Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
3 of us.
one at one end of the bar,
the other at the opposite corner,
me in the middle.
we are the ones that
didn't learn from past mistakes.

store clerk, janitor, fortune teller,
Insomniac, lost soul,
who knows.
truth is found in the silence
of minding your own business.

we didn't come here to talk to one another.

the bottle or glass
held with fingers too tightly.
the bottle or glass has a kind heart
understands
this is sanctuary
from memories stitched to bone
like shadows scattering....

(a flash of lightning, a splintering boom)

and then she walks in.
a rift in the barrier of worlds.

she bends the light, deepens the silence.

she spoke with a voice like the morning dove
with a melody that forgets your name.

she glides. each step deliberate, unhurried.

we turn, and bone shadows in a hush
whisper,
" beautiful"

and she knows it
too well.

the dream walker
lifts the veils of moonlit memory
and time unthreads
into the first shiver of love
that lures men to madness.             

and now done, suddenly
she turns around,

and walks out the door
(a flash of lightning, a roll of thunder).

the blinding white light
our hollow sky in disarray....

..."bartender, get me another double, and one,
for my 2 friends.

Charlie was in the hospital dying,
unconscious, and he says,
I'll have a margarita."

"hey, I knew Charlie."

"me, too." and then he says,
"my stock broker..."
these poems here
tethered to me
by some unknown
uncontrollable force
I didn’t ask for this
I didn’t ask for any of this
all I wanted to do was to play
with the women and the music
and maybe even my kids every now and then
not knowing, not caring,
not believing, not searching
for a higher purpose
for a greater meaning
for an elixir of divinity
but they have arrived
in different variances
& mass quantities
I didn’t ask for this
now it is here
I can’t stop
I won’t stop
until it kills me
until it kills something inside of me
until there is nothing left
except
these poems here.
these people

I can’t see them anymore
I don’t want to see them anymore
I have no desire to see them anymore

I never think about
phoning them or
messaging them or
stopping by to say “hi.”

I don’t care about
what’s happening
in their lives or
who they’re dating
or what memories
we had together

yet they insist, they demand
that I visit them
that I sit down with them
that I talk about nothing important
with them

and I can’t say no

because I know how it feels:

during those times,
when I was down and out
and needed someone
to turn to, to talk to
but there was no one around
I felt the terror & the darkness
constricting my cold and lonely heart
as all the vitality and connection was draining
from my ventricles of ire
like blood from a stone

and so much of that
over a lengthy period of time
has made me a lot stronger,
more independent from people
and maybe even borderline aloof
from all human interaction

I no longer need them
I no longer want them around

but I can’t let anyone
feel that same way
that I felt

so long ago.

pitiful.
I have been there before—
In the ache you now cradle,
In the waves that rise too high,
Tsunamis swallowing the soul
Where breath forgets how to return.

I have wandered oceans
Where hope was bait,
And shadows wore teeth—
Creatures of doubt,
Feasting on dreams half-formed.

I know the streets where darkness blooms,
Where even streetlights
Bow their heads in defeat.
And crossroads mock you—
Left feels wrong,
Right feels gone,
And nothing feels… anything.

But hush now, my dear,
I hear the tremble in your silence.
Don’t give up,
I trust the light still sleeping in you.
Don’t fear,
For my arms are open
Like dawn after a sleepless night.

I will wake you
With a whisper the sun understands.
I will hold you
Until your tears tire
And find their home.

Cry, my dear—
Let it out like rain on thirsty soil.
You are not broken.
You are a miracle in motion,
A poem still being written.

You matter.
Your breath, your voice,
Your quiet presence in this loud world—
All of it, born with purpose.

The ones you met—
The pain, the grace, the chaos—
All were stars on your map.

So now,
Lift your chin like a flower to the sky,
Straighten your back
Like the mountain you are becoming.
And walk—
Not to escape,
But to return to yourself.

Just walk,
One trembling, beautiful step at a time.
I’m right here.
Always.
It lives in Him breathes in his vitals,
Personifies him and nets out of his veins lethargy,
It dampens what his heart has in offer,
It lays in him waste,
a bewitched rower to this boat,
Who has yet to learn to stay afloat,
His obfuscations lead him sober,
His blind eye dictates his horror,
A pearl beyond imagination he has yet to attain,
To proclaim his name with no distain.
There once was a lass
who gazed upon the sky,
like a sailor’s widow
with eyes pining the sea.

A different ocean,
with clouds and birds—
not crests and reflections,
another kind of mirror.

A looking glass, yes:
one reveals past and present,
the other is a blank portal,
not yet formed; possibility.

Burdened by years of earth,
the girl reached up high.
To fly free in the skies,
a plan she did birth:

Simple avian appropriation—
"What could go wrong?"
Manufactured imitation—
"In the skies I belong!"

Remnants of spent candles,
some old pillow filling,
so easily on handle
to construct her wings.

And like that, she flew!
Never close to the sun,
no solar balance due—
destination once begun.

Wise to not create cracks,
a creature in the sky;
falsified wings on her back—
her presence flies on lies.

Nary a muster, ******, or flock
would take this creature in.
Unwelcome, artificial stock:
a lost and confused being.

"I have no nest, no call, no cry,
no wind-song born from feathered kin—
yet higher still I ride the lie,
if not a bird, then what has been?"


Her wings were stitched from want and thread,
a blueprint torn from childhood dreams.
She passed the clouds, yet still she bled—
unseen by all, or so it seems.

"You gave me wax, you gave me fire,
a name I wore, a borrowed skin.
I climbed the hush of false desire—
but never learned the wind within."


{fin}
She Never Fell is a contemporary reinvention of the Icarus myth told through a lyrical, ballad-like structure. It follows a nameless girl who constructs makeshift wings from household materials—spent candles, pillow filling, and broom handles—in an impulsive bid to escape the burdens of earth and ascend into the sky. Unlike the traditional Icarus figure, she does not plummet from the sun, but instead succeeds in her flight, only to find herself isolated, unrecognized, and existentially lost in the very space she longed to inhabit.

The poem unfolds in a linear narrative, beginning with her yearning gaze toward the sky and culminating in a confessional coda from the girl herself. Through a series of stanzas that blend fairy-tale tone with postmodern detachment, the speaker reveals that her wings—and her identity—are borrowed, artificial, and born of haste rather than transformation. Despite achieving flight, she remains alien to the realm she reaches, neither welcomed by birds nor grounded by truth.

The piece was written as a metaphorical exploration of personal appropriation and the illusion of autonomy, inspired by a former partner. The poem critiques the idea of transformation built from borrowed identity—where the tools of liberation (symbolized by fire, wax, and flight) are taken from another without full understanding.

The intent was to invert the Icarus myth: instead of falling from ambition, the protagonist rises—only to discover that success without self-realization yields a different kind of fall. The line “so easily on handle” becomes emblematic of this—the effortless, almost naïve ease with which we reach for escape, without understanding what we're leaving or where we're going.

The poem serves as both a personal reckoning and a broader commentary on the complexities of identity, desire, and the silent costs of artificial ascension.

— The End —