Beneath the moon’s cold, watchful eye,
A tree stands silent, wounds run deep.
Its bark is scarred; its sap won’t dry,
For every name, it’s bound to keep,
A curse etched there for souls to weep.

The lovers carved with thoughtless blade,
A fleeting vow, a whispered kiss.
Now shadows dance where dreams once played,
And roots ache for a simpler bliss,
While haunted whispers twist and hiss.

Its leaves grow heavy, dark with grief,
Each scar a wound that will not fade.
No time nor sun brings it relief,
For memories cruelly invade,
And turn its strength to ghostly shade.

Yet still it stands, though bent and worn,
A bleeding shrine to fleeting youth.
Its rings hold tales of hearts forlorn,
Each scar a fragment of the truth,
A silent ode to love’s unsooth.

Oh, bleeding tree, what stories keep?
What specters linger in your boughs?
Do ghosts of lovers dream or weep,
While nature kneels in solemn vows?
Your endless scars, their endless plows.

Neither fight nor flight—
I am a hostage of the chemicals,
the shrink’s hand-me-down lullabies:
wake, smile, sleep, cry—
a parade of puppets on taut strings.
Not a thread of shame,
no blush to mark the trespass of my will.

Balance, he says, is a tightrope act.
Obedience hums like a steady drumbeat.
But the body—
oh, the body knows nothing of balance,
only the edge, the gaping maw of almost.
Painkillers slip into my pocket like coins for Charon—
companions for the journey into this fabricated calm.

I sit in the shadow of myself,
watching the rehearsals of humanity:
the mimicry of laughter,
the choreographed tears,
the steady gaze of eye contact—a ritual I master.

Release, he says.
And I, ever the good patient,
release into the artificial tide,
the undertow of someone else’s control.

Still, the body whispers of rebellion,
a quiet ache that longs for rawness,
for the chaos that keeps the blood
pulsing,
real.

She turned her face,
smooth as the moon’s cold arc,
away from the storm in my arms,
the tempest she refused to see.
The scars climbed my skin—
rungs on a ladder of grief,
each carved line a scream
swallowed by the vast, uncaring sky.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said,
her voice, brittle as dry reeds,
fragile in its tight restraint.
The bitter breath of black coffee,
the smoky veil of cigarettes,
stood between us,
a wall, a barrier of indifference.

But I,
I called to life the crimson river,
its rush fierce, its truth undeniable.
Words failed where the blade did not,
its edge a preacher, sharp and sure.
Joy, sorrow, despair—
all bled the same,
their stories painted on my skin.

Then came the pills,
like stones pressing the ocean floor.
Heavy salvation, they dragged me deep,
into waters where I was no one—
a shadow bloated with silence.
Dreams came, sharp as talons,
tearing through the darkened halls
of my restless soul.

“You’re nothing now,” she said,
her words a whip with pity’s sting.
“No one will love what you’ve become.”

But oh, the demons loved me well,
their hunger unyielding,
their feast endless.
They claimed my broken pieces,
traded one vice for another,
devoured the echoes of who I was.

And now, she is quiet.
The night stretches on, long and lean,
its silence a river where I wade alone,
listening to the hollow song
of their eternal feast.

For it was not anger but sorrow—
At the Abandonment—laid bare—
The dandelion—blown to pieces—
Wishes scattered—everywhere.

She could hear their Thoughts—their Fears—
A chorus—soft—yet sharp—
She wished to hide inside herself—
A hollow—without a harp.

Self-medication’s quiet needle—
Addiction’s velvet glove—
She yearned for Home—but found illusion—
A mirage—far from Love.

She stared into the blank horizon—
Falling—farther still—
A call for asylum—ghostly scribes—
No cure for her ill will.

They stopped questioning the Overdose—
What happens—must occur—
We take precautions—but in the end—
The void—we will still endure.

He lied—his promises dissolving—
No Trust resides in Truth—
Sabotaged—her fragile Being—
An existence—gone uncouth.

The grace of a lone sparrow falters—
Circles—spiraling near—
Yet never reaching—centers hollow—

The walls breathe in, exhale.
He is afraid. The air is thick with it,
coiling like smoke from a dying fire.
A battlefield of splintered desks,
shoes scraping linoleum—
a boy thrashing against himself,
limbs loose, a puppet whose strings
have snapped.

I lie here staring at the bluest of skies,
a lie in itself, because the sky is nothing,
just a ceiling of quiet indifference.
The weight of voices settles on my chest,
mocking relentless, pressing, pressing—
a hive swarming beneath my ribs.

His mother weeps into cupped hands,
his father stares into the nowhere beyond
the drywall, jaw clenched,
as if holding his teeth in place
will keep the world from crumbling.
Every mistake, a fault line.
Every silence, an aftershock.

The bees fall, their golden dust wasted.
He kicks and kicks, a metronome of rage.
The desks collapse like ribs cracking,
his voice—feral, raw—
rakes against the air.

I want you to know, my friends,
you’re the reason I’m not running away.
But the words fall dead in my mouth,
drowned beneath the hum of fluorescence,
the sterile hands of pity reaching, reaching,
but never grasping.

The hive bleeds.
The world stares back, unmoved.
He is sorry, but there is no language for it,
only the heavy sound of breath,
a body too small for such a war.

The dusty yellow of sticky nectar
smears her face, opalescent,
the kind of glow you’d see in a dream
before it turns nightmare.
He sits across from her,
ambition cracked like the dry riverbed
of his father’s voice,
leaking out into the room,
spilling his senses in a game of tag
he will never win.

Their conversation is a war—
drones buzz overhead,
their bodies weightless as insects,
but the gore is real:
blood on the walls,
blood in the silence between
one bitter word and the next.
What did they fight for?
Pride? A crumb of it?
The thing dissolves like sugar
in a child’s fist—
sticky, stained,
but gone.

And at the end of it,
only children remain.
Not the ones they bore,
but the ones they still are:
small, angry,
married to a promise
no one ever explained.

They imagine pastures,
green as forgiveness,
wet as birth.
But the watering is endless,
the grass never grows.

I let him speak,
his words uncoiled like smoke
in the quiet room,
each sentence a serpent
wrapping itself
around the soft throat of the night.

He spoke of boredom,
of voices like dead birds
falling from the trees,
of his hands
searching the air
for the tender pillars of life,
and squeezing,
until silence became a god.

I listened uneasily,
my breath a quiet river,
my heart a stone
sinking into its depths.
His voice brushed against my skin,
and I held it,
like holding a flame
bare-handed.

Then he stopped.
The silence cracked.
His fingers felt my pulse—
a stillness I could not hide.
It betrayed me.
But I, too,
held his hand,
offering my quietness
as a gift,
a wall,
a mirror.

Now I wake in another room,
safe from his dreaming.
But the night carries his voice,
a tide that laps against
the shore of my memory.

Did I save myself?
Did I save him?
Or are we both
adrift in the dark sea
of what was left unsaid?

The room sagged, a heartbeat heavy with rosewood and dusk,
the kind of smell that reminds you of loss before it even arrives.
She moved like a dream someone forgot to finish—
feet barely touching the ground,
a laugh sharp enough to cut the silence,
and soft enough to leave it bleeding.

A single candle. One flame. One moment.
The wax slid down in slow-motion,
ancient rivers carving a map nobody could follow.
She closed her eyes and blew,
and the world coughed, staggered,
like a drunk trying to remember the way home.

The dark had teeth that night.
Her tears carried galaxies—
tiny universes wrapped in the memory of something
too big to name, too loud to quiet.
Each scar was a story;
each story a secret she’d never speak aloud.
Abandonment wasn’t just a shadow;
it was a shadow that knew her name.

Angels didn’t wear halos here.
They had fists. They broke doors.
They screamed louder than the thoughts in her head,
and for a moment—just one—
she thought about stepping off the edge.
But the edge folded itself into something softer,
like rain dissolving into the ocean—
gone, but never really leaving.

She drifted then.
The river was black velvet, and she was the needle,
slipping beneath the surface of her own reflection.
Mirrors stared at mirrors stared at mirrors,
each one laughing a little quieter than the last.
The serpents in her veins stretched lazy and golden,
curling around her like a lullaby that forgot how to end.

She stood naked in that moment—
not in body, but in soul.
Womanhood wasn’t a choice; it was a verdict.
It wrapped her in smoke and shadow,
a shroud that smelled like desire and regret.
The world didn’t notice. It never does.
She disappeared slowly,
a ripple in the fabric of something too big to understand.

Her voice was a whisper woven from silk and static.
It found him. Only him.
His name hit the air like a match on gasoline,
burning white-hot and hollow.
She unraveled in the glow—
her edges ash, her center a flicker
fighting to stay lit.

Morning didn’t rise; it crept.
The air tasted like regret and cigarettes.
Dust floated in the sunlight,
a million little infinities caught
between forgetting and forgiving.
Love lay there, cold and still,
its mask cracked just enough
to show the liar beneath.

beneath the cross wept,
a bird brushed by crimson grace,
marked by sacred blood.

in its humble breast,
echoes of a holy grief,
forever it soars.

The air shimmered, alive with its own trembling pulse,
and I felt—yes, I felt—the veil tear, thin as gossamer,
wet with dew and dreams.
The mushrooms, small and unassuming, lay in my palm
like a secret too heavy for words.
I ate them,
and the world unfolded,
petal by petal,
a flower blooming backward into itself.

It was not the self I sought—
not at first.
No, it was the taste,
the salt of knowing that clung to my tongue,
sharp and metallic,
like the tang of stars fallen into the sea.
The ground, steady and loyal all my life,
buckled and sighed,
and I slipped,
I drowned—
oh, willingly I drowned!—
into the land of fevered dreams,
where shadows wear faces
and light bends to its own whims.

The Self—what is it but a vapor,
a mist rolling out to sea,
always receding,
always somewhere else?
I reached for it—
a hand outstretched, trembling,
fingers brushing its edge—
but it dissolved,
scattering into the sky,
a thousand tiny stars.
"Come," said the stars,
each one a voice,
each one a wound.

Time folded in on itself,
its moments dripping like candle wax,
melting, melting—
and there was Truth,
naked as a child,
unflinching.
She beckoned,
her eyes sharp as glass,
her mouth full of salt.
"Do you dare?" she asked.
"Do you dare taste what cannot be untasted?"

And I—oh, I—
drank her down,
her bitterness, her fire,
until my tongue burned with her name.
What was the Self then,
but a shadow cast by flame?
A ghost dancing in the ash of knowing?

Still, I search.
Still, I wander beneath the sky,
its stars like open wounds,
its silence like a hymn.
And when I find myself—if I find myself—
will I recognize the face?
Or will I merely see
the salt-streaked reflection
of the sea I once drowned in?

Beneath the weight of the moment,
fractured seconds linger like echoes,
etched into the hollows of my mind.
Most things dissolve,
consumed by the hungry tides of forgetting,
but not this—
not the way you made me feel.

Small.
Insignificant.
The air stolen from my lungs
as life unraveled, thread by thread.
I lay there,
the world shrinking,
your gaze an avalanche,
your silence a knife.

It wasn’t the darkness that stayed—
it was the sharpness of being
discarded, diminished, erased.

I will not forget.
The universe has ways
of balancing its scales.
And when it does,
may you feel what I felt—
every fragment of it.

I am the jaded *******,
not the one cradled by silver spoons,
but a child of the streets,
mud-caked and angel-forsaken.
Guardian wings flap for the golden ones,
while the rest of us crawl,
bloodied, broken,
dragging our shadows into the abyss.

"You won't see me again,"
she whispered, a ghost of smoke,
her cigarette smothered in the ashtray's grave.
Her footsteps faded like a forgotten hymn,
leaving me alone
with the scent of ashes and endings.

Another one down,
another lost pilgrim,
another candle snuffed before the altar.
The floor drank his blood,
the walls sang dirges,
no resurrection for the weary,
no happy endings for the ******.

Tears poured,
anointing the sullied Madonna,
her hands heavy with despair,
her womb cradling a violent hope.
The Christ-child screams
before the world rejects him too.

Where are the chosen ones?
Where is the light they promised?
The night laughs,
a cruel lover’s embrace,
and I stumble, jaded,
into the arms of the void.

he presses (deliberate) each button,
soft as a whisper, sharp as a pin,
a smile that cuts, (the blade of him)
& she, unravels / unspools /
into noise.

you always, he says.
you never, he sighs.
his words,
a clever parade,
a firework bloom
of gaslighted skies.

her patience,
a thread—pulled taut, then frayed,
then gone.
and when she speaks (oh, the daring of it),
he shapes her syllables into storms,
ties her anger to the wind—
“see how you are?”
he grins.

she becomes the thunder (his storm, his proof).
her breath, a chaos of no escape,
her voice,
a house he burned down
but still blames
her for the flame.

until she folds her wings
into the cage he built—
silent. quiet. small.
not for lack of fight
but for lack of air.

and still,
his lies bloom sharp (oh, his garden of blame).
his hands, gentle knives,
carve her into someone she doesn’t know.
& he names her crazy,
wraps her in words like straightjackets
until she forgets
her name.

but even now,
her silence waits,
a seed beneath the ash.
her roots will remember—
one day,
she will grow back.

I am tired,
like the tide—dragged forward, pulled back,
never still long enough to feel whole.
The sheets, tangled like seaweed,
hold the stories of nights I’d rather forget,
their salt-stained whispers clinging to my skin.
I wish for something small,
something I could cup in my hands—
a moth, a moment,
a bit of light to carry me through.

I have worn too many costumes.
The brave daughter, the loyal friend,
the woman who keeps her head high,
even when the sky presses down.
But I am tired of rehearsals.
Tired of fitting myself into frames
that cut me at the edges.
It’s hard to keep smiling
when your reflection keeps slipping
out of its skin.

No one tells you how to explain
the kind of broken that doesn’t come
with instructions. No subtitles for the father
who walked away like a stranger,
or the mother who tried—
God, how she tried—
but her hands were already full
of her own crumbling foundation.
Some lessons are too heavy
for the tongue.

I am falling,
not like the movies—no slow-motion grace—
but fast and heavy,
the way rain hammers the earth,
each drop praying it won’t drown.
I need arms that know the language of holding—
friends, lovers, strangers
who can take this weight
and turn it into something softer.
A raft, a lullaby, a way through.

Let me rest. Let me lay it all down.
Let the fight leak out of me like ink,
disappearing into the sheets, the walls,
the dark. I don’t need much—
just a quiet room,
a heartbeat steady enough
to remind me I am not alone.
A chance to breathe
without my chest caving in.

But tonight, it’s just me—
the bed too big, the wish too small,
hovering like a bird
who doesn’t know how to land.

Head bowed, she lingered in the doorway,
her shadow stretched like a sigh,
the child she once was slipping away,
a whisper unraveling in the dark.
She stood there, her silence heavy,
a stone dropped into the well of time.

Later, she lay naked,
her body a poem written on rags,
the stolen fabric of her dreams
stitched with the trembling light of stars.
Before her, the wall—
a blank canvas of memory,
white as the breath of the moon.

Her destiny was a gold thread,
meant to wind through the arms of a lover,
their limbs a forest of quiet promises.
The petals around them bled like hearts,
the leaves fell like old songs,
and time, that ghostly wind,
whispered them into stillness.

The demons came,
their wings dark as midnight oceans,
their voices soft as a lover’s hand.
But she stood, her heart
a blooming wound, her forgiveness
a river running deep beneath the earth.
She split herself open like fruit,
the seeds of her past scattering
into the soil of her new self.

She became fire,
a wild and untamed flame,
liquid heat coursing through her veins.
Her voice, once caged,
rose up, fierce and unashamed,
an echo that shook the sky.

She was a ruby falling,
a drop of blood into the abyss of sleep,
her footsteps dissolving into the earth.
Hope died quietly,
its wings clipped by the raven’s cry.
The world crashed around her,
its colors breaking like waves against the cliffs.
And still she stood,
her body the pulse of the universe,
her soul the ache of eternity.

The weight of my truths
presses like stone—
no flood, no release,
only this grinding ache
against the sharp edge of language.

Each word is a wound reopened,
a splinter of myself
held to the light.
Silence is complicit,
it does not absolve,
only deepens the scar.

If my darkness stains you,
if the truth catches like barbed wire,
tear your gaze away—
this is not a plea for witness.
This is survival,
the slow unraveling
of a story that refuses erasure.

Do you doubt my suffering?
Do you doubt the sediment
of years pressed into me,
the residue of what I was?

What more can I give you
than this blood-inked offering,
this heartbeat fractured
between words,
pauses,
and the spaces you fail to see?

Let me remain unwhole—
not yet healed—
but forging the threads
that might someday
bind me to the surface
I cannot yet reach.

Time drags its bruised knuckles across the table,

each second a small, red wound opening,

the clock's mouth ticking—drip, drop,

as if the faucet of the world were
leaking something vital,

and I sit, watching, my body becoming wood,

the joints creaking in their sockets,

my mind a slow slaughter, wings pinned to a board.

My beloved,

you who stand beside me in the quiet hours of my despair,

do you not see the burden I carry?

It is not of the body, for the body endures;

it is of the soul,

woven with threads of fear and longing.

You speak to me with the voice of the wind,

soft yet unyielding,

and your words rise like a tide
against the cliffs of my sorrow.

In your calm, I find a mirror to my tempest,

and in your silence, the wisdom I have long sought.

These battles we fight are not waged with swords,

nor are they seen by the eyes of men.

They are the wars of the spirit,

where darkness wrestles with light,

and the heart is both the battlefield and the victor.

Do not pity my scars,

for they are the sigils of my becoming.

Do not fear my tears,

for they water the garden of my resilience.

The future stretches before us like an endless sky,

painted with the colors of our dreams and fears.

And though I have spoken of death,

it is life that calls me forward,

its voice a whisper, a song, a command.

Together we walk, you and I,

not toward an ending,

but toward a beginning of an unknown future.

No more lullaby,

the night hums a quiet tune—

age steals its sweet song.