If I were a fruit, would you still date me, would my shell  
be easy to crack, or would your patience bruise at the very
weight of peeling me back? I laugh at my own dad jokes
that crack me open; would you still concentrate on showing
me a fruitful love, or just beat my heart to a pulp. Whether
sweet or bitter, would you press me down to juice or savour
me in sips?

Would my scent linger like ripened promise, or fade too
quickly, forgotten at the bottom of the basket? Would you
call my softness spoiled, or taste the sugar hidden beneath
rough skin? I can be sharp as citrus, cutting your tongue;
other days, mellow as a peach, velvet against your hands.

And when I start to wine; my actions feeling like a bunch
of sour grapes, do you drink me slow, or spit me all out
as vinegar, too **** for you to swallow? When my seeds
of advice scatter, do you plant them for more, or toss them
aside as waste of the core? Even my flaws ferment into
something you might call flavour—but would you learn
to love the aftertaste?

So tell me— if I were your fruit, what fruit would I be?

The *** never worries about its shine,
but only if the chef can stir more than heat.
Good looks can season the eyes, but flavor
fades quickly if the soul isn’t fed.

Jewels on the counter don’t make a meal—
the scars of the pan prove it’s lived through fire.
A recipe isn’t written in gold, but in burns,
in the scrapes, and in hands that keep cooking.

So dress the kitchen however you please,
but know this: the worth of what you serve
is weighed in the scars you carry, not the shine
you polish.

And now I ask—
which kind of *** are you?

Across her sweatshirt, ninety-nine names
stitched like constellations —a lover finds
a hundred reasons to say why he loves you.

A slogan turned into scripture, she wears
it close to her chest; words sweating with her
on the mattress, to wait patiently, following
all the directions from the map of her heart.

I’ll mark the landscape, paint portraits of her
in my mind’s eye —learning the grammar
of her body, and the rules of her orientation.

Inside her, every detail is an interior design,
yet all of it points outward towards me.
She proves me down to earth, grounded
by the gravity of her presence.

Her breath is thick; honest words grazing
the neck like prayer; and in silence, our eyes
speak the sentences our lips can’t form.

Love repeats itself, a devotion like unanswered
prayers, whispered night after night; to find
a surrender that completes both sides of us.

I found my Hundredth Reason.

Tears for makeup – brushing possibilities
across the mirror of morning, peeling blessings
under the sunlight of a warm prayer.

Feet sweat inside the slippers of comfort,
even rest feels restless; slipping words
into the day just to deafen my small defeats.

Winter battlefields – I never learned how
to march in snow, waiting instead for March
flowers to break through frost, for warmth
to unclench the ground and teach my steps
to bloom again.

Water wraps my soul, drowning my heart –
my teeth chatter like crushed ice, dreams
circling like planes overhead.

"Don’t miss your flight plan," I whisper.
Ninety-nine departures, over one hundred
days of tears until that final arrival.

So when I finally close the shutters of my eyes,
I'll wear them as makeup once more – believing
the face of tomorrow might hold a smile
that feels real in reality.

Would you please excuse my grammar —
I'm only trying to caption my heart
like an Instagramer; chasing moments
that vanish in an instant matter.

When and where you eventually find
yourself —no other place will really matter.
We are fragile as glass, fingers made of dreams
swiping the screen, touching reflections that
almost feel too real.

But I’ll never be younger than the day
all my dreams began. Still, I stay punctual —
marking time in commas, pausing in semicolons,
leaving ellipses for the stories I wasn’t ready to tell.

Question marks kept me up at night; exclamation
marks made me bold enough to try. And the older
version of me scrolling through this feed of years,
may have the joy of ending it all with a single,
quiet full stop.

I choke my vape,
lungs burning, multitudes
of tears droning — bees,
hummingbirds, all their
beauty spilling nectar...
                          
I’ll never taste it.

If this is a song,
it’s an instrument playing
itself, strung out on instincts,
but struck without melody.

And still—
this feeling ******* stinks.

He sits on the edge of the bed;
tears rolling, no reason.
             Not sad —
                   just leaking.

Hand across his face,
sniffs, straightens his back.
         Deep breath —
                               Done!

He moves on,
like it never happened at all.

“Never mind,” he says,
                      “that’s just life.”