She was not accustomed to kindness,
those gentle hands that held her,
soft like the breath of an answered prayer,
her bruises mended by strangers' sighs.
The sky whispered fragments of blue,
trees bent their branches towards her,
as if to cradle what the world had broken.

But they—oh, they—
turned her spirit on itself,
herded her like cattle
through corridors of regret,
or like lost souls in purgatory,
each step echoing a hymn of betrayal.

You cannot silence the ghosts,
their voices thin,
like needles threading the night.
They call in relentless whispers,
turning her heart into a restless sea,
a place where sleep is an exile
and dreams are unwanted guests.

No one asked her what she wanted,
not in that world of smoke and shadow.
They left her, discarded like ash,
as if she had no fire to offer.
A river of blood, her silent anthem,
flowed beneath her solitary feet.

Until a stranger came,
wrapped in the cloak of autumn,
bearing a voice like broken violins,
each note carrying a promise of salvation.
His hands moved gently,
as if piecing together
a stained-glass window of shattered lives.

She was not accustomed to kindness,
but she let herself be held.
And somewhere between the sky and the trees,
she began to believe
that even the unwanted
are worthy of love.

I am the shell of a cathedral,
my ribs stripped bare,
dust grinds against my marrow.
Smoke coils, ghost-thin,
a lover's last exhalation,
its fingers press against
the hollows of my throat.

Stained glass eyes—
shattered saints, shattered demons.
Their colors bleed across my skin,
an abstract of wars long silenced,
their screams etched in my spine.
I house their echoes
like a mausoleum,
their whispers scraping my eardrums.

The earth betrayed me once—
a trembling, violent lover.
Its hands split me open,
toppled my crown.
Now I wear my wounds like jewels,
a monument to collapse.

Sleep eludes me.
What lullaby holds the dead?
Their songs thread the air,
soft as ash, sharp as shards.
I lie beneath their melody,
each note a needle in my sternum.

And yet, I do not crumble.
Something fierce and hollow in me
clings to this ruin—
a hymn for no one,
a prayer to nothing.

Magnifying glass, a preacher’s eye,
You held it steady, watch the edges fry.
Her smile curling like a silent crime,
Promises snapping, one wail at a time.

Sirens call.
They call you home.

Cigarette burns where her lips once lived,
A paper throat, and you’re unforgiven.
The smoke uncoils like a serpent’s hymn,
In the ruins of her, your fingers swim.

And she’s tasting something holy,
A chemical prayer on her tongue.
While your stranger smiles slowly,
His palm says run.

Oh, you’re tracing lifelines,
Marking graves on borrowed skin.
Childhood shadows, beasts still whispering,
When no one could save her, where were you then?

Where were you then?

She claws at the mirror where her ghost resides,
Fighting sleep, fighting him,
Fighting years she thought she’d outrun—
Oh, but trauma’s a promise kept in blood.

And it’s no longer safe for you here,
Not in the ruins where her voice disappeared.
Sirens wail but don’t baptize.
A stranger’s smile, a forest gone numb,
And a ******* fire with nowhere to run.

No, no—
Nowhere to run.

Through fire's wrath and earth's embrace,
He fell to ash, lost from his place.
The rain, a song of sky's lament,
Woke what the flames to darkness sent.

The witch, her hands like ancient trees,
Whispered life on the shifting breeze.
Her words wove through the soot and loam,
To call him back, to bring him home.

The ash dissolved, the earth gave way,
And from the mud, his flesh did sway.
Rain kissed his form, his body whole,
A vessel new, but the same old soul.

He walked through streets where silence lay,
Past mourners steeped in yesterday.
Eyes wide with shock, their grief undone,
For the dead had risen, returned as one.

He reached the house of shadowed pain,
Where she had wept through endless rain.
Her milky eyes could never see,
But grief had shaped her destiny.

Her soul, she’d sold for just one chance,
To feel his touch, his fire, his dance.
He pressed his fingers to her lips,
A ghost, alive, in love's eclipse.

She felt his hunger, wild, unbound,
A rhythm fierce, a primal sound.
The world fell still as they entwined,
Her blindness pierced by love's design.

For one last time, their spirits burned,
A fleeting gift for what she yearned.
A witch's bargain, brief and cruel,
The fire of love, a timeless fuel.

Tumbling down the jagged scream of rocks,
the star on his chest buried under the rubble of decades,
shattered constellations scatter like ash over asphalt—
who's left to testify to the night’s betrayal?
Fair and faithful are words for the dead,
roadkill philosophies smeared across highways of hunger,
dreamers flattened under the wheels of endless inquiry—
truth a bent nail in the coffin of questions,
Morse code flickers from insomnia’s windows,
each blink a lifeline—each pause a funeral.

I’ve seen you hiding, all of you,
hands trembling behind curtains, eyes darting like shadows,
your lips whispering confessions to ghosts.
Who are you running from?
Who waits at the end of your tethered silence?

Secrets grow like vines in the throat of the city,
tangling the breath of poets, prophets, and junkies.
Not sleeping, not dreaming, not blinking,
we shuffle through cracked streets,
faces blurred like old Polaroids burned by time’s indifference.

Forever waiting, forever watching—
reality unfolds not as a revelation but as a wound,
spilling truths we don’t want to see,
smearing light across the dark canvas of our fears.

Listen to the static hum of the night,
to the machines breathing for us when we can not.
There’s no answer in the Morse code,
only the pulse of absence,
only the signal of a world unraveling itself,
one starlit fragment at a time.

He speaks in a tongue of bullets,
each syllable a wound,
each pause the weight of mourning.
I try to answer with flowers,
petals soft as whispers,
but my adjectives scatter,
like frightened birds
against the howl of his war-torn winds.

Winter comes,
its gray breath thick with frost.
Promises shatter underfoot,
crunching like brittle leaves.
I hold onto hope—
a child clutching a kite
in a storm,
the string slipping but never severed.

He is a soldier of certainty,
his love rationed like bread
in a famine of trust.
Even in suffering, he builds walls,
his hands steady,
his heart a fortress of precise control.
I batter myself against his gates,
******-knuckled with devotion,
as if my persistence
could melt the iron.

What is the word for a love
that exists in fragments?
A fossil of a future
we were never meant to share?
I name it exile.
I name it prayer.
And I name it the ghost
of a white whale,
forever hunted,
forever out of reach.

My Muse arises from his infinite sleep,
A whisper in the chasm where shadows creep.
In dream, I wander, blind and bare,
A child of silence, feeling air.

The trees, skeletal, shake their spines,
Releasing relics from hidden shrines—
Trinkets, tokens, sins of old,
Each frozen now in hues so cold.

Scarred and brittle, the silhouette breaks,
Bones through black, the body aches.
Yet dew, soft balm, on wounds does fall,
A salve for the soul—if anything at all.

His kiss is death; his promise, surrender,
A union cruel, both dark and tender.
But light unmasks what shadows veil;
The birdcage opens; the spirit sails.

The seed, though scattered, may still take root,
A fragile hope in a world of soot.
The strings now wail, the hymn is done,
A mother’s lullaby beneath the sun.

The mirror water, smooth and wide,
Reflects the soul I’ve set aside.
My hair, like tendrils, floats and trails;
The ripples grow, the weight unveils.

Pure, at last, the guilt does fade,
A shadow now where sorrow stayed.
Depression lingers—a faithful shade,
Guardian of all the vows unmade.

Don’t look back—his eyes are mine,
Vacant, lost, a shared design.
The ****** weeps her crimson thread,
A river carved through the still, the dead.

Smoke ascends where wars still rage,
A fog that blurs the infant page.
Unborn eyes accuse, demand,
Yet ghosts remain with stilled, grave hands.

I seek, I bleed, disciple torn,
Haunted by truths both sharp and worn.
The quiet watches, soft and grim;
No judgment passed, no prayer, no hymn.

Wildflowers grasped in their hands,
Eyes expectant, waiting still—
Resplendent, she, in pearls and lace,
Crystals veiling iron will.

Upon a stallion, proud she gazed,
The cliffs below—waves, hungry, wild—
A dreamer young, her heart betrayed,
By guilt unpardoned, yet beguiled.

To marry love, the soul must pay,
An execution—hope undone.
Laudanum soothes the troubled night,
But daylight sees what grief has spun.

Rumors drift like soft exhale,
Tinkling laughter—shadows hide.
A sparrow leapt from trembling hands,
Defiant, boundless, unallied.

Death does not part, though life divides—
Choices, wounds that dare reveal.
Do we hurt to feel what’s real,
Or punish what we cannot heal?

Her fingers danced on shadowed skin,
Curtains swayed in darkness shared.
Together sought, together lost,
Unpredictable, love dared.

It is of no consequence, they said,
A black sheep wanders where none see.
Yet whispers linger, soft as waves—
A love alive, though never free.

The footsteps fall — then fade away —
As silence holds — the breath at bay —
Two hands — in quiet longing — meet,
A tremble — soft — and hearts entreat.

A fever burns — and must be still,
The world outside — they wish to **** —
The rain — it whispers — soft refrain,
Of stories lost — of fear and pain.

The elders' words — like serpents' hiss,
A promise sweet — a bitter kiss —
"Trust me, dear one — for I will save,
Your love — your life — from cruelest grave."

She calms the storm within her mind,
With *****'s balm — a solace blind —
His face is strange — his heart a lie —
But still — she dreams — where no one dies.

The flowers twine — within her hair,
She plays with children unaware —
Of all the rules — the bitter game,
Where whispers wear a nameless shame.

The demons smile — they will not harm,
They cleanse with beads — with prayer's calm charm —
"Forget your name, and curse the night,
The dawn will lift you into light."

But Death — a shadow — cold and near,
Sweeps in — and leaves no room for fear —
The dust — the warmth — no more to chase,
A fleeting dream — an empty place.

He said we were like a supernova,
the sudden explosion, white-hot
and loud in the body of the sky,
the kind of light that burns
through the eyelids,
leaves an afterimage etched
in the retina of the universe.
Seen for three days straight,
sunlight and starlight fused
into one unbearable glare.

He told me love is the reset button,
the way a star collapses to begin again.
He said, I could survive alone,
but chose me instead, as if survival
were not the easiest answer,
as if being with me were a decision
made in a moment of stillness.

I doubted him—
his quiet strength, the way
he could carry the weight of silence
as if it weighed nothing,
the way he didn’t sway
when the winds rose,
when I unraveled, my edges
fraying into the thin air.

I need him to hold the center,
to keep the world from tilting,
but he doesn’t need like I do.
He lives in wants stripped clean—
no hunger, only fullness,
no chaos, just the brushstroke
of a steady hand.

And me—
I am the opposite of steady.
I am a gust,
a whip of color staining the canvas,
a metamorphosis that never lands,
forever on the verge of becoming
but never quite there,
a creature of motion, a hunger
that doesn’t know where to rest.

Still, he stays,
his calm like a gravity
that pulls me into orbit.

The supernova burns out.
The light goes dark.
I want to ask him,
What happens after?
But he looks at me—
the way he always does—
as if the question isn’t necessary,
as if we were already
the answer.

The wanderer walks, a restless breeze,
Through promises, through broken seas—
Crimson rain, it softly falls,
A girl transformed by midnight's calls.

The apocalypse, a nearing tune,
Chaos blooms beneath the moon.
Kneeling low, on trembling ground,
The secrets burst without a sound.

Raven hair, with thorns adorned,
Amber eyes by demons mourned.
They broke us down, they built a spire,
A city wrought from heart's desire.

We fled to woods, to wolves and scars,
To twinkle lights in mason jars.
On berry beds, we whispered prayers,
For oceans vast and circling snares.

The circle breaks; the past unfolds,
Her face a mask of ageless molds.
Porcelain breath, a sigh of smoke,
Memories echo, unprovoked.

Confined, we dream of open skies,
But silence calls for sacrifice.
The night, it begs, it softly pleads,
For healing born of choices' seeds.

Through shards of glass—distorted clear—
The breath of hope alights,
A fleeting second—woven near,
Then swept in endless flight.

The wing of Remorse, black and wide,
Soars grave—yet softly falls,
While stillness sings where beggars bide,
Their truth in whispered calls.

A fragile bird—its trembling wing—
Descends on open palm,
And in its light—a sacred thing—
The universe is calm.

I weep, and diamonds touch the soil
Of budding hands below,
Their petals rise as mine recoil—
In steady, fading flow.

Dawn casts its gold—a quiet flame—
Upon a barren lane,
Where every branch, by birth reclaimed,
Shudders with joy, not pain.

Oh, breathe! Into the desert womb,
Where life is yet to stir;
Where time is blood—a crimson bloom—
The cosmos’ whisperer.

The lips part faint—the mist exhaled,
Through forests memory-bound,
As scars arise—like ghosts unveiled,
Their echoes all around.

The wolves approach, their foaming jaws—
A temple left to fear,
Where shadows roam and light withdraws,
To eclipse the mind’s veneer.

But truth lies not in mirrored eyes—
Nor past, nor future’s haze;
It lives in fragments, unadvised,
Beyond the jealous gaze.

We float, we fall—we rise, we cease,
And yet, within this span,
The realness of this moment’s peace
Holds all that ever can.

in the womb's quiet,
tiny limbs seek open space,
cord loops like a snare.

breathless, he tumbles,
head held high where it should bow,
life's thread pulls too tight.

silent prayers rise,
hands reach to untangle fate,
hope clings to the light.

Upon the forest's edge, where wildflowers die,
A circus stirs, where children’s whispers wail.
Their laughter, haunting, mingles with the sky,
A tender madness veiled in sorrow's tale.

Through grieving's grace, she stumbled to his hand,
A savior's touch igniting rebel flame.
In fleeting moments, love defied command,
Rebirth arose, unchained from sorrow's claim.

Yet sleepwalking, her steps betrayed her soul,
Through dewdrop fields her haunted spirit roamed.
A thought mistaken bore a heavy toll,
Uncut her hair, forgiveness yet unhomed.

In sorrow’s bloom, her heart began to mend,
Awaiting grace where loss and love transcend.

Fingers trace her face,
water whispers soft goodbyes,
grief flows like the stream.

He was more than a granddad to me. He was a father, a god—a complex, towering figure of contradictions, both tender and tyrannical. For us children, but especially for me, he always had an endless well of patience. Even though he was cruel, I craved his love and attention like sunlight. Today is his birthday. Though he's passed on to some other corner of the universe, I believe we'll meet again someday.

I remember Boxing Day, his birthday, when the family would gather with all their arguments in tow. The day felt like an extension of Christmas but held its own distinct magic. We would set the table together, sometimes cooking, though often simply reheating the leftovers from the day before. It was chaotic, noisy, and unforgettable. Amidst the tumult, there was his steady presence, his pride in orchestrating it all.

He loved to see the children a little tipsy, and it was under his watchful, proud gaze that I had my first sip of alcohol. That memory stays with me—the warmth of the drink, the warmth of his approval. There would always be arguments, loud and raw, but they seemed to be part of the ritual, almost expected, as though his home couldn't contain so many clashing lives without them.

At the end of the night, he’d quiet the room and hand out white envelopes filled with money to all the children. He’d say, “This will be my last year. Next time I won’t be with you.” We laughed it off year after year, not believing him until, bittersweetly, it finally was true. The last Boxing Day without him was empty, a void none of us could fill.

I remember the other parts of him too—the early mornings steeped in black coffee and tobacco smoke, his smart clothing paired incongruously with bare feet. The room of chattering birds where I tried, and failed, to save baby chicks fallen from their nests. The way he shared his thoughts with me, thoughts too heavy for most ears, his doubts and even his regrets. How he once admitted, without flinching, brutal honesty only he could deliver.

He was cruel, especially to women, but never to me until the end when he insisted I had grown fat. With me, he was different, softer. He made me feel safe and protected, even when his anger made others shrink away. He was always fixing things—clocks, kettles, whatever was broken—and growing herbs and flowers with a care that seemed almost out of place in his hands. Those same hands, gentle in one moment, could be brutal in the next, quick to strike my grandmother or anyone who crossed him.

And yet, I more than respect him. I miss him. He was a role model, flawed and difficult, but mine. When I came to him homeless with my own child in my arms, he didn’t hesitate to take us in. He gave me a place where I could rest, where I could breathe.

His life was a mess of contradictions—love and anger, gentleness and violence, pride and regret. But he was my granddad, my father, my god. And I loved him for all of it.

Empty plates stacked high,
Lonely hearts in wrappings torn,
Love fades with the waste.

The bark and branches rise, trembling, from the ancient ground, their yearning fingers stretching to the bruised heavens, blotting out the weary sun. Beneath their shadow, hope folds into itself like a wounded bird. She lies awake, an open wound on the earth, listening to the harsh caw of birds that circle like the minutes of a clock unwinding.

Time, that reckless dancer, pirouettes endlessly. A needle pierces her fragile vein, delivering the brown flood of escape. Her heart races, wild as a streetlight flickering before the abyss claims her. She teeters on the edge, cradled in the brittle arms of a tomorrow that does not come. He is there, her architect of ruin, climbing his fragile pedestal, his power sharp and cruel as glass. She drowns, not in love but in his violence, his lies weaving a cocoon of despair around her.

Memories shimmer, reflections of a girl she once was. A child, laughing in sunlight, her hair a river of gold. They cry out to her, those ghosts of innocence, shaking her awake in the labyrinth of his cruelty. Can you hear me? they scream, their voices slicing through the haze. But he, the tyrant of her heart, paints her as a madwoman. He slashes through the canvas of their shared life, each photograph a crime, each moment erased.

The butchers block gleams, her swan neck poised, but still she endures. Her breath, a whispered defiance, rises like dawn over the wreckage of her days. And somewhere within her, a flicker of hope remains—a pearl in the mud, untarnished by his darkness.

She will smile again. Her life, though battered, is a treasure. And the branches will part, the sky will clear, and her song will rise, soft and unbroken, to the stars.

Chop, chop, chop. The marionette slumps, and I’m left holding the blade, sticky with the residue of years. Family? A loose construct. A rotting scaffolding propped up by shared scars and the thinnest thread of blood. They weren’t people—they were collectors. Hoarders of anger, archivists of hurt. They fed on it, bled for it, distilled it into a toxin they called love. I drank it until my veins swelled, until the comatose hum was the only sound I knew.

Their lies were iron bars, their truths blunt objects. They didn’t whisper—they shouted, fists slamming bets on the underdog. "He’ll crack," they said, "too small, too soft." They didn’t count on the dog biting back, didn’t see the will buried beneath the scars.

And the scars—purple, thick, obscene. Skin turned leather under fire. A graft job, patched together with pain and necessity. They thought they’d burned me to ash, but ash has its uses. It fertilizes. It grows things.

Now I’m moving forward, past their circus of anger and blood, past the puppeteer’s stage. The road hums under me, neon signs flashing promises that aren’t real, but maybe they don’t have to be. The truth? There isn’t one. Just will. Just the drive toward some distant point of light. Peace isn’t handed out. You take it. You keep it. And maybe, just maybe, it keeps you too.

Your tongue,
a blade that remembers
where I am softest,
where the scar tissue is thinnest.
You wield it without hesitation.

You ask for acceptance
as if I owe it
to the thing that has hollowed me out,
made me flinch at shadows,
left me raw and singing
with wounds I did not choose.

Sorrow has blackened the horizon.
The future—
a thing I used to believe in—
is now a quiet ache
that hums under my skin.

I flinch at your sarcasm.
It’s a whip,
a steady rhythm of harm
I cannot outrun.

And the problem you refuse to see—
it is breathing.
It is alive.
It soars above me like a black kite,
leaving me marked in ways
I can never explain.

I search for home
as though it’s a place that exists,
a place that will hold me
without splintering.

But you—
you crown yourself in their love
while their laughter
cuts you from behind.
Every sacrifice I make
is a ghost.

You hand them my offerings,
giving them weight they do not deserve.
And here I stand,
naked of hope,
bare of safety,
still whispering your name
like a prayer
to a god who doesn’t answer.