Born of frost, in winter’s breath,
Her fate entwined with silent death.
A river ran in crimson streams,
Her mother’s wail, a fractured dream.

The forest claimed her as its own,
A shadowed child, lost, alone.
With foxes burrowing, berries sweet,
And shattered shells at small, bare feet.

Her world, a kingdom vast and wild,
A wraith she grew, the forest’s child.
Candles lit in pinecone glow,
Companions through the biting snow.

Yet love, the cruel and gracious thorn,
Pierced her heart, her soul forlorn.
Betrayed by promises, starlit lies,
A future lost in shadowed skies.

Veins of lapis, raven's beaks,
Mark her skin with wisdom’s streaks.
The moon, her mother, pulls the tide,
While stars like puppeteers preside.

Her hands, they grind the herbs of night,
Awaiting dreams that bring no light.
Ivy whispers beneath the frost,
The snow mutters of all she’s lost.

In the stillness of the winter’s hue,
A wraith remains, both old and new.
Her fate, her sorrow, her tale untold,
A heart of ash, a soul of cold.

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.

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.

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.

i feel your absence  
like white lilies wilting  
in a forgotten vase  
unbrushed hair  
tangled in yesterday’s dreams  

names slip away  
like whispers in the wind  
each memory  
a fragile thread  
unraveling  

mother of the holy hands  
do you feel her touch  
in the spaces between us?  
trees whisper secrets  
the air thick with  
what once was  

unsure hands  
questioning eyes  
searching for answers  
in the echoes of silence  
where are your children?  

once greetings  
now good-byes  
water-soaked  
in a white cotton nightdress  
the fabric of our lives  
fraying at the edges  

yet we hold on  
to the flicker of warmth  
the pulse of love  
navigating this maze together  
finding our way home  
even in the dark

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

the world (a razor) hums with
laughter not mine—
crooked smiles cutting corners
of too-loud air (a trembling thing)

hands betray me (marionette strings)
dangling in this cracked parade
where faces blur into shadows
all teeth and no eyes—

and I (a statue) stuck to the cement
of this fear-wracked moment
watch with doe-eyes (wide and glass)
every step (a thunderclap)
a storm pounding the small sky within

sky breaks
and falls like shards,
my breath a shattered hymn
(please no) — tomorrow, I’ll stay
tucked in the soft (silent) cocoon of here.

no steps. no looks. no cruel
laughter to chase me into
the screaming world—

home, the only place
where walls hold me steady,
their silence a shield,
a quiet so deep
it forgets the world.

You took my pulse,
Unraveled it, thread by thread,
Until the spool of my years
Sat empty in your hand.
Your lies came like tides,
Swollen with the moon’s silver pull,
Rushing in, foaming and gnashing,
To drown the fragile towers
I carved from sand.

I hate you—
The way I hate sharp things
That beckon with promise of release,
The way I hate mirrors,
Winking their cruel truths at dawn.
If I could wield my loathing
Like a blade,
I’d etch your betrayal into your skin.

But still, it is me who bleeds,
Me who swallows the salt
Of your restless seas.
You, the storm, the tide,
The cruel rhythm
That broke the best years of my life
Against your jagged rocks.

Now, the castles we dreamed
Crumble in the clouds,
Their ghostly spires spiraling upward—
Untouchable, unreachable.
And I, a husk,
Stand knee-deep in the wreckage,
Knowing that even the moon
Mocks my rage,
Unchanged by the chaos
You left behind.

She swam deep, seeking the golden key of consciousness,
past bubbles of fear that clung,
reaching desperately for the surface.
The past, a gaggle of mistakes,
echoed through her mind like laughter—
his laughter, sharp against her innocence.

He left her a gift:
not love, but poison coursing her veins,
bad habits and weaknesses,
an inheritance of struggle,
writhing from the aftershock of his drugs.

She searches her archive of memories,
each morning darker,
a perverse symphony of snakes feeding
on her dwindling strength.
Yet still, she listens—
without judgment, though they doubt her why.

The world burns like vinyl,
time stretching in discordant grooves,
a roadtrip of betrayal.
Every mile wasted, every dollar spilled,
a confession bleeding into nothing.
Trouble lingers behind,
but she dares not look back.

She dreams in taxis,
crimson leaves falling at dusk,
paranoia cradling her like a restless child.
He never knew she existed.
No one wanted her.

Yet, in the cracks of her being,
a lucky charm gleams,
a distraction from the silence.
The future parts like an answered prayer,
a criminal mystery unraveled in early hours,
his goodbye a faint echo of closure.

She wants to trust in the truth,
to defend the fragile child within her,
the one who cries with a change of mind,
the one still searching
for a tomorrow worth resurrecting.

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.

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.

He stirs the dawn with the hum of the kettle,
Steam rising like ghostly whispers,
A quiet ritual of devotion—
The spoon clinks, the cup warms my hands,
His unspoken vows brewed dark and sweet.

Fingers weave through the chaos of my fevered hair,
A tenderness that binds more than braids,
Each twist a thread of solace,
A promise wound tightly,
As if to tether me to something steady.

His jacket, draped over my shivering bones,
Hangs heavy with his scent, his warmth,
A shield against the indifferent wind.
He never asks if I need it—
He simply knows.

Safety is not the fortress but the watchman,
The way his shadow falls across my fears,
How he sees what I cannot say
And says nothing,
Only lingers long enough to make the dark retreat.

These are the quiet revolutions of love,
Not grand, not loud,
But steady as the tide,
Small acts that hold me upright,
That stitch me whole.

i see the  
   shadows  
   dancing—  
    a kaleidoscope of  
  memories (whispers  
   of laughter and  
   tears)  
   flickering like  
   dying stars  

death, with a  
   smile,  
   (hades’ embrace)  
   wraps her in  
   velvet darkness  
   where time  
   bends and  
   breaks  

photographs  
   strewn like fallen  
   petals,  
   each moment  
   a ghost that  
   clings (to  
   the edges of  
   her fading light)  

overdose—  
   a tempest in  
   her veins;  
   the world  
   dissolves,  
   (a soft sigh)  
   she slips  
   into the  
   arms of night  

and i,  
   a witness,  
   hold my breath,  
   caught in the  
   web of  
   her  
   leaving.

She rubbed her hands and shook her head,
In the dim-lit room where shadows bled.
The weight of the past, a burdened tune,
Settled like mist beneath the moon.

She knew her power, a tempest near,
Yet bore it cloaked in trembling fear.
A shotgun resting in her palm,
A gentle grip, a vengeful calm.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered, her voice a flame,
“I found the love you never could name.
Little gifts in the morning and soft embrace,
No lies hidden in a polished face.”

No masks, no smiles of hollow hues,
For her heart lived honest, pure, and true.
She bore the scars of a past unkind,
But they made her whole, they steeled her mind.

He, who once loomed, a shadow of dread,
Now but a ghost in a story long fled.
Behind closed doors, his venom had crept,
Yet now she ruled where his malice slept.

No longer shamed, no longer small,
She stood as a queen, above it all.
And should he return, his gaze would stray,
For the woman he knew had melted away.

With steady breath, she faced the night,
A sovereign soul, her heart alight.
For those who endure the darkest storm,
Rise anew, their power reborn.

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.

the day slants
(hiding)
in corners & cubicles
where fluorescent
lights flicker tired sighs

phone calls hum like
half-hearted symphonies
to no one at all
(seemingly important
but aren't they always)

I am
askew in this
tight world of
team players—
their laughter
like sharp edges
I cannot fit

so I fold myself
into the nothingness
of avoided meetings,
responsibilities,
& awkward silence

let me be
a paperweight
holding down
the fleeting chaos
of existence,

askew but steadfast,
tilted but still.

Seven daggers pierce the heart where sorrow weeps,
A crown of anguish set in sacred woe.
Each wound a tale of love the soul still keeps,
Each tear a river where her children go.

They killed you, Mother, yet they bow and pray,
Barefoot, on knees, their whispers fill the air.
For gifts, for glory, cures to light their way,
For sacred hope that blooms beneath despair.

No lies she speaks, her promises are true,
Her veiled eyes see the depths of our regret.
You’ll die as well—this life is but a hue
Of fleeting light; she’ll guide where fears are met.

Adore her name, though grief her visage bears,
For love eternal sanctifies her tears.

three days running
(body’s unraveling
the threads of itself
loose stitches yawning wide—)
but my mind
(my manic, my impossible mind)
spins
and spins
and
spins

the ceiling
a vast white ocean
of thoughts unswallowed
while gravity forgets me,
floating on this frantic tide of
(silence?) no,
the hum of all the hours
I should have slept.

oh how cruelly awake,
how absurdly alive,
to feel this lightbulb brain
(scorched, buzzing)
while my knees buckle under the weight
of their own existence.

there will be collapse.
(there will always be collapse.)
but for now,
this manic orchestra
plays on,
its violins tuned to the scream
of a body desperate for dark,
its brass blaring a melody
only the sleepless can hear.

What happened to you?—the Question hangs—
A specter on the Air—
There’s Something—gnawing at the Bones—
And Madness stirs in There—

A Sin—a Stain upon the Flesh—
No Cleansing can Repeal—
The Laughter of a Distant Hell—
Resounds—a Brazen Peal—

He struck—Repeatedly—a Thorn—
Against a Petaled Grace—
And claimed—the Fracture of her Soul—
Was not—a Man’s Disgrace—

"I feel—quite Fine"—the Monster said—
Before the Hunger came—
And ripped away—the Veil of God—
To stoke—an Ancient Flame—

She fled—a Wolf without her Cloak—
To Secrets—of the Trees—
While Echoes of his Jagged Cry—
Rose on the Timid Breeze—

No Answers—Waited on the Hill—
No Truth beneath the Stone—
But Evidence—of what Was Done—
Is Etched—in Flesh and Bone.

The motel sat squat and lonesome in the middle of nowhere, like a bad idea that couldn’t quite die. Pull over those shotgun thoughts, she’d said, her voice thin as cigarette smoke, half-love, half-warning. In the backseat, a wisp of a memory stirred—bodies colliding like busted stars, creamy petals dropping one by one onto cheap upholstery. The slap of reality had come later, sharp as a motel key left unclaimed at the desk.

Inside, the jukebox wheezed out its eternal last rites to broken men, women, and jukeboxes. Black coffee steamed in the booth, untouched. She stared past it, past him, past everything. He’d tried "I'm sorry," tried it on a napkin, in a thousand different intonations, but the words were as empty as her half-lidded eyes. Drunken pleas didn’t move her anymore. Deep down we don’t change, she’d said once, tracing a cigarette burn on the table. He hated that she might be right.

The fears swam in his head like rats in the pool out back—too filthy to save, too stubborn to drown. Every motel had them: rats, ghosts, people like him. The long drives didn’t help, the sleeping pills didn’t help. Family therapy was a joke they didn’t laugh at anymore.

Outside, the desert was a ******’s heartbeat, long and taut, waiting to pull the trigger. No welcome home here, no open arms. Sacrifices made, yes, but not counted. That was the rule. He felt the morphine blues of goodbye coming, their ugly melody too hard to respond to. Wish you were here, his mind whispered, but the words were jagged and broke apart before they reached his lips.

After dark, the days of handovers and cheap dreams faded into something worse: the truth. On our deathbeds, maybe we all regress. Memories stay young at the moment of disaster. He imagined her stepping away from tomorrow's drama, just far enough to let the edge of her dress brush against it.

“Help the invalid,” she’d said once, her voice sticky with mockery. Was that him now, the invalid? Maybe. He didn’t answer her then, and she didn’t wait for it. She never waited.

He lit a cigarette, setting fire to everyday troubles, or at least pretending to. The creamy petals were all gone now. Only the thorns remained, brittle and unforgiving.

tomorrow blooms like a
quiet miracle (its petals
of maybe and soon) as we,
with hearts half-heavy,
step into the aching sunlight
of our own becoming.

who knew responsibility
would taste like bittersweet rain
and feel like stitching stars
into a patchwork sky?

(oh the ordinary
sacrifices:
the last bite shared,
the held tongue,
the midnight hour spent
learning the language of each
other’s silences)

we are
the growing things,
the root-bound wanderers,
hands ***** with the soil
of problem-solving—
we take what is broken,
and (together)
make it whole.

love is the quiet glue,
the hum of bees,
the secret rhythm
that bends us forward
into the soft arms
of the future.

and though the weight of the world
may sometimes press like a
question (too big
for one alone),

we,
with courage stitched in seams,
find answers
in the small
and shared.

Mother sighed in a cradle of haze,
stitched my name in smoke, in a fugue of days.
Born to the rhythm of a wheel's refrain—
just the road, just the road, just the hollow refrain.

Father sang to the glass with his weathered hands,
a hymn to forgetting, a preacher’s last stand.
The spaces he left were louder than words,
just the ghost of him, just the absence heard.

There’s a cigarette choir in the shadow’s fist,
amber prayers that fade in a whispered twist.
The whiskey’s a prophet with a venomous tongue,
and I am his echo—forever unsung.

Love was a thief with a mercenary smile,
she held my heart like a stone on trial.
She kissed me once, then left me bare,
now I breathe in the silence, just the air, just the air.

Mother, you carved me a crown of lead,
a burden unseen, a song unsaid.
I roll through the veils of a world undone,
searching for stillness beneath the sun.

The stars, they flicker like bruises in bloom,
each one a wound, each one a room.
I sing to myself—I am the sky's refrain,
rolling alone through the ache, through the flame.