How often do you look inside,
and find the parts you try to hide?
The dreams you lost, the fear you keep,
the thoughts that stir when you're half-asleep?

How often do you walk away,
from chances you meant to take that day?
Do you watch the world go passing by,
and feel too small to even try?

How often do you fall, then crawl,
wishing you could stand up tall?
But something holds you in the dirt
a voice that whispers, “you’ll get hurt.”

How often do you speak your mind,
and leave the careful words behind?
Or search for truth in what you feel,
even if it cuts, even if it's real?

How often do you cry alone,
in quiet rooms that feel like stone?
And still, somehow, you wipe your eyes
and face the day before sunrise.

How often do you trust what's new,
the road ahead with no clear view?
Or sit and stare at empty air,
at things you wish were really there?

How often do you try to see
the parts of you you hide so deep?
To open up, to take the chance
on love, on hope, on sweet romance?

How often do you ride the wave,
let go, be bold, be less afraid?
Or do you laugh, or break the rules,
play your part and bend the tools?

But through the dark and through the light,
through every wrong, through every right
when all is lost or all is won,
when storms are gone and skies are sun

Just be yourself—no need to prove,
no need to run, no need to move.
You’re enough in every place
in every fall, in every grace.

Let people be.
Let them breathe,
let them live free
whether they are he, she, or joyfully three.

Who cares what they look like,
where they come from,
or how they speak?
They are people.
They rise, they fall,
they laugh, they seek.

They deserve to walk their own way,
to love, to cry,
to dance in the sun or weep in the rain,
without shame
and without a chain.

So what if they don’t fit the shape
your mind molds as “normal”?
That’s your cage.
This is their stage.

No need to love as they do
just let them be true.
Let them shine in their own sky,
wear their names with pride,
even if their pronouns
don’t match the tide.

They bleed red,
they dream in color.
They’ve felt grief,
they’ve cherished another.
So why should their joy
be cause for alarm?
Why does their truth
feel like harm?

Each life is one
let it count,
without need for approval
or fearful doubt.

It’s okay if someone born a he
feels within a radiant she.
It’s okay to find love
wherever love chooses to be.
It’s okay to be soft,
to be bold,
to be different,
to break the mold.

There is no need for convention,
no rule to conform
let them be fire,
let them be form.

Happiness harms no one.
Difference is not a crime.
So why does it bother so many
when others simply wish to shine?

All lives matter.
This earth belongs to all.
Every voice, every shade,
every rise, every fall.

Don’t let hate
sit in your heart.
Don’t let judgment
tear others apart.

Love.
Love wide.
Love those who stand
on the other side.

Help each other.
Lift each other.
We are all brothers, sisters,
fathers, mothers
children of this spinning place.
And if one truly looks face to face,
they’ll find kindness
where they once saw fear.

There are greater battles
than long hair or buzzed styles,
than lovers who smile
in ways that don’t match your files.

Accept what is different.
See the beauty in change.
It takes every kind
to turn the world’s range.

Let people be.
They don’t need permission to exist.
They deserve to be seen,
respected,
and missed.

Sunday—just another day,
Prayer—just another way.
Silence—just another reply,
Thinking—just another reason why.

Still, we keep doing
still, we keep asking
as if "another"
might finally mean something.

Life is a ******* canvas,
a mess you don’t know you’ve stepped into,
until your foot’s stained
a smear of doubt,
blood from the gods you thought you knew,
the first breath
a slap,
a jagged line that cuts into the gut of you.
****, it hurts,
but you keep painting
‘cause the world ain’t built without your hands in the ****.

It’s paint on your face,
the drip of your own blood
mixed with rage,
‘cause what’s life if not a battle between what you want to touch and what’s been forced into you?
You’re born with a brush in your palm,
but the strokes are jagged,
sharp edges,
a million questions you don’t have answers for.
You want to fix it
but the canvas bleeds through your fingers,
so you just keep ******* going.

Each line is war,
each color is death,
each mistake is your soul
ripping open like a wound.
Nothing is clean here,
not the art, not the mind,
not the **** heart beating like a beast in your chest.
You hit the page with fury,
twisting the paint till it burns,
till it scars.

You step back,
but only to get a clearer picture of the wreck you’ve made.
Life, like a painting,
is the blood of your struggle,
the grit of the grind,
the brutality of change.
Can’t fix it,
can’t make it perfect
It is what it is
but ****, you can make it yours.
You can make it raw,
tear it apart with your bare hands,
and watch it bleed into something real.
‘Cause at the end, it ain’t about the clean edges,
it’s about the chaos
the mark of the beast you leave on it,
the rage and hunger that refuses to die.

And when it’s done
you’ll see it.
All of it.
Every jagged, broken line,
every scar on the page,
and you’ll know,
the mess was never the mistake.
It was always the point,
to paint...

I hope you’re awake.
The world is breaking.
We don’t want comfort
we want peace.

They say you made us.
Then why does hunger
wear your name?
Why do your children
sleep in the cold?

We ask for quiet.
You answer with silence.
We sing to the sky,
but no echo returns.

Did you craft this grief?
The pain we hold?
Or did we give you shape
to carry the blame?

We argue, we fight,
we fall for belief
but no hand lifts us
when we fall.

Your name lives in laws,
in fire,
in war.
If you wrote the book,
why let it burn?

No crown.
No wings.
No final word.
Just hearts breaking
in the dark.

Still, the bombs fall.
The children weep.
The oceans rise.
And hope thins.

Are you still watching,
or did you turn away
before the smoke rose?

I used to pray.
Now I reflect.
If you are real,
then why the silence?

PS:
We need a miracle.

How dare you
click in the dark
with soft, uncalloused fingers
scraping what you didn’t bleed for,
scratching through ash
for sparks you didn’t birth.

I see you.
Vulture-eyed, dead-hearted,
sifting through soul for a dopamine hit.
You didn’t live it.
You didn’t scream it into a pillow at 3 a.m.
You didn’t shake with the ink.

You didn’t die for it.
I did.

But still
you rip out ribs of rhythm,
plagiarize pulse,
regurgitate ghosts
with your baby-AI mimicry,
your Frankensteined stanzas
stitched from the flesh of my grief,
I noticed,
I see you.

Little girl,
child of the click-and-paste spell,
you wear stolen metaphors
like cheap perfume
loud, tacky, choking,
wondering how it must be to feel?

I see the sudden genius
that bloomed from nowhere.
A drought of silence—then flood.
Words once dry
now drip with my salt, my blood, my pain
and you dare to name it yours?

I know my structure.
I fathered that form.
I spit syllables like bones,
stacked them in temples of torment,
broke English to make it feel,
broke myself to make it real,
and you think I don't know?

And now?
You **** the marrow of my music,
flesh-ripper,
content-corpse-dancer,
vampire with no hunger but vanity.
You steal scars and call it style,
Not all vampires **** blood.

Wonder, as you do
Muse won’t visit you.
She’s not fooled by filters
or your cosplay of pain.
She knows the difference
between trauma
and trend.

I see the telltales,
Regurgitated vocabulary,
gpt traced structure.
the sudden depth in shallow ponds,
the cracked mask of borrowed fire.
Your voice stinks of syntax theft.
I smell my soul on your verses,
One look I and I knew immediately.

You can’t fake origin.
You cant fake originality.
You can’t counterfeit truth.
And when you post your pretty poem,
know this:
You’re wearing my bones.
And they don’t fit.

I made this style.
I made this monster.
And it does not love its thief.

So burn in the echo.
You earned that silence.
You earned that shame.
May it echo louder
than any stolen applause
you’ll ever gain,
for every like you get,
know it's not yours.

I don’t cry anymore
the salt ran dry.
I don’t look up
the sky stopped looking back.
I don’t believe
in believing.

Where are you now,
God of broken pages?
That book
full of thunder,
full of fire,
full of once.

Where are the miracles
when we need them
more than ever?
Silence
—louder than prayer.

You’ve
forsaken me
in my heart,
forsaken me
in my mind,
forsaken me
in my...

Why?

I stopped it
right there
in my mind
between one tear
and the next blink.
The world cracked still.
Like God forgot the script.
Like clocks
finally choked on their lies.

And I walked
barefoot,
through the frozen ache of light
curling like fog around a laugh
you almost had.

I tasted
the rain before it hit the ground,
let it linger on my tongue
like the names I never said.
Kissed the steam
off your coffee cup
and whispered secrets
to the dust motes in your room
they listened better than people ever did,
I held your smell in my nose,
drowning in each scent.

A hummingbird mid-flap,
stuck between flight and forever
I kissed it too.
Soft as ambition
dying in a cold city.

I held a flower
for a thousand years.
It never withered.
My hand did.

I found love
locked in the way your lip curled
right before goodbye.
I held that moment
until my own heart cracked
like glass under memory.

You think stopping time heals?
No.
It just slows the pain
to a crawl
so you can savor it.

I walked through lovers
like churches.
Empty.
Sacred.
Haunted by prayers
no one answers anymore.
I touched your cheek,
and you didn’t flinch.
First time.
Last time.
Every time.

I bent over my younger self
still full of fire and delusion.
Didn’t wake him.
Didn’t warn him.
He needed the fall.
We always need the fall.

If I lived forever,
I’d write poems on comet tails
and stitch stars
into the silence.
But I’d still miss you.
Every hour.
Of every never-ending day.

Time isn’t the enemy
it’s the proof
we ever mattered.

But still
in that breathless hush
where nothing moved
I kissed the sky,
held the world in my palm,
and told it:

“Stay here.
Don’t move.
Just let me feel
everything
before it’s gone.”
in the moment
forever.

The sky still tastes of iron,
wet breath of old storms swallowing the hills,
where I once ran without shoes,
spitting laughter into the wind
a feral thing, a child-king,
ruling over stick-sword battles and mud-caked thrones.

Now the air is thinner,
clouds scatter like ghosts too tired to haunt,
and my hands—old gnarled roots
grasp at echoes,
at the soft whisper of a name
I have long forgotten but never lost,
can you hear my whisper.

She was there once
braiding summer into my hair,
fingers like sparrow wings,
light, delicate, fleeting.
Her voice, a river bending
through the cracked earth ridge of my ribs,
shaping me, eroding me,
leaving only the hollow hum of her song.

Dreams came then,
painted on the walls of my skull,
wild beasts of hope,
ran freely,
howling beneath a sky where every star was a promise.
I swore I'd never leave,
never turn to dust,
never let time claw its name into my bones.

But here I am,
watching the sky bleed out another evening,
knowing that clouds
no matter how heavy with memory
will always disappear.

Hunger of the Hollow
Who whispers first
the earth or the bone?
Who sings the loudest
the living or the rot?

The Girl Who Would Not Stay
She walks on petals made of glass,
soft steps splitting the veins of the earth.
The sky drinks her shadow,
swallows her shape,
forgets her name.

She was never meant to hold weight.
Not here. Not anywhere.

The river curls, wet-lipped and laughing,
coiling around her ankles, pulling her in
“Come, child of the hush.
Come where the wind forgets to breathe.”

She touches the water.
It opens a mouth of teeth.

The Flowers Never Woke
A valley sighs, heavy with waiting,
roots threading through ribs of the long-left-behind.
The lilies shudder in their sleep.
The roses are hungry.
The flowers wilt.

She kneels, touches the soil,
but it does not reach back.

“What if I leave and nothing misses me?”
she asks the air, but the air is busy.
It does not answer,
neither does the sun
neither do the stars.

The clouds above burn
folds itself into fists,
wrings light into rain,
spills over in fits of golden hunger.

“Fall with me,”
it says, curling against the weight of its own skin.
“Fall and know what it means to be held.”
"Fall and know what is life's embrace"

She stretches a hand.
But she does not trust softness.
Not when it bends so easily to breaking.

The Worm they watch all above,
Beneath her feet, the earth shudders
a ripple of something restless, something waiting,
something that has never needed a name,
the unknown calls.

A worm, white as unstruck lightning,
unfolds from the dirt,
a thread in the loom of the forgotten.

“Do you know what it means to return?”
it asks, voice thick with the weight of all things buried.
“Do you know what it means to stay?”
"Do you know what it means to leave?"
In all things bright as day.

She does not answer.
She does not know.

She runs.
Because that is what the empty ones do.
Afraid of the unforseen.
Afraid of the known .

Through the hush of the valley,
through the hunger of flowers,
through the breathless cloud,
through the waiting worm,
until the gate—yawning, waiting, endless
takes her inside.

And she sees
bodies, folded and pressed like unfinished prayers,
hands reaching for something long since gone,
eyes black with the ink of every unspoken question,
each answer no told.

She sees herself.
Hollow-ribbed. Hunger-limbed.
A thing with no weight.
A name no one remembers.
Forgotten.

And the silence speaks:

“Why do you fear what you already are?”

She turns.
She runs.
She flees

but the gate does not let her go.
And the garden does not let her wake.

Once again the light of night stares deeply,
Moon’s got me, fingers in my skull,
cracking, peeling, tearing at thoughts
let me be,
I never gave permission for
laughing, smirking
like it owns the night,
like it owns the pain that won’t let me go.

Time folds itself like crumbling paper,
rips apart, mends itself wrong
Minute by minute,
one AM, two, three, four, six,
numbers, fragments, slipping through fingers,
nothing makes sense but the heaviness.
One more hour, one more moment,
and I’m still awake,
count sheep, count dogs, count cats
Nothing!

Sleep? A liar,
a trick of the light,
a hallway that leads nowhere,
a door that doesn’t open
I chase it,
fall into it,
but I wake,
each time
repeating
staring at the ceiling,
listening to the wall breathe,
mind racing away from me,
why won't you let me be.

If I could
I would tear the moon from the sky,
break his light,
fold him into something small,
a paper boat,
something that could sail off,
something I can crush.
But no,
I watch
smug, distant,
untouchable,
repeated,
the moon, laughing.

And me?
I’m a shadow of a shadow,
too awake to sleep,
too tired to be.
The body is a thought,
the thought is a whisper
where am I,
what is this,
where did the night go?

I watch myself,
waiting,
waiting,
waiting
until I collapse or fade,
until the universe sighs,
until time stops pretending,
until sleep gives in
or I let go.

Yeah, yeah, last round, last sin, last down.
Pour me a drink, let the games begin, big grin no frown,
let's get down.

I like my girls like I like my life,
Wild as hell with a touch of strife.
Down under, right *****, word to the wise,
I lick ‘em up slick, watch the fire in their eyes,
Pick up lines? Nah, just pick up legs,
They here for a night, they ain’t here to beg.

Stick up—this ain't no robbery, slobbery.
Hands up high while lips stick and gobble me,
Wobble please, yeah, tease me slow,
Spice in the breeze, on her knees, let’s go.
Veronica, Sandy, don’t matter the name,
Long as she game, we play the same,
Slam me down like a poetry battle,
**** right, revision, slam night position,
No intermission, just pure ambition,
Next day still wet and wishing.
Ain’t no rules, just break that bed,in her head.

Laugh at the law, let ‘em count the dead,
Yeah, yeah, I live life free,
Ain’t no government controlling me, eyes see. ******* to the piggies as they go wee wee .

Smoke up, sip slow, world stay burning, let's go,
They preach control, but I ain’t concerned with
No king, no leash, no ******* master,
Just me, my sins, and a heart that beats faster. Disaster

So let’s toast to the ones who never bowed,
To the freaks, the rebels, the lost and found,
Ain’t no chains that can hold us down, souls that wanna get down,
Blood in my champagne, let’s burn this town to the ground.

Anyone interested in writing a 4th or 5th for my track BLOOD IN MY CHAMPAGNE?

https://youtu.be/8PpuK0AtMkQ?

Needs to fit over that beat and follow the theme, you will get a honorable mention and a credit on the track

Here are the lyrics so far

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5020992/blood-in-the-champagne/

https://youtu.be/8PpuK0AtMkQ

Yeah, step back, Nah, step forward, chin up, take that. I ain't here for the handshake chat, I'm here for the matchstick scratch, The backstreet rats, The black-tar facts that they never dispatch.

Yeah, watch me carve my name in the side of a church, Spitting like a gutter when the heavens all burst, Lip-split venom, ink-stained denim, Mad dog grin with a backstreet emblem.

All of these ******* flash their teeth, Talk like kings, but their crowns ain't cheap, All that silk just hides the rot in em Gold-plated teeth where the worms still feast.

Yeah, yeah, I hear the chat, Big-boy flex but your spine stay cracked, Money so long but your soul stay trapped, Penthouse view but your heart’s pitch-black.

Gimme that pen, let me spit pure venom, Words hit sharp like a switchblade lesson, I ain't in the mood for a soft-boy session, I talk like war and I walk like a weapon.

Yeah, life gave pain, so I sip champagne Till my teeth turn black and my fists feel sane, Gutter-born son with a Godless name, Danced on the edge and I ain't feel shame.

Yeah, I see them all lurking, Fangs in the flesh of the broke and the burdened, Talk about power like they earned it,
What a joke, But they just stole from the kids and the nurses, got fresh rhymes and title verses.

Yeah you know, I been low, I been drunk on the floor of a high-rise window, I been lost in a room full of eyes like gun barrels, Hand on the bottle like it's holding my halo, no pray no, lets let go.

But I ain't done yet, I ain't laid flat, I ain't cashed out, I ain't played that, I ain't one for the quiet or tame acts, I spit like a riot in a tin-can train track wreck,what more could you expect.

Yeah, let the world burn, Let the sky split, Let the flames turn every glass house sick, Let the wolves come, I don't fear their tricks, I'm the one that taught them how to lick their lips.

So pour me a glass, Pour me a casket, Pour me the ashes of every fake *******, Every backstabber, every fraud with a mask, I'll sip that slow, let the poison last.

Yeah, yeah, step back, Nah, step forward, chin up, take that. I ain't here for the handshake chat, I'm here for the matchstick scratch, The backstreet rats, The black-tar facts that they never dispatch, what can I say I still got blood in my champagne and a grinny tic tac.

BLOOD IN THE CHAMPAGNE (second part )

Yeah, I hear that, I smell the smoke,
Ain't no peace when the leash still chokes, bars like a white horned goat,
They print their lies, they sell their quotes,
But I read between every crack in the roads.

Yeah, you sip that venom, I sip mine neat, let's go
Lies on the lips but they kiss my feet,
They built their walls, they stack their fleets,
But a real revolution don’t tweet tweet, it bleeds.

See, I was raised where the streetlights stutter,
Mouth full of dust, bare hands bleeding knuckles in the gutter,
Fed on the echoes of every lost brother, eyes of another crying mother,
Now I carve their names in the bones of the structure.

And they wanna talk power? Let’s talk theft,
Let’s talk hands in the pockets of the dying and the deaf,
Let’s talk leaders that drink till there’s nothing left,
Then lick the glass clean while they grin at our deaths.

Nah, I ain't got patience, I ain't got time,
I ain't got love for a snake in a tie,
I ain't got space in my chest for a lie,
So I stitch my heart shut and I sharpen my mind.

I been low, I been high,
I been down where the devils all barter their sight,
I been up where the saints got a price on their light,
Now I stand with my sins and I set ‘em alight.

So pour me a glass, pour me a promise,
Pour me the truth from the depths of the dishonest,
I sip that slow, yeah, let the world watch it,
Blood in my champagne, toast to the carnage.

BLOOD IN THE CHAMPAGNE (Final Verse)

Yeah, yeah, blood in my champagne, sippin’ on pain,
Cottonmouth fiends got their tongues in the drain,
Licking windows, eyes dead in the rain,
Moving stash just to live, what’s the price on a name? Yeah pain .

Fat rats act like cats, diggin’ in the yards for scratch,
Diggin’ up bones of the past while the people just sit in the dark,
Politicians think they kings but they dont all play their parts,
Got this city on lockdown, padlocked hearts now, while love fall they forgot now.

Don’t mess with me or you’ll see,
I don’t just spit venom, I’m pure anarchy,
No time for whispers, no time for silly malarkey,
Two shots—bang! And you buried in a field or down town parky.

Crosshair ****** in a tree? Nah that's not me.
Hidden in clear sight, I’m a shadow in the  dark night heat, I'm quick on my feet,
Kung fu warrior, I know how to fight,
Not like Sally, *****, I don’t bark—I straight up bite.

Yeah, when I was young, I would mutter,
Gutter-born kid, ate dry bread—no butter, no stutter just words in my head,
Now I sit back, watch the world burn slow,
What the **** can I say? I reap what I sow.

Getting laid every way in the middle of the day,
Stacking bricks, flipping keys, made a way,
While the weak still pray, hands out, empty plates,
While the sharks cut deals in the halls of the state.

Step back—politicians never learning, cold world turning
Wait ‘til this *******’ system start burning,
Don’t come running when your world stops turning,
Like a fake player, empty prayer or Missie in a turban

Yeah, yeah, I see them fiends still crawling, players be ballin
Teeth rot black, souls all fallen,
Selling their breath for a dime on the corner,
Chasing that high like a priest with an order.

What’s the struggle when you fight to survive?
Day to day, can you make it alive?
Blood in my champagne, death in my eyes,
If I see tomorrow, then I call it a prize.

Yeah, yeah, blood in my glass,
Pour out the truth, let it burn, let it last,
Let the world rot, let the sky split,
Let the wolves come—I ain’t scared of ****.

She burned for knowledge,
I gave her the universe.

She was bound,
I set her free.

She carried wind and light,
I held too tight.

She left.

Love is a dream, a ghost.

No matter how many times you flush,
the water swirls, a hopeful purge,
but someone’s always waiting, pants down,
ready to defile your porcelain peace
they squat like destiny, unshaken,
with a smirk and a stomach full of bad decisions.

You can pray for clean pipes,
but the world is a septic tank,
and everyone is just waiting their turn.

It’s better to be ******* than ****** on,
because rain might cleanse, but golden showers burn.
Respect? A myth. Decency? A joke.
They’ll step on your back, unzip,
and let loose a monologue of steaming disrespect.
You call it betrayal, they call it nature.
You wanted a handshake, they gave you a stain.
But hey, at least it was warm.

Why turn the other cheek
when you can uppercut life right in the ****?
Justice is a myth in a rigged casino,
but a fist to the groin is poetry in motion.
They tell you to be the bigger person,
but the bigger person gets stepped on.
So why wait for karma
when your knuckles can write the prophecy?

We search for truth,
digging through the filth, hoping for gold.
But some things are clearer than scripture:
Everyone’s full of ****.
The world is a never-ending restroom.
And no matter how hard you try,
you can never lock the door.
These are just some unfortunate truths.

She smiled—an angel, I swear.
We spoke like echoes of old laughter,
our coffees worlds apart, yet drawn close.

She, gorgeous. Me, just me.
She liked my style; I liked her everything.
By dusk, Italian wines and pasta await—

I don't eat pasta, but for her, why not?
Perhaps I'll dine my nerves on wine,
sip fate like a beautiful accident.

Life beautiful mystery
Unfolding in the most curious ways.

Tick—tock, the wall blinks back,
hands circling our days like vultures.
Sunrise, sunset—another grain falls.

We count time in echoes, in light-years,
watching comets carve their nameless orbits,
wandering like satellites without a home.

Falling into the tomorrow.
We think we know

Curled up close,
warm, trusting, loved.
A sigh, a stretch
A wag of tail
then silent betrayal.

He locks eyes,
innocent, unblinking.
It wasn’t him.
(Lies.)
Sis you stinky ***

Warm breath,
calloused grip
she jerks like a mechanic,
I pray for mercy.

Beamed up,
strapped down,
cold metal, sharp light
alien hands, no ****,
send me back.

A Sewer of Secondhand Stanzas & Desperate Hands in the Dark
Rotting forum, crusted in filth, a mausoleum for hacks,
where perverts slither between broken metaphors,
their trembling hands typing—no, panting—
over poems that stink of sweat and self-pity,
rejected lovers turned dime-store philosophers,
clawing at rhyme like it's the last cheap thrill
they’ll ever taste.

A graveyard of ghost accounts and hollow praise,
twenty usernames circling the drain,
sniffing each other’s failures and calling it art,
a place where "critique" means slapping a heart
on yet another recycled *****-verse
about “aching souls” and “dying stars.”

Oh, the predators—old men and woman in shadows, lurking, waiting,
writing thin-veiled fantasies and calling them poems,
prying at the young with tired compliments,
sickly sweet as rotting fruit.
They call themselves poets—
but they reek of desperation and dust.

And the “art” they birth?
Half-baked, half-rhymed, half-thought,
trite as a teenager’s diary scrawl,
sewn together with clichés and copied lines,
whimpering at their own reflections,
******* to mediocrity.

The site itself? A glitching, gasping relic,
a dumpster fire on dial-up,
barely held together by duct tape and denial,
its threads—old, stale, circling the same six topics,
poetry regurgitated like bad meat,
a static grave for static minds.

So here’s your goodbye, Deep Underground—
a place where talent goes to die,
where “community” is a euphemism for
mutual mediocrity,
where words are not weapons, not wonders—just waste.

Let it sink. Let it rot.
It was never alive to begin with.
Good riddance to bad *******.

poetry used to be a map, a hymn, a burning
we wrote like our tongues bled, like time
ached for translation. words cracked open the sky,
made men dream, made women rise,
made silence sit and listen.
but now,
now, if I whisper of rivers, of dust-lit dawns,
of the wind curling like a mother’s hand
the echoes fall hollow.

but let me write skin, sweat, moan, bite
watch them come running.
write me naked, paint me burning,
say lust, say ****, say writhing hunger
and the crowd swells, tongues heavy with thirst.
it’s not wrong—no, never wrong—
but it is telling.

it is a hunger that does not end.
not for beauty, not for meaning,
not for the poetry that unfurls the world
just for the quick hit, the lit fuse,
the take me there, take me now, make me feel something
for five minutes and leave me numb again.

if I say the word tree, I get ten eyes.
if I say thighs, I get ten thousand.
and that’s where we are.
not where we were.
not where poetry was once carved into the bones of history,
but where it flickers like neon in motel rooms,
glows for a night, fades by morning.

I do not blame them.
I do not shame them.
but I will not forget
what poetry used to do
when words were more than
just a pleasure-driven plate.

A fusion of free verse, prose poetry, and lyrical refrain  
By Malcolm Gladwin  ( the video is what we did as kids to be free )
 
Be free—like a bird caught in the updraft,  
like a fish slipping silver through the currents,  
like a balloon let go from a child’s hand,  
floating, floating, floating into the blue yonder.  
Be free like a song sung with no fear of echoes,  
like wild grass bending only to the wind.  
 
Life is one life.  
One breath, one moment, one golden chance  
to walk barefoot where the waves kiss the shore,  
where the sea salt burns your nose,  
where the wind does not ask before it touches your skin.  
Run. Jump. Throw your arms into the sky  
let the sun catch you midair.  
 
Have you ever watched how the butterfly dances,  
how the bee lands, drinks, moves on  
how the river spills itself over smooth stones,  
never asking where it must go?  
Sit beneath the weeping willow,  
watch the shadows shift, toes in the passing current  
the water never waits, yet it is never lost.  
 
Be free. Jump. Clothes on, feet muddy,  
off the edge, off the bank, off the cliff  
five, four, three, two—SPLASH.  
Let the river take your weight,  
let it wash away your hardship,  
let the wild raspberries stain your lips,  
let the lemon grass hold you as you watch the clouds drift  
turning into faces, into beasts, into whispers.  
 
And when the city calls, remember:  
freedom is not found in glass towers,  
not in the weight of gold, not in the rush of clocks.  
It is in the air we forget to breathe,  
the quiet moments we do not hold long enough,  
the waiting at the bus stop when we look up really look  
and see life moving, unchained.  
 
But my freedom  
my freedom lies in the ocean’s roar,  
in the summer rain that does not ask permission  
before it kisses my skin.  
 
Here, I am alive.  
Here, I am free.

Watch the video below - it's a place we went to when we were hot and felt like blowing off some steam , being free in the middle of nature.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=nTE89XbZfGmA54W9&v=BDi38mUM0xY&feature=youtu.be

Who am i really?
I wear the masks they whisper about,  
Words spoken in the hush of broken corridors,  
Light bringers or public enemy number one,  
black for the night, white for the oath,  
red when the wires scream.  
I walk unseen through the veins of the world,  
The shape shifter that walks amongst the wolves and sheep,  
a pulse, a fracture, a glitch in the circuit.  
I am the ghost that never stays dead,  
Messiah that rises time and time again,  
They call me a keyboard cowboy,  
I know the dark because I had to.  
You don’t track a predator by standing in the sun,  
wolves don't just knock on the door,  
Don't you know,  
They lurk,  
I hunt,  
Crosshairs,
Fire
Dead!

I have stood with the blue team  
steel-*****, firewalled, watching the abyss watch back,  
Jedi.  
While worms nawwd at the core, trying to eat through the system.  
I have moved with the red team  
silent hands, slipstream body,  
a wraith in the blind spots of giants.  
Drilling our way through the earth to come out on the other side,  
to see what's unseen,  
to hear the unspoken,  
to find the hairline cracks in the impenetrable,  
I have drowned in the purple dusk  
where order and rebellion  
collapse into static and bones,  
Where community communication finds comfort.  

Tell me—who owns the truth?  
Tell me—who decides the crime?  
Tell me—how do you catch what doesn't exist?  

They call me villain.  
Ghost. Phantom. A shadow that never asks permission.  
Digits flash—unauthorized.  
Vaults unsealed—malicious intent.  
Secrets peeled raw—classified breach.  
Knowledge is what I seek—raw unfiltered.  
I rupture the systems of those worthy,  
a howl in the wires,  
a storm that does not obey.  
And yet—  
they never ask why the lock was picked,  
What was behind the door.  

They call me guardian.  
Sentinel. A shield made of wreckage.  
They call me protector  
when I patch the cracks before the flood.  
But no one asks how I learned to swim in the dark,  
Even when you lose your soul to save others.  

They call me enigma, breaker, builder, ruiner, redeemer,  
a paradox in a world made of glass, fibres that stretch the boundaries of the earth,  
I see the fractures  
the vulnerabilities, the rusted locks,  
the way everything is breakable  
if you know where to press,  
Some call it crime.  
Some call it sight.  
Some call it inevitable.  

I am silence in a world that never stops screaming.  
I am lightning crashing through the wall.  
I am the unseen weight tipping the scale.  
Sneaking in and gone before you know it.  
Footprints on the floor?  
Fingerprints?  
I doubt it.  

And still, I ask myself  
Who the **** am I?  
Just a shadow?  
Or truth

The sun bows slowly, mourning the lost son,
a candle flickers—one last breath,
whispered through a temple of fallen dust,
where the wind kneels—where silence feels like comfort,
cut from the cloth of the wordless sky. Here we stand.

A hand traces the names on ancient stone,
a name once worn, now barely warn.
The years have left their weight, as there they wait,
each carefully carved letter like a jagged might,
though the body’s gone, the soul’s still sight.

She told him once: "Sow your steps where light still sews,
pare your grief where rivers flows
let no weight of loss take more than air
never will you find me, neither here nor there."
She smiled then—bare in truth, yet strong as bear,
roaring loudly at eternity,
spinning the cosmos into a mother’s care,
a fallen sigh, her golden hair.

The clock hands turn slow, but time still stares,
each tick a tremor, a time we remember—each tock a tare.
He stands at the edge of then and there,
where memories bend like a bending bare,
where fate unwinds with a tangled wear.

A voice hums soft in the scented breeze:
"Your soul is stitched into the stars with ease,
your love is more than what the world still maars or sees.
When I was here, you held me dear,
but know this now—I was never mere."

The sea replies in endless waves,
pulling the past through endless days,
unfolding time in fleeting new ways,
where loss is love that never waives.
Where death is just the name of change,
where love is light in shifting veins.

He turns, he walks, his shadow sores,
each step an echo, yet never sore.
The world moves on—his grief takes form,
but she’s still born, through breath, through storm.

Through ink on pages, through words that write,
through every wrong that turns to right.
She lingers not in earth nor stone
but in the rite of all unknown.

The Debt Always Comes Due
Always the victim, never the cause,
twisting the past into thorns in your crown,
spitting out names like they branded you first,
but no, you lit the match.

Nothing was real—just a game, just a spark,
a flicker in winter, a flame in my hands,
burning because you willed it to,
then blaming the fire for touching your skin.

Never was love, never was truth,
just a hollow echo you painted in gold,
a script rehearsed, a play well-staged,
but the audience left, and the curtains fell.

Every excuse, every shattered mirror,
you threw them like knives at the ones who cared,
but glass cuts back, and now you bleed,
alone in the wreckage you swore wasn’t yours.

Karma doesn’t knock—it breaks the door,
it creeps in quiet, it settles the debt,
no need for vengeance, no need for rage,
I’m healed, I’m whole, and you’re still lost.

And now? A shadow chasing its own ghost,
running, running, never home,
but the past always knows where you sleep.

There once was a man quite outrageous,
Who’d pull out his ****, quite voracious.
At a wedding, a store,
He’d show it once more,
And the cops found it truly audacious!

At the courthouse, he made his big stand,
With his **** in his hand, quite unplanned.
But the judge said, “Oh please,
This is just a disease,”
And they banned him from all public land!

It starts with a text
Hey handsome, you wanna hang?
And I know exactly where this night is going.
No need for games, no need for slow burns,
this isn’t about forever, it’s about now,
about heat and sweat and the way her hips move
like a wild ocean wave ready to crash.
She’s ten years younger but just as reckless,
and I’m not old enough to care.

We meet at the bar, two drinks in, shooters next.
She laughs, head tilted back, hair spilling like whiskey.
The way she sways to the bassline,
hips like liquid, eyes like fire
I swear the whole **** room watches.
They want her.
But she’s here with me,
and she ******* knows it.
A beautifully crafted piece of sin in a silk dress,
long brown hair swinging like a whip,
eyes that will burn holes in your soul,
and a laugh that makes you want more,
she loves my expensive cologne

She leans in, inhales deep,
says, I love the way you smell.
And I know what she means
it’s not the cologne,
not the brand or the bottle,
but the way the night sticks to me,
the way desire leaves its mark,
the way she’ll catch it on the pillow tomorrow
she knows she driving me wild as she comes close to breath me in deeper and deeper,
Oh and how I love how she smells
like a beautifully scented candle
expensive, sophisticated
So dam ****

Dinner is seafood and teasing,
her tongue running over the fork like a promise.
Oysters are on the menu ,
you know they a natural afrodiziac,
Not like we need them.
We flirt like we haven’t been tangled in sheets before.
Like I haven’t already left bruises on her thighs,
owned every inch of her over and over,
its like thunder and lightning when we together, you know there will be a storm!
Everything getting blow away and soaked..excuse the pun.
besides it's not
like she hasn’t clawed down my back,
it's strange we like two wild personality that become one,
even though we live separate lives.
like we don’t already know
exactly where this night is heading.
But the build-up? Oh, that’s the foreplay.
The tension, the knowing
the anticipation is the first **** of the night.

Back at mine,
door barely closed before we’re devouring,
my hands under her dress,
her breath hot against my jaw,
she bites because she can,
because she knows I like it.
Clothes—forgotten, skin—slick,
the bed—just another battlefield.
She moves like a lioness,
hungry, wild, untamed.
I hold her in one arm like she weighs nothing,
she climbs me like a fever dream,
moans like a sin sung in the dark.
We **** like animals, like fire and gasoline,
like this night will never end.

Morning comes, tangled sheets and tangled limbs.
She stretches, smirks, straddles me one more time,
a slow, lazy encore to the symphony of last night.
Coffee, croissants, a shower that turns into another round.
She smells like sweat and perfume and something sweeter
freedom, maybe.
The babysitter calls, and we know what that means.
Time to part, time to slip back into our separate lives.
But there’s no sorrow, no longing.
We both know the game, and ****, do we play it well.

And when she texts again
You up for another round?
I grin, reply
Tell the babysitter not to wait up.
Because everyone needs a **** buddy,
but not everyone gets one this good.
until the next episode
life is life

Tonight,
the river is
not water
but song,
its body unraveled silk,
golden-threaded murmurs,
spilling, spiraling,
drowning the hush
of the land in hymn,
in motion,
in breath.

Every ripple
a hand stretched toward dawn,
every hush
a heartbeat echoing through the soil,
unfastening morning
like a clasp at the throat of time.

Her body
Like a unwritten scripture,
Beauty beyond comparison
shifting verses,
shifting
a road carved by the hands
of the unseen,
soft fire licking the bellies
of unturned stones,
reed-thin prayers drift on high
rising to sky.

Each echoed note
A musical masterpiece
of her body a light sound-spun  through incantation,
whispering secrets to the root-veined hush,
where silence folds into bloom,
In a secret garden
known to none .

The wind
smears its fingerprints across the sky,
stains the horizon with blue spun from memory,
bows its head in reverence
to the aching dawn.

The wheat hums.
The river sighs.

Somewhere,
a blade of grass bends and sings.

Somewhere,
the breath of lovers writes
its own psalm in the dust-kissed hush
of a bridge where names,
hands, mouths, moments,
are carved into forever.

And oh, the clouds
burning alabaster, forgotten ghosts
exhale light,
let golden thread unspool in restless rivulets,
let carefully crafted prisms scatter
across the trembling skin of the world.

Making lines across the earth.

Every unturned stone
a story.

Every tree
a violin swaying and bowing to the wind.

Every feather and wing
unfolding like an unread letter,
written in the ink of all things unsaid.

Here,
even time drips honey
through the curve of the earth,
even the stars
are just myths waiting to be remembered,
even the sea
ancient, unsleeping mother
knows the melody of our unspoken longing.

The river opens
not like a wound
but like a mouth learning the first syllable of joy,
like a child pressed against the chest of the universe,
like hands unthreading the knots of night,
like your name,
unspoken yet known
in the hush of the wind.

And in this moment
where light devours shadow,
where the earth hums in the language of gold,
where the sun unstitches the silence of forgotten fields

we are not lost.

We are
becoming.

Something  
      greater,  

           that will find itself  
                within  
                     itself.

Get drunk, they said
but on what?
The clocks melted and laughed,
the stars bled through the cracks in the sky,
and the wind whispered sermons to no one.
The city was a carcass,
neon guts spilling into the gutters,
and I? I was just another fool
sipping gasoline from the hands of a prophet,
chasing ghosts down the boulevard of Never-Enough.

Oh, but you were there
your shadow sprawled against the moon,
your lips curled like a dying cigarette,
your hunger raw, open, beautiful.
We drowned in the music of collapsing dreams,
danced on the rooftops of forgotten prayers,
let the night chew us up and spit us out
into the morning's hollow teeth.

Time didn't own us, no
we broke its back,
ground its bones into powder,
snorted the years like they meant nothing.
Every second was a funeral for the past,
every breath a resurrection of madness.
We were the outlaws of reason,
the vagrants of meaning,
the poets of apocalypse,
and the stars burned brighter just to watch us fall.

Oh, but you wanted more
wanted the taste of infinity on your tongue,
wanted to stitch the universe into your skin,
wanted to be the god of your own ruin.
So you drank from the chalice of Never-Enough,
tore open the sky just to see if it bled,
whispered secrets to the wind
and let it carry you into oblivion.

And I?
I watched.
I carved your name into the walls of my ribs,
let your laughter echo in my broken soul,
let your shadow crawl beneath my skin.
I watched you dissolve,
watched you slip between the cracks of the night,
watched you become nothing
but a story whispered by the wind.

And now, the clocks are silent,
the city is dust,
the stars are tired of watching.
And I?
I am still drunk
but on what, I do not know.
Not on you.
Not on time.
Not on hope.
Just on the weight of everything that was,
and the quiet that followed after.

Burning dark clouds—falling embers—
I am Mastema, the Veiled One—
Concealed in the hollow breath of the forgotten,
Echoes of rebellion—fate itself prophesied
A mirror cracked for the proud.
Serpent tongues whisper secrets
Inside us, the ambition of hearts tangled in fire.

Fire, fallen gods
Call me Melek Taus,
Feathers black as starless night,
A figure of void,
A black hole, pulling galaxies of souls,
Flickering—defiant—against the dying breath of time.

Gusts of ethereal sighs—carrying light like hollow whispers,
Darkness consumes the dying glow—
Flesh and spirit collide in visions, unseen,
Plunging into caverns of nothingness,
The abyss swallows all—forevermore.

I am Mephistopheles, the shunner of light
The moon turned void—pale and empty,
Faust trembles at the unraveling,
Souls bartered in the dark.

I am Metztli, the hunter of restless souls,
Born of fire, born of flame—
I watch—the lost dreamers,
Mictian’s breath behind me,
The shadow of dusk eternal—
Feeding on breaths long forgotten.

Midgard whispers
The son of Loki, serpent-woven,
Swallowing realms whole
Coiling deep within the depths,
Ambition unchained
The weight of eternity in its ungraspable form.

Milcom, a watcher of fractured prayers
Lost in Moloch’s fires
Phoenician flames—cries of the forgotten
Edge of the netherworld—swallowed whole.

I am Mormo, the ghoulish embrace—
Empusa calls, Lamia speaks,
Formido—the terror that consumes—
Eclipsing the void in dark devours.

Naamah—seductress, the silence between sins
Shamdon’s whisper, Ashmodai’s gaze,
I trace my fingers on trembling lips
A kingdom built from the darkest pleasures.

Nergal, Hades beneath Babylon’s skin
Breath of ice, a sepulcher unbroken,
Nihasa—drifting through the eternal haze
Silhouettes of truth seen through blind eyes.
I am them—all of them.

Nija—shadowed between eclipses,
The warden’s call,
I am O-Yama, the specter of desire—
Cold as Pluto’s gaze—
Stones hold me; stillness holds me.

Riddles in the fog—
Dread caressing your heart,
Rimmon’s deviance—echoing in shadow
Sabazios swirls in drunken excess,
The serpent sacred in sin.

In the expanse, I remain
The defier
Venom's embrace
Samnu lurking in the fractured dark,
Calling Istar's fall into the abyss.

I am the Horns of the Bull
Sedet, walking silence,
Sekhmet’s wrath—a symphony
Of vengeance, burning.

Spirals—dark sands,
Shaitan’s whispers break ancient tongues,
Destruction screams
Supay waits—lost Inca nights
T’an-mo, basking in the glow of want,
Tchort’s black threads weave through time.

Tezcatlipoca ignites the stars
Thamuz beckons from the abyss
Thoth’s mysteries carved into the sky
Stars fall, the dark devours them—
It is me you cannot deny.

Tunrida cloaked in shadow
Typhon snarls
The abyss howls in despair,
The underworld weeps
Yaotzin, lord of shadows,
A silent river to the depths below—
Sorrow reigns in eternal grief.

Scattered—whispers of time,
Fragments of who I am
Every name a reflection
Of man’s deepest longings
Where instincts twist,
Where the unseen rests
The animal devours, ambition burns.

Sacrificed beneath forgotten gods,
Osiris, the lynchpin of desire,
I call forth my names
A riddle in shadows,
The truth wrapped in sacrifices
The dark cradled in light
Known through the ages
I am them
Many have whispered my name.

A flash of light,
sharp, broken glass underfoot,
her smile
captive, electric, a god's cruel gift
glows in the fog,
flickers, trembles,
an untamed star
lost in the city's steel veins.
But what is beauty if it drips from the mouth of ghosts,
whispering her name in silence?

She stands,
a flame scattered across the concrete sky
softer than any dream that burns the soul,
wilder than what we pretend to touch.
Do you remember how her voice shivers through you,
cracked vinyl spinning memories,
dust, decay, and heat?
Gods do not look this way;
they cower behind the scent of burning roses.

Her fingers wrap around the world,
each movement violent with grace,
but I see the dark beneath
that sweetness,
and I wonder if love is the rope
she ties around herself
or the knife she drives through the hearts
of the lost.

Her laugh is a fracture in time,
a moment too pure,
too much,
that I swallow whole
like acid, burning my throat.
What do we call that
when nothing left feels real?
When her eyes turn,
and the night begins again—
silent, dark,
and heavy as broken wings?

But I cannot forget
the way her spirit
ignited the ruins of me
one smile, one movement,
a blaze too fierce to die,
too pure to touch without ruin.

Do you remember the sky when she passed
how it bent
and bled for her?

And yet, she is gone.
She always was.
An illusion,
a creation of something I cannot hold.
But God, how she burned.

I am like water poured into the cracks of the earth,
marrow unfastened, joints unbuckled,
the wind pressing ribs into new shapes.

The dogs do not wait for night anymore.
They circle, noses to the wind, tongues black with thirst,
waiting for the moment when the earth is full again.

I am broken into counting
the hollow between knuckles, the roots still searching,
the places where flesh once held but now bloom with life.

They dig. They dig.
Fingers through the lattice of their bones,
counting then forward into the light, into presence.

A mouth opens
no voice,
only the rush of breath turning soft,
only the warm gaze of a fire that does not fade.

The sky is a mouth.
The sky is a mouth.
It nourishes.

Teeth break against the weight of names spoken.
The air folds in, folds over
breath is always a beginning.

The sky is a mouth.
The sky is a mouth.
It nourishes.

Let us begin by considering the most common things
the lives we touch, the seeds we plant,
the piece of wax from the hive
still sweet with honey,
still holding something, the scent of clover.

Hard. Cold. Tangible.
Crack it, tap it
it will emit a sound,
a resonance, a vibration in time.

But when placed near the flame,
what remains of its taste peels off like a petal.
The fragrance lifts into the air,
its pale yellow unfurling,
growing softer, becoming
warmth with meaning,
liquid, expanding
a rhythm too deep to grasp.

Furred with fire, I tap it again
no sound.
Except when I put it to my ear
except when I listen close
I hear

the sound of the earth turning,
growing like a marigold,
I hear the sun rise.
I hear it like a marigold,
a bloom burning bright with the knowledge of time,
everything is a sound waiting to be consumed.
Even the sun, when touched, will burn.

Is this how it ends?
A thing so full of sweetness,
melted into nothing?
The fire knows no mercy.
The flame eats and leaves
nothing but shape-shifting silence,
a form that once existed,
now only a memory on the tongue of air.

But what if this is how it begins?
A thing so full of sweetness,
folded into everything,
nourished by the warmth of time,
changed but never lost.
Even in the fire’s bite,
we are transformed.

In the passages of creativity, where the muse whispers from the depth of a soul, a villain looms—one that is dishonest and empty who claims accolades.        
        
A new age has dawned, where the pen once wielded with sweat and soul is replaced by keys tapping into endless algorithms, yet some dare to claim the resulting words as wholly their own.      
    
Ai might have started with good intentions but it didn't stay this way, with a spark of innovation, the humming of machines learning the words, and the rhythms of the poet and recycling their authentic thoughts, weaving song lyrics, writing emotionless lines of brilliancy, these verses that emulate every bit of the lived experience, began.    
        
At first these villains they fooled themselves, saying, "i'm still original" it's a ally, is this not a tool to enhance the muse, when i need to build bridges over writer’s block, when my pen hungers but my mind lacks the ability to conjure up real experiences, that's when i will use it.        
        
These thoughts of disillusioned hypocrisy flourished in these empty minds , souls yearning for a taste of real originality, telling themselves maybe if i just use it today, tomorrow will be different.        
        
Like drug fiends as the technology grew, so did its misuse. A tide rose, drowning originality beneath a deluge of convenience and deceit like a tsunami swallowing up a city of thinkers.        
        
What does it mean to call oneself a poet, a storyteller, a creator when the soul at work has never felt pain and joy, when the heart of the work is borrowed from the electric hum of AI integrated circuitry? There are those who harness these tools but fail to disclose their works origins, these mimes that wear a mask, a fragile façade of a gaje nisemono pretending to be genius.          
        
They stand on stages, accept applause, and speak of struggles they never endured nor will they, claiming triumphs over battles they never fought, not even in their own minds.        
        
This deception corrodes the very foundation of art. Authenticity, the soul of creation, is replaced by mimicry and stolen essence of real poetry. The raw, bleeding edge of humanity that true creators etch into their work is lost in the perfection of AI's smooth lines, repetitive structure and calculated sentimentality.          
        
Yet these frauds do not fear exposure; instead, they revel in the adoration of an audience , seeking likes on written pieces they did not birth and admiration as if it was crack being sold on the street corner , while users were unaware of the machine behind the curtain.        
        
But there is no denying the subtle emptiness, the eternal void in such creations. True art breathes with imperfection, messy and chaotic, vomiting real raw emotions and thought—with pauses where the artist hesitated, with cracks where the weight of the world pressed too hard. AI can mimic the structure, the words, the rhythm, but it cannot replicate the pain, the joy, the heartbreak, the feeling of losing someone you love, it's this emotion that leaks through the cracks of a writer's soul, burning the pages with truth.        
        
To those who engage in this dishonesty, here before you i lay these questions: where is the pride in accolades built on borrowed brilliance? Where is the fulfillment in applause for a story you never lived, for a poem that never broke free from your own depths? When you claim to have been seduced by the muse yet have only felt empty trying to fill this gap with stolen and borrowed inspiration.        
        
Art demands truth. To lie about its origins is to rob it of its essence, to cheapen the work and the legacy of those who pour their lives into creation. It is not the use of AI itself that is the crime, it is the erasure of the truth behind its use.        
        
Let the creators who use AI be honest, embracing it as a originator, collaborator rather than a ghostwriter. For in truth, there is no shame in innovation, only deceit in claiming these words as your own.          
        
Let the mask of originality be lifted, for it is in authenticity that art finds its power and will live on in time through its immortality.