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Malcolm Jun 23
You whisper like it’s truth–
My body isn’t beautiful.
And then I want the rivers to rise,
want the trees to lean in,
want the stars to unpin themselves
and spell your shape across the dark.
Let the sky spill its archive of light,
let it fall open and weep
the exact shape of your name.

I want my hands to become mirrors,
quiet pools catching your laughter,
so you can see what I see–
how your skin bends light
like a secret the world wasn’t ready for.

And still, you say I look at you
like someone who’s come to take–
but I was only holding still
because your nearness
made the world hold its breath.
Your lashes moved
like small wild things
learning not to flinch.

Your body breathes softly
like a small bird, sparrow caught between sky and storm,
your chest rising beneath my palms–
every sensation felt with a finger tip
not a signal for danger,
but a song in the making.
And every time you shift,
I hear the hush
of wings folding,
not in fear–
but in arrival.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
June 2025
When You Tell Me You're Not Beautiful
Malcolm Jun 23
Mind’s wide open — body twitchin’, glitchin’, this pain is *******.
Thoughts crash like ******' panes in a kitchen, glass on floor
Glass in my grin shame diggin’ in, full pain.
Guilt pokin’ ribs like needles in skin.
Fire in my nerves, yeah this pain ain’t pretend,
Legal highs got me beggin’ for the end.
Eyes sunken, sleep duckin’, truth runnin’,
Mind ******’ me harder than life ever done it.
Dreams don’t visit, they drive-by in silence, alliance, defiance
While trauma backs up like a ***** with a license.
Heart skips like a junk beat glitched,
Shadow follows me like a snitch I ditched.
High legit — but the fit don’t click,
Cracked like a token tossed in the pit.
Broken on rocks while I fake that grit,
Every ******’ breath like a punch I split.
Gotta detox, get clean, get straight, give me rocks, big blocks
But mind’s on fire, sittin’ there, laced with hate.
It’s crawlin’ my skull, through the ceiling it leaks,
Whisperin’ sins in the hospital sheets.
IV drippin’ like a priest in heat,
Tryna baptize my veins with defeat.
Maybe I’m vain, maybe I’m ******' insane,
But this brain got rooms that scream *******, pain pain pain.
Temptation ain’t knockin’, it kicks the door in,
Talkin’ bends, ends, old sins, fake friends.
Promisin’ peace from a pill with a grin,
But I know that thrill ends under my skin.
Open door — I step right through, roof lit floor
Ain’t scared of hell, I’ve been see-through.
Shoulda died — yeah, death ******’ lied,
Left me half-man, half suicide, final ride what's inside see the blind.
Drugs in the drawer hum lullabies low,
Beggin’ me sweet to just let go.
Living’s a joke, the punchline’s stale,
Body in a bed with a soul on bail.
Paranoia sharp like a blade of mice, grain of rice, pipes that are spliced, in and out,
Gnawin’ my spine with feral vice.
Creepin’ up bones, crawlin’ through wires,
Slime in my mind that never tires, never lies.
Smiles from the past? *****, they charge, no they charge
Fake hugs, fake love — just emotional barge, living off drugs
Body sold, mind hijacked and bruised,
Truth tastes rotten when your teeth are loose, bones once whole broken forgotten
Tongue spits prayers in a ****-you voice, without choice,
While Morph and Feni dull the noise.
Stack of Beni like a hitman’s fee, trami and whites.
Every pill a silent plea.
War still young, but my soul’s unravelled, minds travelled,
Heart don’t beat, it ******’ gravelled.
I claw through the dirt just to breathe again, woke up to the pain,
Fightin’ shadows with a rusted pen an broken Zen.
I danced with edges, glad I'm not vedges, still ****** in the hedges, kissed death’s mouth,
Woke up in pain with the wires pulled out, ribs sticking out, blood all about,
This ain’t redemption, this ain’t a hope song,
It’s grit in the lungs and the will to prolong.
Me vs. demons, streaming, screaming, bare-knuckled, no bluff, No luck, no God, just drugs and rough.
And if I make it out, still half-alive,
It’s ‘cause I crawled through ******’ knives to survive, and if I don't well guess I died.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
ACCIDENT BLUES
June 2025
Malcolm Jun 23
She moves like a rumor through the stone-breath streets,
not loud, not swift, but with a hush that bends the flame from a free standing street light.
Shoes unlaced, hands full of rainwater and nettles,
her silence does the talking.

The dogs stop barking when she passes.
A window closes in a house that forgot it had fear.
Even the birds-those clattering liars
draw their wings in like secrets.

She doesn’t look back.
She doesn’t need to.

In her wake:
a coat on a fencepost still warm,
a garden blooming red where no seed was sown,
and a man on a rooftop, forgetting why he climbed.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
June 2025
She Moves Like a Rumor
Malcolm May 31
burn ledgers,
sink crowns,
Lies kneel,
cities drown.

no gods,
no wires,
just fists
and fires.

Ain't a cry
It's a **** the man
Statement
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
matchstick gospel
May 2025
Malcolm May 30
I'm always racing, chasing—then swaying and spacing,
Barely bracing, then I’m slipping, dipping, misplacing.

The world keeps pressing, the pressure's unceasing,
Voices all blending, no pause, no releasing.

But when night pulls the curtain and time starts *******,
I pour something smooth—let go of the stressing.

In the hush of the dark, where the touch feels true
That’s when my heart, it skips for you.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
May 2025
My Heart Skips for You
Malcolm May 30
You were a kiss in a blender,
A chandelier of weeping strings.
I drank your name through static,
Swallowed lullaby shards
Wrapped in candy grief.

We made love beneath wormlight
You wore thunder like silk.
I gave you stars;
You brought a fork to my funeral
And laughed as I bled jam.

I begged through balloon fangs,
My ribs tuned to backward echoes.
But you rode a fishbone bicycle
Into another soft apocalypse.

Your love bit only in shivers.
You adored me as glitter and salt
But fled when my tears grew limbs
And asked for names.

You left with ducks in lab coats,
Prescribing your smile in pills.
I sleep in your ghost’s teacup,
Paint storms on toast,
And scream into jellyfish.

I kissed your silence’s socket,
Wore your absence like velvet plague.
Mannequins fed me your Sanskrit lies
On glitter IVs.

I built microwave shrines
To your maybe.
My therapist asked who you were
I said: expired milk with blood on the back.

Your ghost plays hopscotch in my skull.
Mirrors wear your grin like gospel.
I search aquariums for your stare
Only castles remain, and even they refuse me.

Tell me—was I your scrapbook of ruin,
Your empathy vacation,
Your control carnival?

The spiral laughs.
It spins in your perfume.
And I clap
For my own collapse.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
May 2025
Teacup Ghosts
Malcolm May 30
Thou walkedst in with words so honey-dipped,
Yet venom laced thy smile, so wide, so white.
A silken voice, but every virtue slipped,
For thou wert most in love with thy own light.

Thy praise, at first, did shine like summer gold,
Then turned to scorn when I began to bleed.
What grand illusions in thy lies I sold,
A peasant’s soul made feast for royal greed.

Thou craved a mirror, not a beating heart,
A shrine to self, not love in sacred skin.
I played the ghost in thy self-fashioned art,
While thou adored the mask thou wore within.

Yet truth, like dawn, did tear thy veil in twain
I found myself where I was bound by chain.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
May 2025
To Thee, My Sweet Divine
A Shakespearean Sonnet
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