I am no-one. Yet I feel everything.
I do everything. I am rewarded by no-one.
Tragedy? Nothing. I am owed nothing
but a fitting death.

To fish for dreams on the scales of my life,
weighing all options—faults already exposed,
a past made of glass: reflective. Fragile. And so
unforgiving.

To be credited as a modern writer, despite
my financial pressures. Swiping left on bait
too absurd to bite. My ID card? A license
to exist— plastic proof I belong to a world
that never asked for me.

Fate. Destiny. Whatever it is— tilts the odds.
I tilt back. Desperately balancing: one side,
my bank account. The other, my place. Truly
my full worth. Every moment I must make count.
And if the world won’t remember me, then let
my balance sheet of scars be the proof I existed.

More than the breath of a sigh —
I shut the front door, draw the curtains of my eyes,
turning toward a long prayer, and hoping for a sign.
I sign my name on a sigh, to dot myself in doubts;
quietly trying to align the stanzas of my life onto
these right lines.

For someone's booming voice rising in prayer;
you lift yourself as a public speaker, while I hide
my own voice in a speaker box, in the back of my car —
playing the music of these dreams only you can hear.

While the sunlight sinks into my skin, inhabiting me
like a parable. I live inside the story of another mystery,
a hidden teaching I pray I’m not just listening to, but also
one I'm slowly becoming.

We are creatures chasing the simplest endeavours —
where lovers fuse together when they find their spark,
to blow a fuse when nerves are frayed, and ride the same
fuse that carries a car forward; an engine humming with fire.

To love more than skin and bones,
to write the story of our lives — immense enough
to bring me to tears, where the full plotline goes unseen,
yet I pray to God I can at least follow all my lines.

And in all of it, this is a feeling of being alive.

Putting my shoes on backwards — stepping straight back
to the past, searching for another path; where the fisherman
never loses hope of reeling in something worth keeping.
Another catch…fishing, baiting, catching on hope’s lines.
We filled each other’s hearts with perfect laughs, ran side
by side on the marathoner’s road — but I never thought
love would be the trickiest mile.

Hey — whatever happened to that silly boy who swore he
loved all of your vibrations, the ringtone that made him dance
whenever you called his name? He smiled in group photos
with friends he didn’t like anyway — if it meant he could
fit into your picture, He’d frame his discomfort and pose.
He’d stand in the rain just to give you a sunny day.

He wore casual smiles to match every conversation, he played
your superman in shorts, his confidence a little short too; fogging
his own glasses with the breath of your words. We stood so close
the air between us could have been a kiss, but we stayed as friends,
our thoughts and hopes sealed under the covers of  “what if.”
But we dressed our hearts in dreams of maybe — perfect lovers
undercover, hiding in plain sight because losing each other
would hurt more than never trying.

There’s a spark between your lips, and it lights mine
when we kiss— we’re a match: fighting against all
the ways we’ve tried to smother what we feel.
As the sun cuts through me, kissing my skin in
gold— but my tears taste like wine, and my hopes
lounge in the soft armchairs of dreams.

Now, I hate the silence when I’m left with myself—
scrolling through ghosts in my phone, each message
once charging me like a battery cell.

Now it’s just me, trapped in a cold heart's prison cell,
echoing for company, thinking of the days I was once
drowning  in a well. But all there’s left to say is a bitter,
shrugged,

                “Oh well.”

Dear IS,

Is it fair you hold the key to my drive— to make something, yet
make it too frightening to try? Your breath pretends to drift slow
in my ear, but beneath it, you’re clearing the field, planting seeds
of every fear you know will take root.

Is it the power lines I see wired from me to you— feeding your
hands as you siphon my strength, splitting my will from the things
I keep tucked deep in the vault of myself? As you arrange them like
weapons, calling each by name to remind me of the parts I’ve tried
to love but sometimes can’t.

Is it the way I urge, wish, and will to act— only for you to spool film
from my past, running old scenes like warnings until my courage
caves to your script? Your message is seen: as nothing moves unless
you approve.

Is that you, who rests on my chest like a stone, chastising, shrinking
me to the size of my doubts— small flaws made giant, slippery
floors of thought that tilt more than they ever should? Well… not
anymore. You don’t get to rule me, or write my rules.

Goodbye, Insecurity—as if I could ever feel secure in you.

Yours,
faithfully unfaithful,

Ex-companion.

Dear SD,

You’re always like an SD card slotting into my time with your own
version of memories – overwriting the good ones; rewriting the rest
until they feel like yours. You always chipping in at the worst
moments – slipping in like a thief of thought, leaving me as hollow
as an empty crisp packet. You’ve mastered the art of inaction –
teaching me to discard what matters, to throw away my intentions
into the wind until I’m caught in the sour howl of your shouting
breeze. And when I think I’ve finally got it all figured out, you arrive,
tilting your head, whispering, "Are you sure, my love?"

It’s a question that weighs me down by ounces; as you’re a mistress
who never needs to raise her voice to pin me in place. You’ve been
the needle that keeps me stuck in this bundle of hay, telling me it’s
better to stay, pretending everything’s okay. "Try again another
day," you say – but another day just becomes the next day,
just other days, hey?

And in the meantime, you hold all the orders, dictating how I move,
and how I don’t move. But I shouldn’t be listening to you – putting
you ahead of myself, when really, you’ve only been living rent-free in
my head, making my mind your house, cluttering it until I forget to
chase you out. You bring nothing but stillness – no progress, no
movement, just a hypnotic sway of hips tempting me to sit, to stay,
and to watch life from the window.

No more. Your rent is overdue. Your words hold no truth. Hush
your lips, still those hips – I’m done letting you make my steps
your property. It’s not you, it’s me – for letting you be you to me.
We aren’t meant to be.

Goodbye – Self-doubt...

Sincerely, insincerely signed,

Your ex-lover.

Thoughts on dotted lines – this is my right to write; stepping
into deep conversations just to say I had a shoe in. Maybe in
a thousand days draped in gold & silver, I’ll praise God again –
but do it a third time even when life feels like bronze, because
hubris slips in easy. So humour me this: as humility’s hands
still smudged in ***** pictures, like the past we pretend was
never framed.

To picture life outside the struggles that have stained your
heart, aiming for the middle of it all like a game of darts;
darting away from the past but also seeing red sometimes,
taking each hit with the sight of a bull’s eye: just another
reminder of the battles I’ve already fought.

And for the worth I am – more grand than the grand I would
have earned – the days still erupted like volcanoes, molten
interruptions to the places I didn’t belong. I bottled myself up
until I popped like soda, spilling lava into empty sentiments,
too deep to throw away, and too raw to leave behind.

Some moments do feel like *******, but life isn’t a game
with extra cute lives in a litter – but only pieces of ourselves
we shed like skin, littering the ground we walk on. And maybe
that’s how we breathe to live – by moving forward even with
bruised feet, never quite ready to admit defeat.

And to say, “find yourself a fit woman running laps on your mind –
and catching her breath just means she’s sitting comfortably on
your lap,” is really just a sprint into pleasing the flesh, a race with
no real finish line. And to say you haven’t tasted her in a while,
where one bite makes you relapse – a crack in the glass, it takes two
to tango… but when she starts throwing shade, you start asking
about her love, and where did that perfect tan go.

Maybe I’ve had many partners, but truthfully, most only lived in
my head – my biggest problem was always thinking too far ahead.
A big head, as the women I never touched became intimate in
dreams, yet so intimidating in real life. My insecurity became these
imagined thoughts, and those thoughts made them always fly away.
As my love sickness was a cluster of flu – practicing patience, yet
overthinking until everything failed before it could even start.
A real lack of patience in the heart, and that headache turned into
heartache.

Sure, if I’d asked more of them out, we might have dated – but I
was so out of touch with myself that I felt so outdated. They could
have been less shy, but I was more convinced I wasn’t much of an
impressive guy. Expressive, yes – more direct in invitation, but
never showing up to the party in the end. It isn’t easy for most,
but I felt like I had the most to lose – a heart.

Now I see: I was chasing love as a boy, not building it as a man.
And the truth? It lands heavier when you start by being truthful
with yourself –that’s the only way to fully understand.

Messages are read, all their ticks are blue –
an "I love you," comes double-ticked…
maybe it’s not you.

Love’s built for two, their reasons too –
a fake kind of love still tries to play true…
maybe it wasn’t you.

No, I won’t cry, still stuck up without glue –
a sympathetic protagonist, antagonised by
their own heart, and yes… this much is true:

Perhaps I was never meant
to fall in love with you.

Altar regrets; please don’t alter my texts –
or delete my last request; as lust requests
you do what feels good, but it all becomes
tomorrow’s bad mistake, dressed out in
yesterday’s breath.

At the front of my books – my body language
in bold font is what I’ll flaunt; though at times,
I’m not so bold at being myself...
Physical or digital – spiritual or literal –
loaning some faith on empty days,
loading some company when I feel
I’m moving through life at my lonesome,
feeling loathsome.

But take your time; write your own books if you
want to – just don’t forget the lessons you’ve read.
Despite being blue-ticked in person, my presence
and influence still get left on read...
I can’t claim ownership of everything; crying for
it all, till my eyes are painted red.

As each good word you’ve received is a divine gift –
to defy the rifts; to train and define your divine gifts,
learn to prune the sickness from your vine so new
creation can live... value the chance to forgive —
make every reason solid, for choosing to live.

I watch nostalgic shops come down and malls rise up—
mauling the memories I once had of me growing up;
Old theatres turned into churches— looking fancy now,
as if church was always about that constant outward wow.
And I question if the practice echoes all that they preach—
the birth, the walk, the cross, the rise, and the reach
of Jesus—exactly what the Gospel of Luke is about—
But it's just loud; more about, what a good look is about.

An unfamiliar reflection grins from this house—
built up for the buzz, and chasing every new bounce.
Busy like a bee's buzz, grinding daily with mugs in hand,
all of us are chasing a good kind buzz in a restless land.
But I knew my youth had quietly slipped away
when I stopped sprinting to match its pace each day…

I just pause and recall how life once came wrapped—
the best gifts were in the present, untouched, perhaps.
And to admire it all like a lover I once held tight—
a fleeting embrace, now only found in a silent night.
She’s both a memory and a moment I meant—
constantly arriving early, and urging me to repent.

So I write, not for fame, but for legacy's seed—
literally a literary testimony – my children will read.
Not just someone who preached, loud and devout,
but one who lived it—so much they breathed it out.

You’ve got a toothpick smile — sharp enough to pick
the words from my lips as we kiss, my darling.
Two roadmaps curve across your eyes —you see
exactly where you’re headed, and still, I hope you
trace your way back to me. As there’s a picture on my
ceiling — a memory sketch of you that walls can't help
but echo. Even in silence, this house whispers your name.
We're paired like bus wires — tethered to our thoughts,
transporting the weight of our unspoken luggage.

You’re cruel with beauty, closed off like a bookshop on
a Sunday —but I still read your body language on the
spine of your sighs. While the anchor of this love dives
deep, and I hold fast — even if your tides pull me under.
Your face — inked in my mind like a permanent marker
refusing to fade.

Finally, you’re an orchid waiting in the sun, and I,
the patient gardener, learning to love each petal as it
unfolds; knowing that with each new bloom, we both
grow. So if I must wait — let it be beneath your seasons.
Let me turn with your weather, and stand still long
enough for you to call this heart your home.

Walking down the aisles of fear –
a thousand miles paved in soft-spoken panic,
a cart full of dreams, half on sale, half returned.
And on other days, I crash like a kart – cornered,
spinning, never quite finishing the lap.
Tell me: what's the missing piece to a scar?
The echo that completes the pain, or the piece
of you still aching to be whole?

Some days feel like broken piano strings –
and not every key fits success, as the minor
hopes can also become our major regrets.
And still, you stay – a melody trapped in place,
living to dream. Yet if that lullaby won’t rest
your mind, find another song to sing.
One that knows your name.

Grinding your smiles, stained with bitter coffee –
as brewed remarks sip back at you. You try to hold
a strong stance in the night, but don’t live for one-night
stands with your own worth. We are all skin and sand –
grains of the past clinging to the present, footsteps
washing away even as we walk forward.

I am lost — without a horizon. Tell me:
what is it like to live without a conscience?
Learning how to freefall in the golden patterns
of parachutes, each moment feels like sunrise
blooming in my eyes.

Dreams are like aged photographs, as we
live in their flat silence, posing in fragments,
dancing around opinions in wide, unguarded smiles.

But under a blasting sun, its rays hit like bullets
piercing ivy-orange through my chest — autumn-hued
wounds that hope to shimmer like the gleam of sunset.

So I gather what glows, from scattered light and broken
frames, trying to make warmth from splinters, and to name
it hope. Even in freefall, there’s beauty in how we land.

This is the prelude to a corny poem — not by genre, but by gesture.
The kind of moment you text someone who can never quite let go.
A character who, the more you explain yourself, builds up their
anger, like Lego — stacked tight, no gaps. Great, now you're blocked!
It’s the same game; they say they’re breaking down like Tetris,
but you’re the last crooked piece, a corner away from clarity, from
giving out a proper response, but you're stuck at a stop sign called
Writer’s Block.

(Not to say I grew up on the streets —but a soft smile is what I
use to pave the way of finding peace.) And whether this turns into
a path toward a kiss all depends how well you’ve cemented your
foundations, for your intentions to come out firm and concrete.
Not to sink into gossip, like spilled tea on the front steps of the
neighbour down the street. Because not every door you knock on
is one built for your peace. Not every neighbour you greet is a
neighbourhood of people open to giving you some peace.

Community grief isn’t all of our concerns to give… so call me rude,
but I don’t like to deal with everyone’s grief. So when I see you
approaching, I might walk in the other direction of this street.
Especially if I’ve already read all the signs but you chose to walk
into that direction. Now you stand in your wreckage, asking me
for directions, as if I’m still your GPS for healing.

Making me appear lost for words, stuck again at Writer’s Block —
where metaphors turn to mortar, and the silence right between us
starts stacking brick by brick. A friendship we were supposed to
build up as something worthwhile. But the foundation we built
it all on was something we never hoped for.

Take me as a definition: a surface-level heart that drowns in
deep thought, quietly pondering love, quietly grieving loss.
Loss not just for someone; a loss for most words. Because
when you’ve been dealing with a lot, you stop explaining
and start enduring.

Take me, for example: yesterday I had a conversation with
myself, but it sounded like I was addressing the ugly stuff,
the versions of me I don’t post about. Getting a little older,
I now feel the subtraction of duration settling in my bones.
It’s not pain exactly. It’s more like time knocking without
waiting for permission.

Multiply that by multiple misfires, all the times I believed,
in my head, that I’d finally found the one. Now, I’m left
divided. Not between people, but between the stories I told
myself; the truths I keep avoiding. Insanely rich with poor
results — "wait, that doesn’t add up." As that’s the math of
memory: it never balances the way love promises it will.

Still I need a leg up, not just to raise the hopes of this tired
heart, but just to step out of my despairs. Because lately,
I’ve been third-wheeling the very idea of love; a tagalong
to a party I used to host. And when it comes to falling for
someone with a previously broken heart, you learn quick:
it doesn’t come with a spare.

I’ve realized love either helps you make strong memories
or leaves you with the memory of a sus stain. You can’t
always tell which until it’s already on you, and by then
you’re already trying to scrub out that which you hoped
to sustain.

The Arithmetic of Almost-Love.

For that which I don’t know— built from
the bones of all the words I never spoke.
My life, if summarized, could be a quote:
a borrowed line, or a borrowed joke.
Either footnoted in memory, or discarded
as someone who misquoted hope
___________
Perhaps I’d trade in an error
for a single, shapeshifting era.
But funny how the past echoes loudest
in silence, and how legends live on not
in flesh, but in the offspring of their legacy.

Still— be careful not to jump to conclusions.
Don’t cut off your spring just because
you mistook the thaw for drowning.
And don’t become so quick to sip judgment
that you forget: a half-empty drink
can still quench the right thirst, depending
on who's pouring… and who's parched.
____________
Now there are those who offer their offending
speech like confetti; those whose presence is a
soft kind of peace; a balm, a breath, a quiet release.
Then there are others whose only offering is grief
once a week, wearing Sunday suits but speaking in leaks.

I have grown to value those who live
like arrows— honest, piercing, straightforward.
Not those who bend truth into shapes that fit
their spin, sending stories spinning on a tired wheel,
toward destinations they never meant to reach.
____________
Some speak on others' names with
the boldness of ownership, but it’s all
counterfeit— a forged will, a stamped conviction.

As for me? For that which I don’t know:
it remains a wonder, and I live in awe of it.
But as for some, with their tongue dipped
in certainty; your armour is made of knowing—
but you truly know nothing at all.

Turn off the lights — I’m fighting myself in the dark.
My skin, a caressing sun; roses fall and kiss me
with lip-shaped petals, trying to open me wide.
But they’ll censor you — they’ll look away, so you
don’t shine as bright as you are.

And me? I pluck myself from a group of self-doubts.
At the pace of this age, I slow, though youth fast-feeds
through my hands, trying to unearth green shoots
of heaven’s cheer. A chosen emotion rises — as if my
heart readies itself for a rapture. Earthen hands *****
out dreams from soil. To be called a ***** — or to *****
others? What a question to be.

As I’m plotting in the potting shed, where we shared
hope like dew-struck grass. We watered our dreams
with tears, and have felt baptized in fear. Shaking daily
at the grip of then —as if winter left its bare bones in my
hands. But I’m not ready to net a coy smile, not when my
butterfly net carries extra holes.

As all my hopes lie on the ground, seeds waiting to be
buried in the dark —waiting to grow. The lights of faith
are shut. And must I wait for fireworks to explode across
my sky again, like next year’s celebrations? But I won’t
shut my eyes this time. Yet I’ll stay open, just in case
tomorrow decides to find me first.

Dig into my chest like it’s bare soil—make it a grave, not for
mourning, but for planting. Let my heart be buried like a seed,
not as a casualty. **** out what once wrapped itself around
me like vines of bitterness, strangling my better nature. And if
love is to grow, let it bloom where my brokenness once lived.

To those who fall in love, only to fall harder out of it—do not
call yourselves foolish. Rising from that grave, petals torn but
still reaching for the sun, aren’t you the rose that dared the dirt?
Beautiful in defiance, bruised but not defeated.

Each morning, the sun rises like it’s trying to convince me it’s
worth beginning again. Beneath that light, my thoughts crash
like waves against the cliffs of a heart too mountainous to climb.
I keep counting stars like uncashed wishes, dreams I tuck into
the corners of silence. Love plays its hand close to the chest—
a secret it folds into itself, waiting to be revealed when the
moment is just right.

But I’ll never know enough. Maybe I wasn’t meant to. But I have
loved—truly, painfully, and almost beautifully. And that should
count for something, by the sum of this heart that still beats,
and still believes, but also still breaks.

So here I am, with these cards on the table. No bluff left in me.
Even a faithful lover would cry, 'God, are you listening; deal me
a better hand. Not one free of pain, but one I can hold with both
hands steady. One that doesn’t slip through the cracks I’ve tried
so hard to mend. But one I can grip with love, and not lose again.'

But oh, how you'll weep— not for what’s been lost,
but for what you're scared to lose.

There’s a hollow kind of happiness
caught in the curve of an imperfect smile—
where soft lies rest gently on the tip
of a weary tongue.

To be truly happy is to risk the world
watching, waiting for your fall—
constantly crumbling on your knees,
like a prayer too faithful not to be heard.

Vows taste bittersweet, like knowing,
deep and quiet, that you’ll fail before you begin.
And still—you hold the hurt in your hands,
the same hurt that shaped you,
while denying how deeply it still aches.

But pain denied
denies you healing.

As you are still searching for yourself—
like an arrow already loosed, still chasing
its aim long after the bow has let go.

And maybe you won't land where you
thought—but you’ll find something solid
beneath your feet. And not every wound closes
clean, but even scars can trace a path for you
to follow.

The brand of our skies lingers — soft kisses
drifting through the air, and I seem to lose every word
except for one whisper: “I love you.” As our love roars
like an anthem beneath a midnight sun, where my tears
have soaked the tired pillow of a heart that rests only
on the thought of you.

Each rhythm of speech stumbles into another pause
before a kiss, and like the taste of a wish granted, I find
my voice again, always to speak of you in reverent tones,
for you stand atop the mountain that houses my heart.

Your eyes; perhaps they’ve forgotten the worth of time.
There’s a watch not on your wrist, but bound to your leg,
always stepping over it.

And while the sun maps out your days, the moon is a pin
dropped at the final stop. Tomorrow isn’t promised —
no more than a compliment from a stranger. And just like
that stranger, it stays nameless until you dare ask its name
by dusk. Where the Sun Whispers, and the Moon Waits.

Fee-fi-fo-fum— as we weighed love by
an empty ounce, and paid it all back by this
sore pound. They yell: “come now or begone,”
and if you can’t produce the sum for what’s
been done; flee to fine some… or find none.

An anguish in fornication, and a touch that speaks,
but means nothing at all. No real stimulation—
just hunger in the guise of heat, and shame where
love was meant to meet. As some feather-dust their
guilt, pretending to have clean intentions. But we’ve
only used each other to air out our frustrations.

These old recycled themes; ******* from peers,
spilling from worn-out jeans, and spreading
dreams like genes, without real meaning in between
the fabric of time.

But tell me, do you still not see the giant problem?
Or are you too big for yourself, to fully measure up
to your own faults?

Glass tears dance on the lawn of dreams –
offered sweetness at hand; while the Beast
breathes fire over frost; black fur coiled in winter’s
chill, his warmth a lie dressed in comfort.

He offers blindness as a blessing, the bliss
of the thoughtless path. In the silence of white
winter, you take his claw, mistaking it for a hand.
“To die for”—a morbid metaphor— what is the gift
of a Beast meant for?

Around him, the dancing lich spins— leeches
birthed  from tombs of need. A cliff that clefts;
as a cleft lip cannot speak the truth, it only bleeds.
Closed eyes cannot paint the dark—
but they stay loyal  to its canvas.

Left bereft—travelers avoid certain subjects:
being sick of yourself, tasting your own *****.
But hush now— we’ll skip the topic. Change the
subject. And bury that scent.

As she was sent; and of all the objects she takes
from the Beast—he cures grief with a sugar-coated sting.
But bittersweet is still a shade of sweet, it rots your teeth,
and maybe he works with the tooth fairy to collect what
decay leaves behind.

But in the cold, no one heals— they run to the hills,
as their heels are clicking in panic of snow-bitten ground.
Perhaps this time, Little Red took the wrong road—
and the wolf she met, has grown hungrier from
feasting quietly on empty bones.

      ....there's no-one to save her at all.

Oh yes, I deserve to be touched like a song —
The kind that hums warm beneath your skin,
Truly the kind of verse that lingers after it's gone,
Feelings like lips chasing honey, aching to begin.
I'll be a hundred miles out of breath; no ease —
Not to drift through love like life’s just a breeze,
But to feel the weight of it, strong and long —
Not to breeze through kisses like they don’t belong.

Let me find the centre of her hive, even if it stings —
I’ll wear the wounds for the sweetness it brings.
And I'll give buckets of love — let her be my list,
Filling up her day as a bucket list; every joy I’ve missed.

☐ To check myself daily — am I still right for her?
☐ To write emotional cheques that mirror her worth
☐ To admire her skin like diamonds, her hair like dusk
☐ To breathe in her scent — warm myrrh, not just musk
☐ To love her as one who's fully unmasked and just,
☐ To rise beside her in creation; like Adam from the dust
☐ To speak smooth words not to convince, but soothe
☐ To be her steady stillness, to be her rhythm, her truth
☐ To warm her up like tea after long, many loud days
☐ Then to spill the tea of our day, in the softest ways
☐ To hold her close where she can safely freefall
☐ And to keep my arms armed, but never build up walls

‘Cause everyone’s quick to think love peaks with *** —
But true touch starts when the soul, and another connects.
Where her rivers rush not from the waist, but from her heart,
And your love leaves graffiti on her walls, becoming fine art.

As you don’t paint over passion — you trace, and extend,
As you learn and value all of her curves, love and her bends.
To be a market of marvels; variety with depth in store —
So she aches with wonder for what's in store.

She truly deserves more.

Not every people are your people —
but in that same breath, everybody needs you.
Going round the city, and round the clock,
where times are always hard, like the past
we keep wearing; all the ones we hang up.
As someone called me, and I answered
quickly, frequently, honestly; just to hang up.

Funny how that’s what we do with people too.

Fingers of strangers scrubbing their own
dishes, while dishing out cold remarks —
serving my character as tonight’s leftover dinner.
And still, I stay on their minds without an address,
resting in dreams without a mattress; in the scripts
they write, I’m some recurring actor or actress —
But I don’t have the stamina to be running through
someone else’s head for free; dressing for their occasion
while my self-worth turns into something old fashioned.

And the idea of pushing a lawnmower over grass
that’s not mine, just to keep the image they clipped
of me, cut and well-trimmed - cuts me short of worth.

I’m always cut short for time, by that very blade.
Could it be a blade of grass or time itself?
Either way, it leaves another scent in the air —
the smell of success I’m still chasing.

Not every people are your people —
there are some paths, you won’t walk.
And some eyes, you won’t meet.
And some connections? You just hang up.

All the stars are falling down.
Make a wish —
maybe we’ll fall in love
before they hit the ground.
And if it fails, I guess we’re
just crashing down.

                                     To shot my shot, and try to be
                                     your shooting star —
                                     aimed so high,
                                     but I was falling too fast
                                     at the sight of your brown eyes,
                                     soft as cosmic dust.

I’m the dusk, you’re the sun —
and if we make love
to make a son,
will that light save us,
or are we still just crashing down?

                            Until then - hold me in the silence
                            between the boom and the burn —
                            where gravity forgets us,
                            and stars don’t return.

And if we’re meant to fall,
then let it be together —
two sparks in the dark,
pretending we’re forever.

                          Even if we burn out
                          before the dawn,
                          at least we lit the sky while
                          we were on.

All my words are like acoustic strings; all of their emotions
black & white like piano keys. It's love & pain intertwined
My passions all leak at a metronome pace—then suddenly,
it feels like a nosebleed. Being both beautiful & painful.
As I am an email for love, sent with all my attachments.
Like music, it gets all too tedious— as these aren’t poems,
not really— just signatures, kinships inked in flesh-toned
vaults, keen to sound like truth.

I'm vying in so many dry pastures, lost in this unsatisfied
fullness— an emptiness echoing into emptiness. Still, there’s
no shame in surrender; to put everything on the line—
hanging out in the sun. To dry, wrinkle, & fade.

As my pride wasn’t just another persona, somewhere on
the clothesline. I’ve been worn thin by time; knocked down
by life with a clothesline. But still I rise, with my neck back
on the line. Destined to shine, but to you, dearest child…
these things take time.

Concrete coffee grounds — stapled receipts;
messages from exes you’re not ready to delete.
It’s quiet now, filled with dead conversations —
a well-kept cemetery.
Ceremonies in eyeballed crowds, proclaiming
falsehoods of love in soft languages.
Meets and greets, all speaking the lies we
feed ourselves; sandwich boards worn like identity.

Some days, bored with myself, as I draw away
from a good time like a thin sketchbook filled
with half-drawn, abandoned things.
Pulling my heart from my chest like a drawer.
An artist, talking to his shadows —learning from
my old self like it’s shadow.

Avoiding those who tease with wet mouths of lies,
but kiss with dry tongues. Parched —
but maybe just too thirsty for love.
Being caught in a drought: a crumb of eye crust,
tinted with dry grass.
Still, I’d set myself on fire just to be noticed —
willing to be her wild campfire.
But even those fires need feeding.
You can’t give it all until you’re ash —
and watch them move on to another flame.

Making you feel not wild enough.
Staring at the ugly person in the mirror —
and what’s left after the smoke clears?
It's no longer a game of smoke & mirrors

Don’t go making the joke — you know, the one
that always hits a girl’s bad note. I used to laugh too…
until I got the notes on the subject, and learned,
this isn’t a punchline, but instead hits a girl like
a gut punch. The red dragon that cramps up in
its cave, where swinging at her mood swings
doesn’t make you brave.

She’s in the tide of her red-letter week — a storm
swelling beneath soft skin. Appetite shifts, touches
itch instead of soothe, and even thoughts lose their
rhythm, like radio static in a room full of noise.
And sometimes it's hard to think straight when
your own body is pulling sideways.

And those bloated comments... they don’t ease anything.
It’s a different pain for every woman, but one shared
thread: that you don’t get to add to it. As we may not
understand the full weight — but we can choose not
to pile more on.

And if you’re thinking of making a joke about it…
don’t. Period!

Sigh! It comes like a train — an express line through
my thoughts, no stops, no warnings. Oh how
DEPRESSION clips at my heels, familiar as shadow,
unwelcome as memory. Defeated — like sunlight
pressed to branches too burdened to bloom. My heart
hangs in moss — heavy, strangled in the green silence
of old grief.

Tears lean like leafless trees, bowed in all directions,
yet rooted in a place with no direction — a forest dying
quietly, where even the familiar trails feel like ghost
roads I no longer recognize.

I feel short of worth — like coins counted in silence,
never enough to buy the currency of being loved.
I glow in daylight, but dusk takes its due —
and now I dim with every breath.

I try to speak, but end up forcing books down my throat,
pages crammed with words I never learned to say.
But you’ll never see me cry in public — I’m an island
left off every map, burying bottle messages even
I won’t recover.

I have so much hopeful words for others, but I’m
a stack of unread stories to myself; a pen that dries
before I can name the ache.

And somewhere inside —I find a red box with hidden
compartments, each one meant to hold something sacred.
But they echo when I open them — soft, hollow
reminders that even my soul has forgotten how
to fill its space.

I’ve got finger stitches — love handed me needles;
the attentions of spiraling vines; some bear grapes,
but not all are ripe with maturity, some just needless.
Burning every bridge while the sky stays divinely nested,
and I’ve tied these knots around my tired heart,
left admiring birds of a feather — but never flying
south together — all bested.

They press your buttons just for their luck to press —
dim suggestions also light up the road to regret
Lessons in subtle form and silent —whatever mistakes
you walk into and out of, never forget their steps.

Hiking with joy into the last light of sunset; yes, we can
fall in love like the sun falls behind a mountain crest —
rising bright by morning, but crying in the dark —
perhaps this isn’t love yet.

And that’s okay.

Life is a wonder —no wonder I still wonder
how I made it to today. Life is what you make of it —
not like a butler who serves, but a self-made shape
you forge from struggle and grace.

We judge with our eyes, but on Judgment Day,
it won’t be our eyes that matter. And when that day
arrives —whether we walk or run to heaven’s gate —
know that love won't wear the form you tried to fit
into every heart.

To love in part means sometimes we must depart —
leave behind space wide enough for stars to breathe.
The emptiness you find may feel vague, but it’s where
meaning stirs quietly, and the hopes you laid on a lover
might be the very hope that led you astray.

We leave this place as ashes — but never to rest
in an ashtray. Because even dust has destiny,
and fire never forgets what it once warmed.
Life is a wonder — in both a good and bad way.
And maybe that’s enough.

Life isn’t always so amazing —
it’s a network of paths, tangled and shifting,
Where choices loop back,
and clarity takes the long way home.
But it’s not a maze thing.
There’s no clever exit, no final door.
Just detours, delays,
and questions that don’t come with maps.

It’s a hostile universe —not always loud,
but indifferent in the quietest ways.
A basic existence where even the basics
don’t always feel like they’re enough.
You breathe, you eat, you sleep —
but some days you feel so empty.
Like the days are leaning too hard
against your chest.

Some days, survival feels like success.
Other days, it feels like something
just shy of being a complete failure.
But even in that, there’s a small defiance —
to keep walking anyway,
to speak kindly into the static,
to carve out a corner of warmth
where no warmth was promised.

Not because it fixes the universe —
but because it changes you.
And maybe that’s enough
for now.

Two-step verification — it takes two to fall in love,
but that’s yet to be confirmed. Grinding gears just
to talk, shifting through awkward conversations,
but we can’t reverse all the bad things we’ve said
at those rushing high speeds.

Lovers with underwear conversations, trying to fix
what they barely understood, so unaware of what’s
really the problem. We run into relationships holding
open scissors —the result? Just another love story
cut too short.

But teach yourself to love someone new, still maybe
the lesson won’t stick. So brace for impact when they
say, "I truly love embracing you."

And I feel like Saturday news — as they talk about us
like weekend headlines. They say I left my imprint
on you, but that just comes from being pressed for
a time, rushing to report every mistake before the
feeling fades.

Needing nothing — and in the same breath, needing
each other. Yet neither of us has anything long-lasting
to give. To love someone with real deep depth while
they only offer surface depth. Lurid entertainments.
Frozen, unflattering coitus. And quoting someone else’s
expressions because we’re too shy to speak out our own
love language.

Two people, extending their existence — but modern
love feels like this: one of us still alive in the moment,
while the other is just living in a picture without you
in the end. ////// You claimed to be bound to each
other, but it was really bound to end

God smiles. The devil always laughs— in a world where one
man can be a hero to all, but never a hero to themselves. But life
is life, and that’s something we all have to live. Growing ****
for hands, doing your best to explain all of life’s noisy jazz.
Improvising grace with filthy tools, sculpting silence from
the din. Finding gains from feeding peas to peace— small
offerings to vast ideals. But we’re all just boiling in the ***,
seasoned with hope, too numb to scream it all out.

Guess I’ll be filming a field of angels, watching them grow
into a movie I’ll never get to see. Faith on reel, a fate unreleased.
Goodness is easier when it’s clinical; cut, clean, and color-coded.
But look too closely, and even virtue starts to rot under the
microscope. But good to know most prefer playing doctor
to ever being a patient— yet none of them have the patience.
It's just one's self-diagnosis without much reflection.

Guaranteed: casual racists smiling their remarks so sweetly
that even the laughter sounds like applause. But I less applaud
for I’m more appalled – but we all live in a world.

Two wild tales to tell — there are two stray dogs chasing
pedestrians again. That’s the story they’re telling the authorities.
Meanwhile, on a sunnier day, a ledger’s pages yellow daily —
all outlasting the smoke of all the fires you swore were for your
own good. Cigarette-stained fingers; noir pages of a crime scene
unnoticed — that’s what it feels like, loving someone who’s
stopped seeing you as their focus. Funny, isn’t it? They stole
your heart but make you feel like a thief, for stealing all of their
time. They claimed they needed space, but weren’t they the ones
who first called you, their star?

The mirror in your bathroom is cracked; you can’t wash
it with your tears. But hasn’t the bathwater been quietly
counting them all?
____________

Now, there’s finance to be contemplated — those complicated
relationships, where compromise is contemplated, but then
quietly makes things complicated. But let someone hand me
a sans discussion —they’ll only subtract the font of my love
language, erasing the letters of my love before I’ve spelt them
out. To say we don’t talk like we used to. But truthfully?
We never spoke that deeply at all. As a lot of people still
drown in their shallow thoughts.

A touch of time —
feels like marigold marmalade,
like spending slow summers together.
Syrup-dripping tears sting as they stick
to your face, attracting bees; and those
jarring truths of a dream unfulfilled.
It stays sealed in glass—sweetness
postponed, a closed jar never tasted.

You plant a flower of hope in the smallest
of gardens, and prove that even a drop
of nectar can fertilize your faith.
You want to rest in blessings, but
blessings move — so must you.

You pray for daily bread, but life
kneads your hands into making it.
You earn your piece, then spread it
like marigold marmalade on warm bread.

Because life isn’t so sweet; dreams only
taste a little once you finally get a bite.
And Lord, could we be forgiven for
craving the fruit of another’s labour?
As we mistake living for pleasing —
and forget to live for our destined reason.

Practiced hope becomes the sermon we preach —
Seeking justice, and trying to live peaceably; but
Even peace has weight — bone, muscle, presence;
And some days, I feel so lost in this present.

Slipping into reflections, my mirror-skin cracks.
When all the smiles I wear shift with the script —
All these different moods, and a different cast.
The broken hands of time can't be set in a cast,
Yet we keep fishing for love, throwing out our
Hearts, trembling hands; hoping it's a good cast

For youthful exuberance — my crustacean lips
Would sometimes sound cleverly selfish.
Saying I want everything, but never speaking  
The language of real and given effort.

Still, everything you long to hold completely
Asks for patience — love, answered prayers,
Dreams and hopes —lest they drift from us,
Being quiet as uncast lines on still water.

Plotting a course toward destiny isn’t as romantic as it sounds.
Some days, I feel like I’m walking on half-baked schemes rather
than solid plans—improvising hope on cracked pavement.
There’s a “field of dreams,” sure, but not the kind where the
grass is greener. Instead, it’s overrun with the weeds of
disappointment—unwelcome thoughts I have to keep plucking
from my mind before they take root. As I try to find cover under
the so-called tree of life, but even its shade feels uncomfortable.
Too warm. Too uncertain. And rest doesn't come so easy when
your thoughts are always so heavy.

And tell me—if someone else’s life came with a perfect promo,
polished and so promising, would you still blame me for
my FOMO? I mean, what if their dream life is the one I was
supposed to live? What if I just missed the sign-up link? To catch
myself trying to live out the picture of someone else’s success,
because this life of mine? It’s painfully YOLO. And I try to
keep my horses steady, but envy isn’t exactly a stable creature.
It wears me down, day by day, like I’m stitched together by
Polo—fashionable on the outside, but worn-out underneath.

Failure, though? Now that’s the real villain. It doesn’t just sting—
it lingers, like emotional PTSD. It makes you flinch at the idea
of trying again, as if effort itself is a pointless punishment.
And fingers? Oh, fingers love to point—especially at people
who haven’t gotten far. But when it comes time to point out
themselves, they suddenly feel too short.

Still, I keep my fingers crossed, quietly hopeful I might achieve
something real—something I truly want as a need. It’s a bright
hope, exhausting in its intensity. But even in darkness, there’s
always the flicker of a new light waiting to be found.

Giving myself odd looks, while trying to even the score—
pointing out my faults like counting sins on abacuses.
Too many to tally, and every action I take I just hope
adds up to something. But I’m outnumbered by myself.

Feels like an inverted midnight— too heavy to be noon.
Doing the most, while barely praying at all— maybe
because doubt multiplies faster than faith settles.

Failures pile up like fractions with no common
denominator— just me, subtracting reasons to believe,
dividing purpose by disbelief, and hoping somehow
I’ll solve it all to find some peace.

Trying to count what I can still hold, not out-of-hand
habits or dust-covered promises. My Bible feels more
antique than answers— pages heavy with silence
until I wiped it off and saw… another layer still
hiding underneath. Like dusk, again. But this time,
I opened it— and let it open me.

I guess now, the night we met is just a memory—
    a self-portrait without ****** features,
Only streaks where tears once ran, as the image
   is so blurry, but I still see myself
Running back to you… too easily.

It’s such a sad picture— an enigma, half-painted
   with eager thoughts quietly bleeding
Into the ink of doubt, each brushstroke pulling me
   further from the truth I never wanted to name
Now it just hangs… so awkwardly crooked

You left me walking alone in this gallery
           of only terrible memories.

Tragedy never seems to run out;
a cat runs through traffic —
and unfortunately,
    it finally
        ran out of lives.

Time doesn’t weigh much — even when you’re fed
every second of it. Food for thought piles up like
leftovers, a full plate of ideas you never quite digest.

We serve our dreams once they wake, laid bare beneath
an open space —hoping stars will shine back on what
we once believed in. But from a distance, everything
looks so harmless — get close enough, and it burns
through our skin. Dreams, truth, love — they all come
with scorch marks when held too long.

Time steals slow, but mistakes move fast. You step
wrong and feel it instantly — unless your pride is
a glass slipper, and you’re too enchanted to feel the
crack. Because it’s one thing to know what you’re
not — you’re not a clock spinning past reason,
you’re flesh and fatigue, and this life… it winds down.

A broken clock still gets it right twice a day — but a
broken person has twice the time to bury themselves
or choose to rise and heal.

I am a silhouette that’s almost human —
a wishful thought, a half-formed tune.
A path that doesn't circle back,
no map, no rewind, no past to track.
I’m a gunfighter — my words are the bullets,
time the outlaw I’ve hunted in dullness and pullets.
As I’ve killed it slow in many hours lost,
paid my thrills in tears, but never knew their full cost.

I’ve held a love like a flood — wild, rushing, raw,
then dried out in its drought, begging heaven for more.
I chase new highs like I’m being chased —
while fear cracks at my heels, but I still keep pace.
I smile like bravery wrapped in so much doubt,
as each piece of laughter is a whisper trying to shout.
And see that my eyes have carried their tearful ache,
and never the cherry on top of cheerful cake.

But still —
I’ve done the hard things though trembling inside,
lived among broken people; the ones who’ve also cried.
And I may not be whole so often, but I’ve learned to feel,
in every fractured moment — to be something real.

Crowd noise — silent tones said under my breath, as my faith’s
HP is beeping so loud, that I’ve learned to ignore it. I’m semi-
crawled, half-walking toward a maze of unknowns, given just
enough truth to fold and tuck inside the mind.

But I guess it’s the advice to mind your step… especially when
overstepping your reach, as the hand that lives in poverty often
feels cut short — and life itself is even shorter. You exercise
your right to live, but the final test is only passed at your passing.
And right now, I’m growing into my own powers, but even I can
get overpowered by my pride — refracted slightly; border-jumping
into lives I was never really invited into. An alien, indeed.

See me hovering like a UFO above heads that don’t know me, but
still see me appear in their atmosphere. And I don’t fully enjoy this
alienation… and sometimes I wish I could just land and be human —
and to actually feel grounded on this Earth, so that the atmosphere
of my prayers don’t feel so tight. As the atmosphere of a prayer feels tighter when the pain of your struggles, wraps its hands around
your ribs — a tightened breath, and even tighter belief.

When it gets so hard to say thanks when you’re hurting, harder
to say Amen when you're unsure if the line still connects. As the
mind feels so crowded — a room full of voices, echoing opinions,
guilt, hope, and noise. And sometimes I wonder if the silence in
between prayers, becomes the answer to help me feel better with
it all.

Beating a stigma
 with a stereotypical stick — as they tell me  
“Do stick to your kind” if I ever hope to suite in.
But trying to suite in never really means you’ll fit in —
it just means you’re dressed for the part, and not the room.

Because when the interior world doesn’t match
the exterior’s performance, the walls echo as a stranger.
    Being “mysterious” is still a bit of a mystery to me —
Especially when society’s own boundaries blur like
  breath on glass. So they’ll corner you with regulation
and call it freedom. But the regulars aren’t in order.

Again, boundaries do blur,
  like lines drawn with wet chalk.
Regulations - written by those who keep changing the page.
Still, society will corner you and call it “open space.”
The regulars aren’t in order. They call us too young to be this
    tired, by this idealistic age, that has us exhausted by reality.

Some mornings, I hate being told “Good morning.”
It sounds too bright for the kind of dark I’m carrying around.
My face? Is mundane by necessity. And I’ve surrendered to
the grey — because bright ideas can get you darkened these days.

Memories always haunt us —
   but we never get the gift of being ghosted by our pasts.
We are phantoms in the present, shadows behind the future,
hoping to step into the light without burning.

But let’s make light of the struggles we face, and not
just fight demons in the dark. The dark is their territory —
but the light is where we name things without shame.
Cos in the weekly sense — you wear your weakness
  like cologne, but cover it in the smile of a pretend-bright today.

Time...

Tell me — how much does it cost? ****, I don’t know.
I’m just trying to keep watch on the blessings I’ve got —
but more and more, they seem to stretch thin... like needle
and thread, barely holding the seams of me together.

I’m fading in connection. A rock flips — and I’m ******,
yet still trying to show decent manners. A “decent citizen”
in the dirtiest world — where the canopy of utopia is just
the Tree of Life man’s always itching to cut down…to sell
its fruits, to chop its wood, just to make pencils — so we
can write stories about it in our edited history books.

Love…

Tell me — what’s a dropout lover, anyway? Not one
who failed love — but one who stopped trying to graduate
from failed attempts. A degree in hopeless romanticism,
and a Master's in being a bachelor — but if time is really
worth it all, then tell me… what all do you really have?

Just a handful of yourself and a whole lot of doubt.
Now... what’s that about?

Two ties to a screeched past —still scratching
at the crust of blessings, just praying the miracle
comes wrapped like a lottery win. I've got creative
thoughts on command — I’m a poet in general,
drafted into survival, writing lines inside a starving
chocolate box, where sweet words can’t keep you fed.

They say they’ll pray for you, but it all feels like a
soft-spoken nothing; a sugar packet of sympathy that
dissolves too quick. Good intentions catch my eye
from time to time, but I’ve learned to watch the fine
print, because love these days comes with a return policy.

They spread your “daily bread” with butter, but the knife
I return is always too blunt, so when someone messages
out the blue and I ask, “Okay, what is it you want?”

Rung by rung, I hang here, along with the clothesline
of everyone’s ***** laundry ready inside; to air it out.
Willing to play into the villain — but never mind that
every villain was once just human, walking around
with personal vendettas to air out.

But I remember a child — nuzzled into sleep, dreaming
of the nozzle, not a pacifier… reliving wars they never
asked to see, in a world  that’s grown cold enough to
make you breathe in snow and spit out fire, burning
down the globe just to feel some heat.

We own so little, yet feel owed so much.
We carry too much, but hold on to nothing.
All that we know… is that even our knowing
has become a debt we never asked for.

Tomorrow’s eyes watch me —
but I am blind until it arrives.
To cease to exist feels like a ceasefire
in time, where I burn away inspiration
on the fumes of an energy drink.

Notebook scribbles doing their best
to unknot all my thoughts —
tangled passions poured out in pen.
This art… it’s love in its messiest form.

Beneath every star, there’s a space
between us — these stained brown eyes
aching for more time, more ink, more breath
to write out the seconds before they disappear.

The pen, a formless weapon — shaping
silence into meaning, turning pressure into
prayer, forming words to be.