River streams whisper,
Unconscious dreams cascading,
Infertile, fall fades.

Beneath Judas tree,
the weight of suicide bends,
a sorrowful arch.

From bloodied wounds sprout
black wings of despair's descent,
shadowed by their sin.

Lips cracked like old riverbeds,
skin paper-thin, torn at the seams.
I move through the world like a ghost in glass,
a hush beneath the sirens, unseen.

Hunger is a slow-burning fire,
a feast of absence, a quiet war.
Only the hollow-bellied know its song,
only the lost keep score.

Mama’s love was a blade in the dark,
a cipher I could never break.
I ran with the wild ones, teeth bared,
spelling my name in scars and mistakes.

But I am done with waiting,
done with the hush and the shame.
Let the dirt take me in,
let the roots whisper my name.

I was a bullet—
cold, waiting, silent steel.
But before the light fades,
his hands find me, real.

Love like a fever, love like a flood,
a martyr’s kiss, too good for my blood.
But his voice pulls me back,
his voice makes me stay,
before the night swallows me whole,
before I slip away.

I cannot do this anymore—
this labor of unraveling myself
only to be misnamed, misunderstood.
I was linked to him, yes—
a tether fraying in the dark,
his absence a wound,
his indifference a quiet violence.
What was I, if not the ghost
he left behind to haunt the living?

The side effects are sharp-edged,
a prescription for forgetting
that forgets nothing.
This is not healing.
This is not cure.
Take me back to the before-time,
to when you cared enough
to name my anguish aloud,
to call it what it was.
Now, I am the sum of your silence,
a woman folded into herself,
trapped in the space
between betrayal and breath.

But still, I stand—
because someone must.
I forgive myself
for believing in your promises,
for letting you map my body
as a battlefield,
for holding your hands
even as they burned.

Darling, don’t go—
but don’t stay.
Disappear so completely
that your memory loses its teeth.
Leave me to the emptiness,
to the choices stolen by your indifference.

My guardian angel comes not with wings
but with hands—
earth-stained and firm,
building me back, bone by bone.
They know the language of endurance,
how to feed hope to the starving,
how to offer a second chance
without demand.

Here is the truth:
I am no longer yours to define.
Here is the reckoning:
I reclaim my name,
write it on the earth with every step,
become a body of love
that bends but does not break.

Open your eyes to see beyond the past,
Time, a reel unwound, looping too fast.
Enter future dreams lush with tears,
A kaleidoscope of fears and forgotten years.

The cigarette falls from her shaking fingers,
Ashes trace whispers where memory lingers.
Time, a distraction, but isn’t it all?
Strangers and entourage drift through the hall.

She was once a distraction—
A neon sign, a feverish attraction.
Now she’s a diagnosis,
A manic-depressive prognosis.

Regrets for the war within her rage,
Her soul, a novel with torn-out pages.
And yet, from silence, words flow clear,
Like ghosts dictating stories she can't bear.

Who are the strangers in this tableau?
Her reflection in fragments she’ll never know.
Time’s cruel arrow bends to her despair,
A loop of smoke curling in air.

Open your eyes, the past refrains,
Its endless echoes clatter in chains.
Yet futures gleam with dreams profane—
She writes them in ashes, again and again.

The dove lies split open, roadkill on black tar,

its white purity bleeding into the dark,

war has begun where peace once perched,

feathers soaked in oil, the asphalt’s cold hunger,

we name this wreckage progress, and drive on.

She held a conversation with the cracks in the ceiling,
called them sisters, called them home.
They answered back in whispers
of storms she never asked for.
A thousand tiny earthquakes
under her paper-thin skin.

Her hands were maps to nowhere,
veins like rivers running dry.
She carried every "I'm fine"
like a brick in her chest,
a cathedral of lies built from silence
and the prayers no one heard.

She danced on shards of herself—
sharp edges, aching heels,
the broken girl waltzing with the ghost
of who she used to be.
Each step a soundless scream,
each cut a hymn to the hollow.

And when she shattered,
it wasn’t like the movies—
no slow motion, no violins,
just the raw crack of a soul
splitting open,
a kaleidoscope of pain
spilling into the dark.

The wind gathered her pieces,
spinning them into stars,
while the moon wept softly
for the girl who gave her light
away.

Life in plastic folds,
Dreams wrapped tight in fleeting hope,
Trash cradles the soul.

Lost in twisted ways,
Map holds secrets, silent taunts—
Man strikes lines with rage.
Paper torn, path now erased—
Victory in empty l(h)ands.

Soul vibrating—like glass on the edge of shatter,
the agony of not remembering, like remorse
etched in an open book,
its pages bleeding black, each word a wound.
The broken shards of the crystal palace
weep; a smashed pomegranate in her fists
stains the heartbeat of the masked ball,
crooked smiles and silver spoons
tipped like scales.

A dead doe sprawled, limbs askew in disbelief,
raw rage pulsing through the velvet remains.
He had nicknames for me once—
they fell like brittle leaves,
like breath dissolving into silence.
His touch: a misunderstanding.
She mouths a sigh,
a war of misgivings tangled
in the brittle branches shuddering,
their spines bending in ******
as the wilderness within her blood
claws back its dominion.

There are roads, forking away
from the universe’s trembling center,
stolen sorrows carving their marks
into the flesh of the sky.
The curtain wavers; a storm rises,
seas crash in her eyes,
and she scrapes her knees on prayers
that fall empty,
arms stretched wide for the pedestals
that crumble like ash.

The itch behind blue-tinged eyelids festers.
The messenger of salvation—laughing, drowning—
sinks into the salt of her tears.
Grief is a wrap of thorns;
forgetfulness, a tender blessing.

We, the forgiven, sleep
with teeth bared against the dark.
The constellations trace fragile trails
across her skin, a map of bruises,
a forest path, the fox
sinking its teeth into the swallow.
Wild horses rise in the dust,
rosary beads and stolen conversations
slip like shadows through her fingers.

And at last, a little death:
a tremor, a closing, a quiet fall.

By day, in crayon lines they dwell,
Bright monsters born where wild thoughts swell.
At night they stir, with teeth that gleam,
And claws that rip through fragile dreams.
Their laughter howls; the dark's a curse.

Pills rattle on cue,
Cats purr in soft solace true.
Sofa hugs my frame,
Netflix whispers, sleep reclaims—
Healing slow, the hours accrue.

In the tapestry of existence,  

where shadows dance

upon
    the
      threads
                 of
                     time,  

we find ourselves,  

woven into the fabric of
            our
                        days,  
each s t i t c h a whisper

of what was.

Oh, the heart, a vessel of longing,  

bears the weight of unspoken sorrows, 
 
and in the silence of reflection, 
 
the truth lies h i d d e n, 
 
beneath layers of

                    forgotten

                                          dreams.

Embrace the surrender,  

for in

                           letting

                                                  go,

we find the essence,
  
the sacred truth of our being, 
 
unadorned by the judgments of the past,  

freed from the chains of despair.

In the eclipse of our pain, 
 
the light may seem distant, 
 
yet within the                                darkness, 
 
wisdom stirs,  

a gentle reminder of

                                                               ­          resilience.

Thus, we walk the path anew,
  
not as prisoners of memory, 

but as
                  pilgrims
                                       of
                                                     understanding, 
 
finding beauty in the scars,  

and grace in the

                                    journey

                                                           of

                                                               ­             becoming.

The same corner bends beneath us.

The ground gives, then takes,

like it knows we will fall again.

We call it learning,

but the sky calls it forgetting.

empty staffroom hums,
tinsel draped in gaudy glee,
echoes fill the void.

oh!   the world
spins faster than my feet can
(touch) it! oh!
laugh—   the absurdity of
smiles (brighter) than the
sun! bursting
out of me   (don’t) STOP!

oh?   but there it is—
a (shadow) tailing light
a hint
of falling/failing/flailing
(down), down,
beneath this
paper-thin joy.

oh!   to be
this alive—
a helium balloon against
a pinprick of the inevitable.
but! (until) I
break,
let me
spin, spin!
the world cannot
catch me.

I'll burn the whole world down,
drinking shot after shot,
a line of ******* tracing
the fault lines of my ruin.
She whispered his name—
it slid like silk through the cracks,
a prayer I should not answer,
a hymn to something broken.

Her partner, cold as winter steel,
turned away with hands clenched,
fists full of silence,
but I saw her,
wild and animalistic,
a creature of the night.
Her fragile wings folded
against my aching eyes,
her shadow heavy
like a sin I craved to confess.

She was sunlight
rising from the deep blues of the ocean,
vast and wide,
always hungry,
her voice a melody
in languages my soul knew by heart.
She spoke,
and every tongue became one,
every word a wound
that bled longing.

She misses her mother—
that ghost of neglect,
that monument to pain.
Her tragedy, buried deep,
roots twisting around the ruins
of love she'd never known.

And me,
a weary traveler
with no map for her labyrinth,
I found her like a storm
finds a broken shore.
She burned her trust—
ashes of what could never be—
but still,
I lit my match.

escape(wake)
by not-these-hands
(a metronome-of-thoughts)

facesglued //
to the(wall)all(talking)—at once;
witchesarguing  theirselvesbloodshattering
(not my fingers-on-the-trigger
but oh the bulletssscreamingmyname)

i cannot move
(is this asleep-or-awake?)
//paralyzed feet//(paralyzed hands)
&shewasonfireESCAPEwake—

the fields are a maze //crop-circle scars//
—journeysdark,deepsearching(purpose)—
shatter:
everything (silence
sCREAM)

escape–wake//escape—wake
butwhereisheaven?
wake.

in the heart  
   of the earth  
where shadows weave  
      and whispers flutter  
like light on water—  
i stand  
   a solitary figure,  
yesterday’s weight  
   melting away,  
a cloak of memory  
   unraveling at the seams  

the sea sings  
   a lullaby of blue,  
secrets breathed to the wind,  
while grass—a tapestry  
   of green—  
bends low, cradling  
      truths,  
soft echoes of love  
   unspooled  

i gather remnants  
   of dreams,  
fragments like shells  
   on the shore,  
each a promise,  
   a sigh,  
caught in the web  
   of what might have been,  
lingering like haunting  
   melodies  

was it quiet surrender  
   that opened my chest  
      to the sky...
was it freedom,  
   unshackling  
the heart from chains  
   of desire,  
that led me  
   to this sacred silence...

and still, colors sway—  
   a riot of life,  
the world unfurling  
   in wild bloom,  
and i, a traveler,  
   grasping  
at threads of existence  

the grass bends,  
   humble witness,  
never breaking,  
   always yielding,  
teaching me the art  
   of resilience,  
the gentle dance  
   of endings,  
woven with new beginnings’  
   promise  

here, at the horizon  
   of my soul,  
i learn to embrace  
   the ebb and flow,  
to let go, to surrender—  
for in the quiet,  
   i find life’s pulse,  
and understand every farewell  
   is but a breath  
away from hello.

We inherit it,
the pain—handed down like a family curse,
wrapped in silence,
placed in our laps without instruction.
You sit at the table,
mouth full of bitterness,
and they call it strength,
the way you chew and swallow.
But what if it’s not?
What if it’s a trick—
the wizard behind the curtain,
the demon in the machine,
smiling as we feed
it something we never agreed to give?

I don’t want to live this way,
a specimen pinned beneath glass,
but maybe we are experiments—
flesh and bone trials of endurance,
while the saints walk among us
with their straight spines
and sparkling teeth,
their hair soft as untouched sin.

They hide their hunger well.
The lust stays pressed beneath their skin,
simmering in the quiet places.
But us—
we wear it raw,
this separation between grace and grit,
our hands calloused from holding too much.

If I could save you,
I would.
I’d press my lips to your wounds,
turn salt tears into something sweet,
lick the pain away like sugar,
dig a hole in the sky
for us to hide in—a pocket of forever.

I could love you like that:
diamond-bright,
shattered and whole all at once,
each edge catching the light,
each facet its own language of care.

But this story—this terrible, beautiful story—
it keeps pulling us forward,
through the mud and the starlight.
Some days we’re saints.
Some days we’re demons.
Most days, we’re just trying to hold
what lies in between.

We could wear disguises,
play pinball with our choices,
watch them ricochet off the walls of who we are,
ringing out in bursts of chaos,
neon lights illuminating the mess,
until the machine tilts—
or we do.
Maybe that’s the trick:
to laugh as we play,
to let the disguise slip now and then,
and call it living.

He stands at the edge,
where the tide forgets the shore,
where silence is an answer
but never a comfort.

His voice is a clenched fist,
striking the air,
fighting with ghosts
that call him by name.

A silver fish drifts
through darkened waters,
but he is not the fish.
He is the stone,
a weight in the deep.

Like the current,
he undoes the problems,
taking away the pain.
I love his mischievous eyes,
the way they catch light,
the way they catch me.

Somewhere between the sky and the sea,
between strength and surrender,
your hands—useful, steady—
unravel the knots,
find the spaces between words,
and press them into me.
We were made for each other.

this morning spilled itself
like a cup of not-enough-coffee—
the sun (crooked in the sky's pocket)
forgot to smile.

& i,
with a mouthful of tomorrow's words,
stepped into the street where
wind whispered secrets i didn't want to hear—
a fist of weather broke my face
(it wasn’t personal, it never is).

the hours marched on with
their boot-polished precision:
giving (taking)
giving (taking)
more of me than I
remembered I had to lose.

sacrifice wore its familiar coat—
buttons missing but
it fit me perfectly,
still.

all i could think of
(when the weight of now
shoved me into myself)
was the quilted quiet
of staying home:
walls tender as eyelids,
ceilings dreaming their own sky.

but this world
asks more than
any single answer—
even the moon is required to rise
when it would rather sleep.

so i go on,
dragging behind me a day
i didn’t want to carry,
wishing it would unfold
like a paper crane
&
fly away.