
I ran because I didn’t know how to stay.
The ball, the pavement, the open sky
they were my way of praying
without using words.
I’d play until the sun collapsed into dusk,
as if motion could soften
what love never reached.

No one noticed back then
that I was running toward feeling alive.
It was the only time
my heart beat for something
other than escape.

Those were the only memories that didn’t hurt.

And then, the other day
your voice came back to me:
“Do what makes you happy.”
So I ran again.
Not away this time,
but toward a boy I’d forgotten
the one who used to believe
freedom lived in his legs,
and hope waited just beyond
the next breathless stride.

It hit me
you were always like that.
Simple words,
but they stayed in me
long after the moment passed.

You never tried to be a savior.
You just were one.
Quietly.
Without needing credit.

Everything you gave
was laced with some kind of healing
you didn’t even realize you were offering.
Even your silences felt safe.
Even your laughter
felt like a door opening to the sun.

I think I’m just now realizing
I wasn’t only remembering how to run.
I was remembering you.

And how, even now,
it’s still your voice
pulling me back
to the parts of myself
that once felt too small to matter.

You always knew the way.
You were healing
not because you tried,
but because you lived
like love was still possible.

It never occurred to me
not once in all these years,
that surviving the storm
was a quiet miracle.

I stumbled through a childhood
built on broken glass,
each careful step
cutting deeper than the last,
innocence lost to shadows
I never invited in,
dreams replaced by whispers
that told me I couldn't win.

I was set on roads
that led straight off cliffs,
expected to fall,
expected to drift.
Yet something unseen,
a quiet, defiant flame,
kept burning within me
despite scars with no name.

I never paused to wonder
at my own stubborn light,
how in darkness so consuming
I learned to ignite,
how a voice I thought silenced
spoke courage from my chest,
turning ruin into resilience,
pain into progress.

Today I sit in quiet awe
of all I've overcome,
grateful for the battles
I didn’t know I’d won.
Though memories ache
and old wounds sometimes call,
I stand amazed
somehow, I didn’t fall.

Now here I am,
the sum of unlikely victories,
a quiet miracle
emerging from mysteries.
And finally, I honor
what I never could before:
the strength it took to survive,
and to want life even more.

Some of us are handed tangled maps,
roads inked in sorrow, street signs missing.
We grow up reading silence like scripture,
learning to smile while unraveling inside.

They say life is a journey
but what if your compass was grief?
What if the stars you followed
were the bruises you pretended not to feel?

It’s a strange kind of labor,
to unlearn the voice that whispers
you are too much, or never enough
to untie the knots in your soul
and call the frayed parts sacred.

Sometimes healing feels like forgetting
how to walk in the shoes that hurt you.
Sometimes it’s standing barefoot
in the wreckage of old beliefs,
and daring to rebuild with trembling hands.

But oh, what beauty lives in the broken
not in the cracks, but in the light that slips through them.
Not in being fixed, but in being real.

Because those who have wept
know the weight of another’s tears.
Those who have been silenced
can hear pain even when it's whispered.

You are not wrong for finding it hard
this life was not written in straight lines.
But your scars are constellations,
your wounds untranslated poetry.

And though the path is crooked,
you walk it with uncommon grace,
offering your empathy like a lantern
to those still stumbling in the dark.

There’s a part of me
that only breathes
when the world blurs
into a window view,
and the sky
feels like it’s calling me
by name.

I was made for motion
for narrow streets lined with stories,
for bridges that hum with centuries,
for foreign tongues
that sound like poetry
to a soul aching for wonder.

Adventure isn't an escape
it's a return
to the parts of me
that feel most awake.
To sip wine under French balconies,
to lose myself in the alleys of Prague,
to let Florence teach me how
to see again.

One day, I’ll go.
Not to take photos,
not to check boxes
but to feel the cobblestones beneath my feet,
to breathe in the spices of open-air markets,
to meet strangers who feel
like old friends.

I don’t want a life
that repeats.
I want one that unfolds,
city by city,
until I’m old enough
to know I’ve truly lived.

Of all the things I carry with me
the dreams outgrown,
the moments lost in time
the one that lingers most
is the wish
to have been there
on the days you needed
nothing more
than a quiet hug
to soften the world.

Not because you were hard to reach
you never were.
You were a soul
seeking stillness,
a place to unfold
without asking for permission
to just be.

It was never a mystery,
what you needed.
Never once did your heart
feel foreign to mine.
Even in silence,
I understood you.
Your presence was a kind of music
gentle, aching,
beautifully human.

And though life swept us in its tide,
though I couldn’t always stand beside you
when the thoughts raced louder
than your voice could quiet
I want you to know:
I saw you.
I felt the weight you carried.

You only wanted to feel safe
being exactly who you were.
And in every corner of me,
there’s a soft echo
of how deeply
I wanted to be
that place.

I was born knowing love as my first language,
a soul that ached when others ached,
eyes that saw through to the tender places
where we all carry our hidden wounds.

But the world taught me to close
scar upon scar of learned distance,
mask upon mask until I became
a stranger lost in my own story.

I practiced forgetting how to feel,
perfected the art of looking through people,
built walls so high I couldn't remember
what it felt like to truly see another.

Years passed like forgotten conversations,
and everything felt hollow,
connections became transactions,
love became a word I'd forgotten how to mean.

Until one day I felt something crack
in the fortress I'd built around my heart,
and through it came the voice
I had silenced so long ago

This isn't who you are.

The journey back was everything at once
terror and relief, breakdown and breakthrough.
I had to feel every emotion I'd buried,
remember every dream I'd abandoned,
forgive every way I'd betrayed myself.

But when I found him again
that boy who believed in goodness,
who saw the light hiding in everyone,
who knew that caring was courage

The world exploded back into color.

Now I understand the cruel irony:
when I silence the deepest part of me,
when I ignore what makes me most human,
everything turns to ash in my hands.

But when I honor him
this child who loves without conditions,
who feels the weight of every heart,
who believes we're all walking each other home

Every stranger becomes a story,
every conversation a chance for grace,
every moment of connection
proof that we're not alone.

I am learning to trust
the part of me that never learned
to stop believing in people,
to honor the sacred act of feeling deeply

in a world so numb.

This is who we all are,
beneath the armor:
souls desperate to be seen,
hearts longing to remember
that love is not weakness
it's the only thing that's ever been real.

I've been pondering the quiet erosion
of learning, watching knowledge fray
like ancient cloth, threads pulled
from a fabric we once wore proudly
a cloak woven by sacrifice, sewn in dreams
of equality, of freedom.
They died believing
in the sanctuary of thought,
the solemn power of a mind awakened,
chains broken by ideas sharper
than swords, heavier than gold.

Education was their quiet revolution,
a rebellion of ink against silence,
a whisper that echoed into freedom’s shout.
Knowledge, they knew, was the threat
to thrones of ignorance
a path lit brightly toward liberation,
a human right etched into
the marrow of democracy.

Yet today, I watch the lights dim
in classrooms turned battlefields
truth blurred with convenience,
minds tangled in easy deceit.
When we cease to question,
we become puppets pulled
by hidden strings, the tools
of tyrants who fear
the clarity of thought.

Books censored, voices hushed,
because a mind once expanded
cannot shrink back quietly.
They know this
those who ban ideas,
silence women,
block the path of minorities
to enlightenment’s door.

But education remains our guardian,
the quiet strength
the pulse of progress
that pushes society forward.
It gives us eyes to discern,
hands to heal,
voices to create
and hearts to understand.

I confess I wasn't always a seeker,
lost in classrooms that spoke
but never reached me.
Yet life became my greatest lesson
every book turned page,
every conversation exchanged
built a bridge to my own understanding.

Education found me beyond the walls,
gifted me clarity,
gave me purpose.
Through the prism of learning
I discovered my value
my freedom, my quiet revolution,
my awakening.

I’ve learned to love myself,
to face what was broken and turn it into something strong.
Healing hasn’t always been easy,
but it’s given me a respect for my own journey
that no one else can define.

Through this, I’ve realized that I don’t need to change
just because others can’t see who I truly am.
People might not always understand me,
but I know in my heart I’m becoming someone I can be proud of
and I love the person I’m still growing into.

There’s a quiet confidence that comes from being true to myself.
I don’t need to fit the mold,
or hide the parts of me that make me different.
Being myself gives me strength in a world
where so many trade their truth for approval.

Nobody can take away what I’ve built inside
the self-respect, the pride, the love I have for who I am.
This is my foundation.
And I live by this:
“I’d rather be hated for who I am
than loved for who I am not.”

Would I want to live forever?
I have no idea
for the beginning.
For the furious joy of discovery,
the hunger to peel back the universe’s every secret,
to taste, touch, and name each flavor of wonder
as if the world were an orchard that never stopped blossoming.

I would chase knowledge like rain across endless fields,
fill my lungs with languages,
fold centuries of music into the marrow of my bones,
become fluent in every art and ache
to feel the ecstasy of what is possible
stretching wider than my reach.

But is there a point,
a hush after the crescendo,
where the newness curdles into routine?
Does the thrill dilute with every repetition,
each first time replaced by a thousandth?
What is the flavor of a sunrise
when you’ve counted ten million mornings
does the awe become an echo,
or do you learn to love the echo itself?

Perhaps meaning can’t survive in the absence of endings.
Perhaps it is the brevity, the fleetingness
the trembling urgency of the moment
that sculpts joy from raw experience,
that makes one lifetime,
finite and fragile,
so deeply enough.

And yet I long to outlast the ticking clock,
to savor infinity,
to taste every possible shape of being
until the hunger is replaced by a strange stillness,
the pleasure by a quiet ache.
To see if, after everything,
there is a new kind of meaning
in having done it all
or if immortality is simply
the art of learning how to let go
of wanting more.

I’ve been chasing the spark in the taste of the unfamiliar
asking the wind for courage each time I stand on a board,
letting hunger guide me to flavors
my past self would have refused.
Growth, I’m learning, isn’t loud
it’s in small risks:
in letting myself want more,
in saying yes to the unknown,
in reaching for another language,
another home.

France is more than a place
it’s the promise of another self.
A world of beach mornings and briny air,
where volleyball echoes across open sand
and every meal is a prayer
to the simple, the good,
the slow miracle of sharing laughter and bread.

I want to live by the ocean,
to surf into the sun’s slow descent,
to let friendship tangle through every evening,
to eat, move, love
simply and completely.

Every new thing is an awakening:
a proof that I am here,
not just surviving,
but stretching
feeling alive,
discovering happiness in the gentle unfolding
of a life that belongs to me.

Body dysmorphia whispers in the silence,
a critic in my own skin
never satisfied, never letting go,
as if every step toward health
is still a shadow behind some glass

I eat well, I lift, I rest
I do all the right things,
but the mind wants more,
demands more,
insists I’m only one pill,
one injection,
one transformation away
from “enough.”

Sometimes the urge is sudden:
a voice offering shortcuts
Oxandrolone for muscle,
Retatrutide, Ozempic for the razor’s edge,
promising: “just a little,
just until you get there,
then you can stop.”
But I know
that’s the trapdoor
where enough always means less,
where the hunger grows sharper
and the mind grows thinner.

I think of others
how many live like this,
never knowing peace
with their own reflection.
How many get shamed
for bodies they already suffer within?
Social media magnifies the noise,
judgment scrolling endlessly,
never asking what it costs
to wake up and feel
wrong.

I was taught respect
for others, for the journey,
for the infinite variations of a human soul.
Why is it so rare to see that now?
When did we learn to hate ourselves,
to turn away from who we are?
we once were,
born unashamed,
free of measurement?

so I remind myself:
these beliefs are borrowed,
learned,
not true.
I can rewrite the script,
learn to see the reflection
not as an enemy,
but as a story in progress,
a body I carry,
not a burden to escape.

There’s a quiet ache inside me not the sharpness of sorrow,
but a weight gathering in the hollow places
the cost of carrying myself so long, so well
that even silence feels heavy in my hands.

I’ve evolved.
I’ve rebuilt the ground beneath my feet,
crafted a beautiful, disciplined life
honest in its architecture,
but still, every night closes in solitude.

This is not sadness that asks to be comforted,
not grief that breaks me open with sobs.
it's the emptiness that evolution could not erase.

I stand in my own world,
the only witness to the quiet, daily heroism
of showing up, of becoming
wondering why, after everything,
hollowness remains.

I feel it:
a subtle tension behind my ribs,
a hollow ache in my gut,
the slow, tired heaviness in my eyes
the sensation of standing at a distance,
even while present and awake.

Spiritually, I whisper:
I’m proud of my growth,
but I never meant to grow alone.
I’m not sad just tired
of being the only one who knows
how far I’ve come.

This is the invisible cost of self-growth
the soft strength of waiting
without bitterness,
the loneliness of having no one
to witness the transformation.

Still, I carry on..........

Maybe it’s always there, just behind my thoughts
this fear that shadows every step I climb:
What if I finally reach everything I’m working toward
and I’m left standing on the peak,
the world below me,
but no one beside me to see it, to care, to know?

Sometimes I picture my dreams coming true
the sun-drenched days
by the sea I’ve imagined since I was young
and yet, the joy of arrival
feels thin, almost hollow,
if there’s no one to meet my eyes and understand
what it cost,
what it meant to become this version of myself.

All the things I chase success, growth,
the proof that I am more than what was handed to me
lose their shine in the silence.
When I let myself feel it,
I realize: it’s not the goals themselves I long for.
It’s to matter.
It’s to know that who I am stripped of achievements,
titles, armor is seen as valuable,
that my existence is enough.

I know why I ache for this
because in my childhood,
love was never unconditional.
Praise was measured,
worth was earned.
I learned to work, to strive, to outgrow my past,
but the emptiness lingers
when there’s no one to share the view,
no one to tell me:
You mean something. You are not alone.
You are loved for simply being.

Maybe, at the end, it isn’t about the summit at all.
Maybe it’s about finding someone
who will look at me and see the whole journey
the boy who learned to build himself from scratch,
the man who longs to share
not just the trophies,
but the quiet hope of being truly known.

They see me standing now
strong as oak, bright-eyed,
curious with dreams spilling
from my fingertips,
my laughter like sunlight dancing
softly on morning rivers.

They name me confident,
smart, joyous
a painting of effortless grace.
But no one witnesses
the hidden brushstrokes,
the deep shadows beneath.

They weren’t there
when I walked halls of failure,
feeling small beneath towering fears,
when whispers of inadequacy
echoed louder
than any voice of praise.

They did not see me
wandering homeless within myself,
aching for a hearth,
a place warm enough
to shield me
from life’s cold neglect.

Books became my shelter,
pages whispered hope
when silence drowned my dreams;
learning was the only light
strong enough
to outshine despair.

They see joy blooming,
but they don’t see
that happiness grew
from seeds scattered
in barren lands
watered by tears
shed quietly at midnight.

They don’t know
that my wonder now
is gratitude
born from absence,
a love for tiny miracles
discovered in scarcity.

Behind every confident step
is an unseen struggle,
a quiet war waged
within the heart
the fierce battle
to learn love
for the self reflected
in mirrors cracked by doubt.

So look deeper
beneath my laughter
lies strength tempered by sorrow,
wisdom forged by pain.
My joy, radiant and simple,
is a hard-won grace,
a melody crafted gently
from silence.

In rooms painted quiet with words unsaid,
a boy learns silence like scripture,
memorizing loneliness as if it were
a language only he could understand.

Walls held his secrets in cracks and whispers,
childhood decorated in fragile hope
and the delicate terror
of never being enough
to earn what should be free.

He grew inside mirrors
reflecting disapproval,
searching for kindness in eyes
that turned away
their love dangled like distant stars,
brilliant yet unreachable,
teaching him patience in pain.

Small fists clenched tightly
around invisible truths,
vulnerability punished
with stinging silence,
emotions folded neatly
and hidden beneath beds,
where shadows played pretend
and shame settled as dust.

Neglect etched lessons
deep beneath young skin,
a quiet rage became armor,
each scar a silent promise
to never reveal
what weakness felt like again.

Yet, beneath those defenses,
he dreamed of oceans wide enough
to drown these ghosts,
to break chains he never asked to wear,
determined to turn inherited darkness
into a light he could call his own.

Still, some nights
he hears echoes
from distant rooms,
reminding him gently,
the child within never left,
just learned to speak softer,
waiting patiently for someone
who’d finally listen.

We grew up fighting a quiet war,
no bruises visible,
just the aching silence
of truths erased
and stories twisted
until we doubted our own breath.

We learned love as a language
that always came with conditions,
spoken softly,
yet it echoed loudest in denial,
in gaslit nights
where our words
fell like smoke
into empty air.

Every win we ever earned
was weighed
and found wanting,
every step forward
met with eyes
that refused to see,
voices that refused to acknowledge,
until our victories
felt hollow,
until pride became
a stranger’s word.

We grew strong
not because of them
but in spite.
We learned to read shadows
because honesty wasn’t spoken
in our homes.
We learned to see clearly,
sharply,
because our truths
had to be hidden,
carried in clenched fists
and tight stomachs
and lungs that never
quite filled.

Our anger isn’t cruelty;
it’s clarity.
A boundary finally drawn
around hearts
that learned too early
to hold what should have been held
by hands
that refused to reach.

The stomach knows what the mind forgets
a hollow vessel curved to hold
all we've swallowed but cannot speak:
grief folded into itself like origami,
words collapsed to fit inside the body's vault.

We carry silence there, dense as stone.
The unspoken grows heavier
settles deeper beneath the ribs,
becomes the ghost that haunts our hunger.

And in the chest, breath hesitates,
draws itself thin and trembling,
afraid to disturb what's settled below.
Each inhalation measured and cautious,
each exhale holding back its full release

as if the body understands
that to breathe completely
might dislodge the carefully packed archive
of everything we couldn't bear to name.

Night drapes itself
heavy, dark, a silent cloak
rain murmurs secrets
as it kisses pavement.

Somewhere distant,
a quarter slips
from nervous fingers,
metal tumbling
a ringing, spinning hymn,
a solitary flip.

I know this sound,
this silver dance;
my thoughts often spin
just like this coin,
caught midair, uncertain,
waiting to land
on heads or tails
past or future,
hope or regret.

At night,
when my mind won't stop
and every thought feels loud
I picture you next to me.

I see your face clearly
like you're actually here.
Your breathing steady,
your warmth beside me
and suddenly,
everything just stops.

It's quiet.
Calm.

I close my eyes,
feeling safe,
believing for a moment
you're really here,
lying next to me,
telling me it’s okay
to let go,
to sleep.

And somehow,
just imagining you
is enough.

At night, when silence softly breathes,
I’ve quieted storms, calmed the waves,
Yet shadows stir beneath the ease
Whispers rise from hidden graves.

Daylight sees me chasing bliss,
Sunlit smiles hide the cost,
But moonlight speaks of all I miss
Echoes sacred, treasures lost.

When darkness blooms behind closed eyes,
The heart recounts each stolen scene;
Tender moments, fading ties
Ghosts of all that might have been.

Sleepless, bound by quiet chains,
Haunted gently, endless ache;
Memories pulse in muted veins,
Dreaming wide while wide awake.

Night unveils what daylight veils,
Sacred sorrows left to grow,
Silence sings of unseen trails
Paths I wander, but can’t let go.

I wake to the soft rustle of morning,
yet it's your whisper I always hear,
lingering quietly in sunlight’s gold,
in each breath, you're vividly clear.

As coffee swirls in porcelain white,
your laughter ripples through the steam
you are warmth held in my fingertips,
the gentle haunt within each dream.

Through crowded streets, you're gentle wind,
brushing past as a fleeting sigh;
your perfume lives in blooms of spring,
each petal kissed as you drift by.

I see your smile in evening skies,
your eyes reflected in starlight gleam,
guiding my thoughts like ancient maps,
comforting shadows in night's soft scheme.

And when silence embraces midnight,
you become the lullaby unsung
a quiet spell cast on my solitude,
the magic left when love was young.

You're woven deep, my life's soft thread;
I carry your magic everywhere,
comforted by visions softly led.

I move through days like ancient streams,  
Each moment caught in amber light
The sacred grace in mundane things,  
The beauty hiding plain from sight.

I pause where others only rush
To touch the fragile, intricate art  
Of ordinary miracles,  
Each one a softly beating heart.

They chase the glittering, hollow dreams,  
The ceaseless noise that fills the air,  
While in my hallowed solitude,  
I breathe a deeper, quieter prayer.

I walk apart, but never lone,  
My world a constellation vast;  
The quiet truths I hold like stars,  
My steady steps, unhurried, cast.

I rarely speak the language shared  
By those who dance the crowded floor,  
Yet freedom blooms within this choice  
To value stillness, seeking more.

Though hurried shadows flicker past,  
Their vision blurred by constant pace,  
I stand within my own true light  
It's more than fine to claim this space.

For somewhere else, kindred souls  
Are breathing slow in time with mine,  
Other hearts who dare to pause,  
Embracing life's unhurried design.

Together, distant yet aligned,  
In quiet truth we find our way
Not common, no, but wholly free,  
And that is sacred, come what may.

There’s a sailboat moored in my chest
anchored gently in quiet waters,
its hull shaped by storms weathered long ago,
wood now polished by waves
of solitude and strength.

Its sails breathe gratitude,
lifting gently with the dawn’s soft breath
a breeze scented with fresh coffee
and quiet laughter of birds.
It’s in these moments I understand
happiness isn’t a distant shore,
but the ocean beneath me now,
vast, patient, and alive.

Twilight brings gentle echoes
reminders of storms that guided me here,
waves born from childhood tides,
currents flowing from quiet lessons learned,
moments of struggle transformed into wisdom.

I used to fear drifting
beneath moonlit skies,
believing safety lay only
in charted lands unseen.
But now, drifting feels beautiful
trusting the currents of inner knowing,
guided by constellations of growth,
and quiet whispers of the past.

And when the night grows still,
when no wind fills these sails,
I sit gently in silence,
embracing peace like an old friend
to listen deeply to the ocean inside.

Now I sail gently,
through tranquil mornings and thoughtful evenings,
grateful for every breeze and calm wave,
navigating by life’s quiet miracles
morning coffee, painted canvases,
soft rain tapping gently on a car roof,
conversations nourishing my soul,
a sky wide open, full of stars.

This boat isn’t seeking
faraway lands for promised happiness;
instead, it savors joy
in every wave beneath it,
in each breath of salt-filled air,
every heartbeat a gentle reminder.

Happiness lives
not just at journey’s end,
but in the whisper of steam
curling above a fresh-brewed cup,
warm ceramic pressed
to grateful hands.

It breathes in sunlight
scattered softly
across a windshield,
the gentle hum of wheels
carrying you nowhere special,
yet everywhere beautiful.

We chase horizons,
holding joy captive,
bound tightly to goals
forever waiting,
a tomorrow
that never arrives.

Yet here it waits
in the stillness
between each breath,
the quiet triumph
of every rep lifted,
every drop of effort spent
in the silent poetry of sweat.

Listen closely;
the wind whispers softly
in grass grown wild,
in solitude’s serene bench,
in the laughter of a friend,
in footsteps softly echoing
down familiar streets.

Do not hold your happiness hostage
to distant promises;
find it waiting quietly
in every simple moment,
asking only
to be noticed.

In the quiet corners of my mind, they whisper
Voices borrowed from others, not my own,
Ancient echoes of what I "should" become,
Seeds planted in childhood soil, stubbornly grown.

I reach for joy like sunlight through leaves,
Then pause, hearing judgment in phantom tones.
"Who are you to chase happiness?" they ask,
As if pleasure were reserved for everyone but me alone.

These borrowed fears drape heavily across my shoulders,
A cloak I've worn so long I've forgotten its weight.
The validation I craved as a child never came,
So I learned to question my own compass, hesitate.

Yet beneath these voices lies a quieter truth:
My heart's compass pointing toward what's real.
It whispers of gardens I long to tend,
Of authentic paths my spirit longs to feel.

Perhaps freedom isn't the absence of these voices,
But hearing them clearly as the ghosts they are
Not prophets or judges or keepers of truth,
But merely echoes from wounds that stretch too far.

So today I practice holding two truths gently:
The conditioning that shaped me, the joy that calls me home.
With each step toward what makes my soul sing,
I reclaim the right to a happiness entirely my own.

A child is born  
with wild eyes and open hands
no name but wonder,  
no path but presence.  
The world is a canvas  
until the brush is taken away.

Soon come the voices:  
“Sit still.”
“Be good.”
“Don’t cry.”
They mean love,  
but they teach shame.  
And the child learns  
to trade truth for approval,  
tears for silence,  
dreams for permission.

In schoolyards and dinner tables,  
the shaping continues
bend here, break there.  
Become what makes others  
comfortable.  
Make yourself small enough  
to fit inside their fears.

The voice of the world  
becomes familiar.  
And over time,  
it sounds like your own:  
“You’ll fail.”
“You’re not enough.”
“This is just the way things are.”

You grow older,  
but feel no closer to yourself.  
A stranger in your own body,  
dressed in expectations,  
numb from years of applause  
for roles you never auditioned for.

Until one day  
the silence becomes unbearable.  
The mask cracks.  
Something inside stirs
a grief you can’t name,  
a fire you never lit  
but always carried.

And in that ruin,  
you hear it:  
the voice that was buried  
beneath all the noise.  
It doesn’t shout.  
It whispers:  
“This isn’t who you are.”

That’s when the real growing begins
not the growing up,  
but the growing back.  
Back to the wonder,  
back to the wild,  
back to the self  
you were always meant to be.

We walk on streets paved with promise,  
Eyes fixed on billboards of better tomorrows
A car, a title, a corner office glow,  
As if joy were hiding behind glass windows.  

“If I just get this,” they whisper, breathless,  
Chasing dreams sold in scripts,  
But no one tells them the price of the purchase  
Is often their soul, spent in slow, silent slips.  

They gather gold and call it purpose,  
Fill their homes with things but not their hearts.  
They dine in excess, sleep in linen,  
Yet lie awake wondering where the warmth went.

Because happiness is not in the having,  
Nor in the claps of crowds or the weight of rings  
It lives quietly in the ordinary,  
In morning light, in laughter, in small, sacred things.  

To be present is an act of rebellion  
Against a mind wired for what’s missing.  
Gratitude, not comfort, is the real achievement.  
To see now as enough is the beginning of wisdom.  

We were told to want more, always more,  
But never taught to want what "is".  
The truth is this: a fulfilled life  
Is not built it's noticed, moment by moment.

So choose not the mirage, but the meadow.  
Choose breath, and silence, and peace.  
Let contentment be your revolution,  
And presence be the wealth you never cease.

I walk in light now,  
stronger, steadier,  
yet sometimes
I miss the rain.  

There was a strange, aching beauty  
in the way sadness wrapped around me,  
a soft, invisible hand  
pressing me deeper into myself.  

When the world cracked open,  
so did I
and in that breaking,  
I touched something pure,  
something even joy could not unveil.  

Sadness made every moment vivid:  
the weight of breath,  
the tremor of hands,  
the way a single tear  
could baptize an entire memory.  

It was not despair I loved,  
but the doorway it left ajar
the invitation to strip away everything false,  
and find, at the center,  
a tenderness so raw it almost sang.  

Even now,  
as I build, as I rise,  
there are nights I long  
for the blessed unraveling,  
for the heavy, holy ache  
that once taught me  
how much meaning lives  
in the quiet places pain touches  
and makes beautiful.

One day,  
one whispered lie
lodged like a splinter in the soul  
can twist the whole arc of a life.  

It begins in silence:  
a mother’s cold stare,  
a father’s absent hands,  
a lover’s careless word
the moment they spill their brokenness  
into the chest of someone still soft enough to believe.  

They do not heal.  
They do not even try.  
Instead, they stitch their wounds into others,  
threading needles of shame and smallness  
through skin still learning how to feel the sun.  

And so a child, a friend
hungry for love, starving for meaning
swallows the poison without knowing,  
wears it like a second skin,  
carries it like an invisible wound.  

The tragedy is not just the breaking  
it is the living with the break unseen.  
It is the way we bow to the weight,  
believing it is the shape of who we are.  

Some spend a lifetime  
beating their fists against the walls of their own mind,  
blaming themselves for a prison they did not build.  
Some drift like ghosts,  
never knowing why the light always feels too far away.  

This is the quiet evil:  
to tear into a soul,  
to leave it bleeding and silent,  
and call it weak for not healing itself.  

And yet
somewhere deep beneath the wreckage,  
a sliver of defiance stirs.  

A small, stubborn truth  
a breath against the weight of centuries
begins to whisper:  

You were never the broken thing.  
You were never the wound.  
You were only the light, buried alive
still burning, still yours to claim.