I lie half-submerged in lukewarm, murky water,
skin pruned and ghost-pale beneath the grime.
The faucet drips like a slow, ticking clock,
and escape is all I can think about.

Soap **** clings to my ribs like guilt.
My hair floats around me like drowned seaweed,
and I wonder if this is the closest I’ll ever come
to peace.

I’ve tried it all—
breathing exercises, therapy, forgiveness—
but the water keeps cooling,
and the voices keep rising.

They promise a bath will cleanse you—
that heat can smooth the edges of everything,
that water can cradle you like comfort.
So why do I still feel so ruined?

The tiles above glare down like judges.
Steam coils over me like a spirit without a name.
I whisper to no one: maybe this isn’t living at all.

I keep waiting for something holy—
for a baptism, a burning away, a rebirth.
But the warmth never lasts long enough.
The healing never comes.

So I start to wonder
if the real mercy
is just a few inches deeper.
Letting the water fill my lungs
like a soft kind of forgiveness.

They say drowning feels like falling asleep.
Maybe that’s the closest I’ll ever get
to being saved.

It’s only a little further.
My lips already brush the surface.
If I just loosen my body, relax,
let myself float,
vanish—

Maybe that’s the cure I’ve been chasing all along.

One final act of self-preservation
disguised as disappearance.
If I surrender fully—
just for a moment—

I might finally feel relief.

Was there ever a moment you meant what you said?
You take like it’s owed—and ghost when it’s time to give back.
Your sorrys sound sweet,
But sugar can’t patch a crack.

You talk like a poet with nothing to say,
A glass house built in the wind—
No walls, no warmth,
Just light slipping in.

I smiled too long at your silence,
Thought you were deep—
But you were just empty.

We’re shaped by heartbreak.
You skipped the part where pain makes us better.
You wear your pride like armor,
But even armor breaks.

Isn’t the silence loud when you’re alone?
Doesn’t the cold reach your bones?
You wear quiet like camouflage,
But I see the shape of the wound.

I won’t let your shadows catch me.
My rage sings in a quiet key—
A whispered fury,
A lullaby with teeth.
I’ve lit candles in darker caves.
A flame sharpened to a blade.

So smile if you must—
But I burn—with intention,
And leave light behind.

I sleep in layers, thick with doubt
My breath fogs up the fear I drown
The walls don’t speak, but they recall
The nights I didn’t warm at all
My pulse is slow, a thread, a line
A promise wrapped in borrowed time

Each part of me still shakes alone
Like I was built from ice and bone

This is the temperature of staying alive
A quiet burn behind my eyes
Not quite dead, but not quite right
I hold my body like a lie
Too cold to dream, too numb to cry
Chronic hypothermia is eating me alive

My fingers twitch, they never bloom
I light a match in every room
But nothing sticks, the heat won’t stay
It flees like everything I prayed
They say I feel too much, too fast
But I just freeze and let it pass

I fake the fire, I wear the role
But I’ve gone frostbite in my soul

This is the temperature of staying alive
A pulse beneath a glassy sky
A body built on borrowed light
I dress in silence, sleep in spite
Too cold to beg, too proud to try
This is the temperature of staying alive

I used to dance in softer skins
But time tore holes I couldn’t mend
Now every hug feels like a test
And every kiss is secondhand
But if you see me don’t look away
I’m just surviving in my way

Still here, still cold, still undefined
I walk through fire, but I don’t ignite
Too close to love, too far to try
This is the temperature of staying alive

(Expletive)
If I were just that rabbit

For just one day
There I’d lay
Tucked against her gentle chest
Cradled close in perfect rest
Her breath, a hymn
Her body warm, a sacred limb
And I
A quiet witness to her grace
Would live and die in that embrace

Strussel, you blessed and furry thing
How did you become her chosen king?
Her fingers find you, soft and sweet
You live where I would cease to speak

Her hips ignite what thought suppresses
She moves and bends, and time confesses
I look at her and feed the flame
My hunger doesn’t blush with shame
She isn’t anyone’s possession
She’s a storm, a truth, a resurrection

The only one who holds my vice
With every glance, she melts the ice
She’s fire, fierce, and unrelenting
And I
I ache without repenting

So if I were that rabbit
Even for a blink, a breath, a blink
I’d live a lifetime in her touch
And die
Content
For having loved that much

Silence was the first law I learned—
not peace,
but punishment.
It was golden,
yes—
like ash melting on the tongue,
bitter and final.

I was born without lungs to scream,
without fingers to grip
the edge of anything safe.
No god to curse.
No name to whisper.

Just this:
an animal
dressed in the shape of a woman,
spine made of scars,
mouth full of truth no one asked for.

No faith.
No leash.
No savior.

I am death
wearing perfume.
I am money
without mercy.
I am ***
with teeth.

And I will walk barefoot
into the last collapsing light
of an unpromised horizon—
unloved,
unclaimed,
unbroken,
and still burning.

I live in the spaces in between
The planes of the unseen.
A shadow stitched from dream to dream,
Woven tight with dark esteem.

I sleep where secrets ebb and flow,
Where truths are whispered soft and low,
In voices you might almost know
But none you’ve ever met below.

I haunt the spaces in between,
The planes of what has never been.
Drink deep my fear
Gaze long into my nightmare.

O ye of trembling, hollow faith
Come drown beneath the whispering waves
Of demons I keep,
In shadows that do not sleep.

I sing in the spaces in between,
Where silence gnaws and eyes have seen.
Death is merely the first command.
So take, my friend, this outstretched hand.

Together, we’ll fade
Into pale blue and grey
Where stars burn cold
From far, far away.

Be still, my heart — why do you wake me?
The day was long and the night ended so soon.
My heart, do you ache?
Do you long for the things you cannot take?
To live a life that feels like secondhand fate?

My heart,
my heart,
my heart —
don’t run away from me.
I’m not scared of you.
Why would you love me?
You don’t know me.

I’ve worn a hundred names in borrowed light,
kissed mirrors hoping they’d kiss back right.
Built homes in glances, burned them in doubt,
learned to love with all the exits mapped out.

No more, my heart. Be still, my love.
The night is here, and the hour is late.
Sleep, my little lamb —
I’ll carry you
into the pearly gates.