In the breath of time, I gasped a second of a dream –
to clock it all in a single second; to live off seconds,
to starve on scraps, constantly second-guessing
myself. It feels like going back, stepping into my
past – a time traveller, as much, wandering the
ruins of yesterday.

Give me a second to catch my breath; here in this
second stanza; I wear each stanza like armour–
armour stitched from broken words, to fight for
peace in armour, to piece together what’s left of
honour. Where hell meant to crush my thoughts,
I cover my head with a helmet, shielding my
mind from the fire.

And if they break my bones – I’ll pick a bone with
the breaking, laughing in the face of the fracture,
gnawing on the marrow of pain until it tastes like
defiance. Every scar another tick of the clock; every
second I stand, I steal back from the seconds that
tried to finish me.

Call me a time traveller, for I’ve learned to turn
broken seconds into futures

Insulate to the sharp needle of insulin – as this pan
creases over daylight frying a canopy of trees, left
with skins that smell of mould; moulding us into forms
that don’t fit, following titles without ever playing the role.

Models parade as model citizens, while forests fall around
their footsteps; smiles reduced to emojis, connection flat
as a screen. Each impression feels like a coded message –
profiles lined with Bible verses in their bios, good at quoting
scripture, but so not good at keeping notes on The Message.

But we fashion ourselves into “the latest,” but our dreams
arrive too late, departing long before we catch them.

We are all stories inked together from the sharp tip of the
pen, injecting more time into our veins, yet living diabetic
to our morals – sugar-high on indulgence, starved of truth.

I saw a depressed clown haggling
at the flea market for balloons—

Joy marked down to a clearance price;
he holds onto second-hand laughter,
and a fragile piece of air tied to rubber skin.

By each nightfall he flees, on a rusted
scooter cutting through town, and his
balloons trailing like tired moons.

The crowd never cheered him on —
as he carried the silence anyway with him

Fire, wind, water, earth—
perhaps I’ll be
    the element of surprise.

No scent of intentions;
I broke my nose, sent into
a world that watches with
  wide eyes.

Premature ideas delivered
to a man’s dream;
            the stillborn
still cries; echoing even
    after not seeing the light.

Often my heart feels low, unruly—
     recognizing no boundary,
******* the sacrifice required
  To be a man.

Sometimes I am a stone,
skipping past life · · · · · ·
    1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

But never six—
for by that count,
     I begin to sink.
Life and its lessons still needs
   to polish me, to reach my reach.

I didn’t pay heaven’s worth for one hell of a ride— for all the
Valentine cards, I’m just calling their bluff. What’s carved into
stone is too heavy to skip across the rivers of my chest; love
sinks deeper than it pretends to float. A carousel of emotions
spins; all its horses in place— some only love horsing around.
Round and round it goes; the painted smile, waiting for
the cycle to end, for the spell of tomorrow to break.

So I write letters to the future, hopes tangled in snares of my
doubts. The tongue—sharp as steel, soft as silk—knows how
to give life, and *******. We cover scars with scars, as the
extending arm, just to say we’re armed, clutching too many
guns inside our ribs. But how can blessings hold on when
your hands stay hidden, when you wear a balaclava over
your smile?

Harvest comes only from what you’ve planted—patience,
honesty, or silence. Soil on the tongue buries every word
that could have fed us.

So tell me—was heaven’s worth ever meant for one
hell of a ride?

Before it all… before anything, before the measure of time,
before thought had its first spark, before the first word
was ever spoken— there was Silence.

And in that silence, there was peace— a stillness vast
enough to cradle eternity, untouched, unbroken,
where nothing was needed, and nothing was lost.

But silence does not last forever. From its depths came
a fracture, a tremor in the void, and with it—Chaos.

The silence cried, and its tears fell like stars, scattering
across the endless dark. Their echoes stretched beyond
forever, reminding us that every peace carries its price,
and every beginning is born from breaking.

For even before creation, before the heavens, before
the earth, there was silence. And when all else is gone,
silence will remain.

“Perhaps I never lived, perhaps I never died.
For dying is simple, but living is the harder task—
yet in the silence, I hear the first true sound of life.”

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?