They ask, “How are you?” I say, “Good,”
as if one syllable could
undo the unravel,
as if calm were a place I could travel
just by saying so.

As if good meant whole.
Not hollow. Not holding. Not holes
in a voice note from days ago,
when goodnight meant don’t go,
and goodbye meant I already have.

See, “good” hides in the corners:
in tired good mornings sent across borders
where time zones tangle like limbs once did—
I say good,
but I never meant for this.

Good grief is grief in a Sunday suit.
A tidy way to name the mess.
A eulogy wearing perfume.
A fire dressed up like a candle.

We stretch it over pain
like bedsheets that don’t quite reach the edge.
We say it for comfort. We say it instead
of I’m lonely, or I’m losing,
or I’m learning to lie to myself gently.

There’s good in goodbye,
but only when you don’t look back.
There’s good in goodnight,
but only if you’re sleeping side by side.
There’s good in being good,
but only if no one asks too much.

So no—
I’m not good. I’m practiced.
I’m polished.
I’m passable at pretending.
But ask me again,
and I’ll still say it.
Because it’s easier than explaining
what "good" could never mean.

Hello ? hello ? hello ?
Anyone out there ? anyone out there ? there’s nobody out there.

This house doesn’t echo ‘cause it’s empty —
It echoes ‘cause I talk to the walls,
and they talk back
with everything my mother,
my father,
my brothers and sisters,
my friends,
and my lovers
never said.

You see, recently, I’ve been sleeping like I’m training for death,
my breathing’s been shallow,
my dreams have been hollow,
waking up just to forget
why I even went to bed… in the first place.

The silence claps, filling the room, — applause for my pain,
and I swear:
even my shadow’s been walking away.
My bed’s a grave I visit nightly,
only to wake up and
restitch my smile nice and tightly,
just so everyone can see
just how happy I can be.

The other day, I wrote a list of reasons to live —
ran out of ink after two.
Wrote “sunsets” and “maybe,”
then scratched 'em both through.
Every “I love you” I’ve heard
was a debt disguised,
a loan with interest
that never arrived.
For them, I know it was just empty breath:
no heart,
no soul,
no vow,
no truth.
Always less, and never more —
just echoes behind this closed door.
As they left me alone,
blindly deciding
it’d be okay for me to love myself
on my own.

They yelled out behind that door:
“Matt you’re not alone,”
“We’ll always be here for you!”
but no one ever knocked.
Only ghosts with names like Almost,
and clocks that tick and tock in Morse code
for stop.
Tick tick tick—
Tock.
And now even my watch
has begun to mock
the very bitterness…
that resides within these walls.

My chest’s a locked box
where light doesn’t get.
My thoughts?
Wet matches.
That can’t spark—
just create ash.
I choose not to water my plants
like I’m praying they die,
just so something else understands
what it feels like
to try
and try
and try
and still…
not be remembered.

I’ve screamed into the universe
like voicemail—
begging for anyone or anything
to give me the recognition I needed.
No return.
I lit myself on fire for warmth,
and watched
the cold not burn.
This ain’t poetry.
It’s my farewell in rehearsal,
a symphony of silence
in a one-man circle.

I don’t want to die.
I never wanted to,
and I never will.
But I can’t keep living like this—
half death,
half plea.
So when you hear this:
Don’t cry.
Don’t clap.
Just breathe.
Because that breath
represents more love
than I ever believed
was for me.

I only ever needed three things:
I. love. you.
You could have saved me.

'Twas but three years ago
I set my pen to sea, a vessel born
a fragile craft of ink and fervent flame
with compass cast in yearning, not in security

The waves lapped soft with secrets,
a few saddening,
fewer sweet.

Each line cast: a current pulling at my feet
no charts existed
no charts exist
for waters this deep nor wide
where poets dream,
struggle,
fight,
cry,
accept

and ancient myths
shared from one to the next
reside

The sky, a parchment vast with thousands of drifting stars
drew constellations shaped like hopeful scars

i
you
we,
search for love – the poet’s atlantis
a realm where whispered truths and passions flow


clouds
like veils
concealed what lay ahead
storms were born from longing
words went unsaid
crucial words
I chased reflections that danced on the waves
illusions
forged in the poet’s unforgiving mind

the siren’s song – a melody of doubt –
called me close
not once, but repeatedly
–
somewhere
I know
Janus smiles
–
called me close then took away my sound
took away my hearing, and my voice.
and what was it that was so alluring?
the shimmer? the glint? the gleam?
or just the ghost of a forgotten dream?

Ink dripped like rain upon my weathered scroll,
a log of my journeys,
a testament to my voyages,
each line, each stanza, each poem,
an ebb of the sea carrying me ever further on my path

There, at the ocean’s floor
lost in fragments,
scattered arrays —
a compass
broken,
fractured remnants

one night
tides of silence
waves of wait
the poet’s curse
the lover’s fate

until

a flash, a beacon–
love’s distant flame–
guided through tempest,
called my name.

–
still it glows
a lighthouse, for all ships
that pass
–

not all who wonder
sink or drown
not all condemned to be a poet,
a lover,
a feeler,
are left to fall
fall
fall
ever lower into the depths of the cold
dark
deep
waters.


Beneath the veil of night,
a whisper grew
a secret kept
only silence knew.
the heart, a vessel sailing starry seas
found shore where love’s soft voice
dissolved unease

no longer lost amid the waves and foam,
the poet’s quest
had brought him safely home
adorning not treasure, nor gold, nor gems
but a reason to put down the pen
a reason to discern
the clouds from the storm


I stepped onto sands
warm beneath my feet
where time and tides and two hearts
met

a poet’s journey
ended

for now, when he
causes the ink and parchment to embrace
once more
it is not for the same cause as once was
–
to express his discomfort,
drifting about on the waters:
his only support;
a 4 legged stool,
built solely to hold his skeleton-
but never built to bear the rest
–
but rather to express
the dilation of his pupils
as dawn approaches, and the
the morning spills like
honeyed gold;
a whispered warmth the
night can’t hold.



the ink now flows from calmer, steadier hands
the poet, now having resigned himself
to the discomfort of the ocean
finally lands.

–
She is my peace
her arms my warmth
her smile my joy
her love, my home.
--

Day One:
the pen slashes—
Twenty. Six. Orders.
ink, not thought,
bleeds across parchment.

Questions?
(there are none)

Eliminated:
trans lives,
under a banner stitched from lies—
“feminism,”
they call it.
What do they call the silence?

Borders tighten.
“Maximum vetting,”
he says,
as the doors close
on hope,
on freedom,
on futures.

A hand waves,
pardons fall
like confetti—
1,500 violent rioters
cheer in their wake.
The Capitol weeps,
its wounds still raw.



We pull back, pull away,
from the world’s hands:
WHO?
Paris?
No.
The globe spins colder
without us.

The camera stares:
his signature sprawls,
blind,
blank,
bereft of meaning.
“What is it?” he asks—
too late.

TikTok ticks
a delayed
doom.
A political ploy
Misunderstood by the masses.

Behind the curtain:
facades fracture,
truth whispers,
fear shouts.

A country waits,
chained to a pen
that scrawls without reason.
A nation watches,
As the ink dries into scars.

All in a day’s work.

the clock marks twelve with a
hollow chime.
in its wake, the air thickens, heavy
with absence.
shadows ripple across the walls,
shifting like thoughts half-formed,
dark and untethered.

the corner stretches, widens,
becomes something deeper,
a mouth that might swallow me
if i meet its gaze too long

the ceiling groans softly,
its beams contracting
as if under the weight
of something unseen.

i sit still, breathing shallow,
watching the shadows watch me,
and wonder if the clock
will ever strike one.