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..........

In the quiet of this room,
your gift breathes softly,
a music box spinning
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,
turning each note
into whispers of your laughter,
echoes of your fingertips
that touched this very tune.

How strange,
this tiny thing, delicate as porcelain,
holds worlds within
the gentle way you smiled
as you placed it in my palm,
like handing over
a key to forever,
wrapped in melody and grace.

It spins,
and the air fills with you,
like starlight caught in sound,
reminding me of thing
you painted gold
and nights wrapped
in whispers and warmth.

This box, small enough
to hold in my hand,
vast enough
to cradle galaxies of you,
has become
more than every Christmas
and every birthday
it holds the only gift
I’ve ever needed:
your presence,
lingering, infinite,
in every note,
in every breath.

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?

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.

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.

I used to think greatness
was about being smart
razor-edged minds,
clever systems,
the fastest path to the top.

But I see it differently now.
The ones who rise
aren’t always the brightest
they’re the ones
who stayed
when it stopped being exciting.
Who worked when no one clapped.
Who chose belief
when progress felt invisible.

Mastery has no shortcuts.
You can’t cram depth,
or download meaning.
People waste years
searching for the fastest way in
as if greatness is a door
you can trick open.
But the truth is:
the long road is the only one that lasts.

But that’s not enough.

Because if what you’re doing
drains your spirit,
if you wake up each day
dreading the hours ahead
then that’s not life.
That’s just survival
with a timecard.

We’re told to endure,
to push through jobs we hate,
to wear misery like it’s noble.
But I don’t believe in building a life
on a foundation of quiet despair.

You don’t owe anyone
your peace.

This is your one life.
One.

Not a rehearsal.
Not a test.
Not some endless wait
for later.

You were not born
to be efficient.
You were born
to feel sunlight on your skin,
to taste things slowly,
to lose yourself in a moment
so fully
you forget to check the time.

Work hard yes.
Struggle when you must.
But only for something
that brings you closer
to who you really are.
To what matters.

Because life isn’t about
titles, deadlines, or clocks.
It’s about meaning.
It’s about experience.
It’s about the feeling of being here,
with your soul intact.

So pick wisely.
And if you’ve picked wrong,
change.
It’s not too late.

Just don’t trade your only life
for someone else’s version
of success.

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.

There’s an old house
at the edge of my memory,
paint faded to whispers,
roof weathered
by quiet storms
no one else sees.

I still walk past
each evening,
pausing where roses
once bloomed,
petals lost gently
to seasons
we didn’t notice
were changing.

Windows darkened,
but reflections remain
ghosts of laughter,
voices that felt
like candles
in empty rooms,
glowing softly
with something
I still can’t name.

Inside, silence
gathers like dust
over tables set
for conversations
we never finished,
chairs waiting
patiently
for someone
to come home.

And though doors
have quietly closed,
I keep a single key
pressed against my chest
a quiet promise
never broken,
held softly
in the hollow
between missing
and letting go.

Maybe someday
you’ll pass this way,
notice curtains
move slightly
like breath,
and wonder
who lives
in the spaces
we left empty

only then realizing
it was you.

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.

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 grow,  
like rivers do
not knowing where the ocean ends,  
only that I must keep moving.

Each sunrise asks more of me  
to be wiser,  
braver,  
less like who I was.

But what if this never stops?  
What if peace  
is just a carrot on a string,  
dangling from the hand of time?

I run,  
even when I long to rest  
my own breath  
a ghost chasing me.

The road shifts beneath my feet  
stone turns to sand,  
and still I press forward,  
scared of stopping,  
scared of never arriving.

But what if the finish line
was never meant for me?
What if all this running,
all this becoming,
leads nowhere
but further from stillness?

What if I spend my whole life
searching for a place
where meaning and peace
finally hold each other
and never find it?

What if I grow
into a thousand versions of myself
but never into the one
who can just
be?

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.

Last night,  
in sleep's strange sanctuary,  
I saw you running  
through shadows,  
your silhouette threaded  
with quiet fear
darkness chasing your heels,  
like the hidden truths  
we never spoke aloud.

Instinctively,  
my arms lifted you  
from the tangled paths,  
your breath quick  
against my neck,  
as the world behind us blurred,  
fading softly  
into echoes and mist.

Together, we climbed  
a mountain cloaked  
in velvet night
familiar, yet unknown  
the ascent steep and endless,  
each step carrying  
a silent language  
only our hearts understood.

I felt the gravity  
of every unspoken word,  
the questions hanging  
between us like stars  
in an uncertain sky.  
Yet still, we rose
above the voices,  
above the darkness,  
into quiet air  
that held only  
our shared truth.

When I woke,  
I wondered  
if mountains hold meaning  
beyond dreams
if there's something  
we still climb,  
separately, silently,  
longing to understand  
why our paths  
remain intertwined.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

The nights are the hardest.
Not because of the dark,
but because of the loneliness.
That heavy silence
that reminds you
you only have yourself.

No one is coming to knock,
to ask how you’ve been,
to remind you you’re not alone.

What good is self-love
when it can’t pull you from the edge of your thoughts,
when it can’t wrap its arms around your chest
and tell you it’s okay to feel like this?
What good is it
when it just sits there quietly
while the loneliness hums louder?

What good is it
when it can’t make you feel less alone?

I don’t know how to fix it.

Some nights,
I have no thoughts
just the ache,
just the weight.
So I imagine.
I imagine a version of myself
who doesn’t feel this way.
I try to believe I can become them.

Some nights,
I just hold my own hand
because it’s the only one reaching.
Some nights,
I tell myself to breathe
and trust that it counts for something.

The truth is,
it hurts to need yourself
more than anyone else.
And lonelier still
when even that doesn’t soothe you.

But maybe,
somewhere beneath the ache,
this is what strength looks like:
to sit in the dark
and still choose to stay.

Even when it’s hard.
Especially then.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Happy Forth of July : )

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 hope one day
I can look back on this version of me
with softness,
with pride not because I endured,
but because I finally broke free.

Free from the need
to fight for my worth.
Free from the ache
of proving I deserve to be loved.

I hope one day
it’s just given.
Offered like sunlight,
like breath.
Given because I exist,
not because I performed,
not because I fought.

It exhausts me
this daily battle
between who I know I am
and what the world
makes me beg for.

I love myself.
But that doesn’t erase the ache.
That doesn’t make the nights less quiet,
or the waiting less long.

One day,
I want to look at myself
and see someone loved
without question,
without condition
not earned, not explained.
Just known.

I want to know how it feels
for love to feel like home,
not like war.

And until then,
I will keep moving forward,
even tired,
even aching,
carrying the quiet hope
that one day,
it won’t feel this hard.

That one day
will come.

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.

Smoke me into your lungs.
Breathe me in slow,
as if you’re savoring
something dangerous
but necessary.

Let me flow through you,
your chest,
your bloodstream,
your thoughts
until I reach your brain
and settle there,
quietly unraveling the edges
of what you thought you knew.

Let me blur your vision,
soften the sharp parts
until all that’s left
is warmth and ache.

Let me live beneath your skin,
humming low,
like a secret you keep
but never tell.

Exhale me,
and I’ll still linger
in the spaces between breaths,
in the soft hush
before sleep.

I don’t want to be forgotten.
I want to be felt.
Like smoke that leaves its trace
long after the fire is gone.

I'm still learning
still learning what makes me happy,
what makes life feel
like more than survival.

I'm learning how to smile without apology,
how to sit with silence and not call it loneliness.

Some days,
I catch glimpses
of what could be peace:
the way sunlight spills
on kitchen tile,
the sound of leaves
chattering with the wind,
small, magnificent miracles
dressed as ordinary things.

But even then,
there’s a knife inside me
Not violent,
but present.
A slow ache,
a sharp truth
lodged deep,
like something sacred
and unbearable at once.

It doesn’t twist,
but it doesn’t leave.

Some days,
I barely feel it.
Others,
it sings through my bones.
A weight
no one else can see,
but I carry it
like breath.

And still,
I keep learning.
How to mend,
how to carry joy and pain
in the same breath.

How to look at the world,
even through tears,
and still see
something holy.

I am not finished.
I am not broken.
I am still becoming
thread by thread,
light by light,
breath by breath.

I still speak to you,
because you're that close
a part of the air between thoughts,
a presence soft as breath.

Sometimes I catch myself
smiling mid-thought,
because I know exactly
what you’d say.
And it’s perfect.
It always is.

You never needed a map
to find where I was.
You just showed up there
a quiet knowing in your eyes,
a warmth that told me
I never had to translate myself.

You were the only one
who understood
my spirals, my quiet corners,
my unspoken questions.
You met them like old friends.

I think of you
when I create,
when I overthink,
when I see something small
and beautiful
that most people would miss.

You
the one who held belief like fire,
who wore empathy like armor,
who stood rooted in her knowing
like the world couldn’t shake her.

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.

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.

All my dreams feel real.
So vivid, so precise,
I cannot tell
whether I am waking,
or wandering through some secret doorway.

Everything is perfect,
one to one,
every color the exact hue it should be,
every shadow falling just as it does
in the world I call my own.

It’s like Inception,
where I can’t tell what’s real
and you’re still here,
and everything is perfect.
I hold onto it because I want to believe
this is the world we belong to.

Sometimes,
even within the dream,
I ask myself aloud:
Is this real?
Am I dreaming?
And some soft voice,
sometimes mine, sometimes not,
answers quietly:
Does it matter?

Because in those moments,
the sky holds its breath for me.
The ground feels no different beneath my feet.
The faces I meet
smile as if they’ve known me always.

But toward the end,
when the dream begins to unravel,
the walls grow thin,
and I feel it slipping
all of it
you, the light, the warmth.
I lose everything.
And somehow it hurts even more
when I wake up

I wake
carrying fragments
a street I’ve never walked,
a scent that fades too fast,
the echo of my own voice
saying things I didn’t know I needed to hear.

What is real, after all,
but the places our hearts linger,
and the worlds we can’t quite leave behind
when morning comes.

Sometimes I sit and stare into the sky
and wonder:
Does anything ever truly last,
or do all things leave quietly
with the changing seasons?

I look to the clouds with gratitude
because I know one day
I won’t be able to see them again.

There’s a tenderness in their passing.
A softness in knowing
that beauty visits briefly,
then disappears like breath into air.

I sometimes find myself
caught between wonder and distance
watching something magical
while dissociating in my own mind,
aware, even as it unfolds,
that I may never feel this exact moment again.

That thought makes things sharper.
Makes them more fragile, more precious.
I don’t hold them tighter.
I just watch.
And let them pass through me
like light through glass,
leaving a trace,
but never staying.

Maybe that’s what it means to live:
to witness beauty,
to feel the ache of its leaving,
and to still look up at the sky,
thankful for what remains.

When I imagine the future,
the life I am shaping slowly,
with hands patient as earth and time,
I dream not of grandeur,
but of something tender:

Of sitting beneath a willow tree in the hush of autumn
leaves trembling like small prayers before they fall,
the air steeped in gold and quiet.
A notebook open in my lap,
ink flowing like breath turned visible.

I picture painting without perfection,
colors bleeding softly into one another,
or reading words that do not demand solving
only feeling.
Only wonder.

The breeze threads itself through my hair
with the gentleness of old love,
and the sun lowers itself with reverence,
laying its tired light upon the horizon’s tender curve.

In this dream I am lifted by nothing but presence,
the hum of creation moving quietly through my veins,
rooted wholly in what I know is sacred:

That I am no longer running.
Not from sorrow, not from longing,
not from the aching tenderness of simply being alive.

Instead, I am living
whole, unfinished, at peace.
And in that soft, unhurried hour beneath the willow tree,
this life I have found,
is finally enough.
More than enough.

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.