To romanticize a life
That never was and never has
A life unlived but loved
Lies wrapped in fantasies

Suddenly walking the street
Softly, calmly, a normal speed
Why is it every time I dream,
I get interrupted by the sound

Of an interior not designed
An exterior not built for the light
A romantic life, but never mine.

Curtains half closed
Maybe half open
Dependent on the look
Of the environment

It never happened quiet
Just as a thunderstorm
Trying to be a breeze
You made me feel

A bulb flashing light
Powering with full might
Why is it always a maybe
Or a could've or should've

But never a genuine "would've"
Torn within the darkness of the light
The last breath before a time
Tainted red-

You wished, you prayed
But really never fixed the light
That wasn't at a regular volt
Just a overworked circuit

When all I wanted was peace.

My heart danced every shift
Every hour of our work
This friendship born form a myth
On a timetable-
Ready to be clocked in

I was down further than-
Just being down on your knees
I was six feet deep
This all was when we met

You might've never know
The impact you had on my soul
Life flashing by like a still full
Why is it after all these months

I still regret the way we never talked
I was committed to someone
Who wasn't you, and yet it was nice
A friendship ready to bloom

It felt like you say me
With all the colors and hues
And yet you said, let me unpack
And sit back, with a coffee

Watch this woman love life
And fall back in love with it
Right beside my own heart
That's stopped beating when-
She blocked my number

And maybe you were never mine,  
not even in kindness,  
but for every shift we stayed late  
I healed within the silence,  
while your voice reminded me  
how worth showing up I still was

Even when work would drive me crazy
When you showed up I knew
That life didn't have to sit still
Even when after I left- you,
You never left, me.

The day of my release
I walked the streets
Seeing the sky and the grass under my feet
It was weird, I was free
But not free from my memories-
They flee,

The people I once knew,
Can't look me in the eye
They know what I did,
But so do I, because everyday I relive-
All the things that haunt me

Every day's a clock, with no hands
Each minute strikes the soul like a match
How am I supposed to relive-
Relearn to live

The cars and the people
The dog on the corner,
He barks like crazy
But nothing will be as crazy as the thought
Maybe I want to go back to-
What was once my living doom

I was told to get a job
But right now crossing the street-
Feels like my head will pop
All the honks and the shouts
Who knew the world could be so loud

In confinement it was quiet
Because a noise too loud,
Could trigger a guard,
Beating us until,
the lights went out-

Showers and meals were on a schedule,
Now I have to decide for myself
And still I manage
I cross the street-
Not trying to vanish-
In my internal defeat.

I read it twice, I still didn’t get it
I did not receive the message
I couldn’t understand the meaning

You poured in your heart
And I left it, torn apart
Because some things don’t resonate
Until it’s once again too late

And you made up your mind
While I stayed behind

Always too slow to make up my mind
Staring at the lines once more,
They look back like a locked door,
I tried knocking, but not sure what for.

Poems are like puzzles in crypts
You write in metaphors
And I respond too literally

And interstellar that didn’t align
A story written that wasn’t mine

And now there’s just silence,
Where insight should have been.
I held something breakable And didn’t feel it within.

My thoughts never
get tired of me
They feel the winter
While I live the summer

I never get to have a chance
A certainty meant to last
A love undone of the past
Four wheels on pavement so fast

Not to be stopped or taken
Just to be lived and laughed

I toss, I turn.
My blankets—too warm,
then too cold,
like storms across my skin.
My thoughts go.

Never silence—
just a pain burning behind my eyes,
a mind wired
to a clock not built
for this reality.

I get up and circle my room,
Sit down, play a tune,
Write my ghosts onto paper,
Reshape my pillow.

A breeze,
a hum,
a passing car—
all rise like ghosts,
but none loud enough
to drown the ones in my head.

“Please be quiet,”
I whisper to my mind.
But instead,
it grins and says:

“Remember what you did 10 years ago?”
“Wasn’t that moment strange? Embarrassing? Wrong?”

I give no reaction.
I’ve learned:
engagement feeds them.
So I lie there,
Handing off insane,
hoping the ceiling swallows me whole
And take away my pain.

I cannot shut off—
not until I’m lowered, into a silence
Surrounded by the mournful,
deep enough to dull the thoughts,
until I’m sealed away
and my mind finally softens.