They do not speak of dying,
not in the quiet grocery line,
not beneath the flicker of café lights,
not when the sky loosens its robe of stars,
and oh, what a grave mistake.

For death is not some villain in a cloak,
but the oldest truth,
the shadow stitched to your soles,
the hush behind the heartbeat.
And if you dare to meet it,
not with dread, but with reverence,
you live.

Not someday.
Now.

With a fire that does not ask for permission,
you will step out of the anger rooms,
shed the shroud of “what will they think,”
and walk barefoot into your wild life,
untamed, imperfect, and exquisitely yours.

A child who has tasted death’s breath,
returns with eyes older than calendars,
not brave, but lucid.
Not reckless, but awake.

You see, it is not courage,
to sip the rain like wine,
to laugh so hard the stars come closer,
it is logic.
It is sense.
It is the compass of those who know the road ends,
so they sing while walking.

So love.
Not as a performance, but as a pulse.

Learn.
Not for praise, but for wonder.

Taste.
The peach, the kiss, the grief, the salt.

And leave behind no legacy but this:

That you were here.
Truly.
Madly.
Moment by moment, as a brief candle,
burning unapologetically in the wind.

There were words I loosed like doves in flame,
Believing then they sang my name.
They circled truths I thought were stone,
But time has taught me bone is bone.
It bends, it breaks, it mends anew,
And so, my thinking shifted too.

There were paths I carved with fervent feet,
Mistaking hunger for the heat.
I danced with shadows, dressed in pride,
I kissed ideals I now let slide.
Not out of shame, nor some disguise,
But from the way that wisdom sighs.

No, I wear no doubled face,
No costume stitched with sly disgrace.
I do not play at saint or sin,
But simply shed my older skin.
The soul, like sea, must ebb and swell,
What once was right may not still dwell.

Growth is not betrayal’s twin,
It is the echoing voice within.
That softens stone and clears the dust,
That asks, “What now deserves your trust?”
And so I rise, unchained from past,
Not fixed in marble, but made to last.

Judge me not by yesteryear,
But by the will that brought me here.
I bloom, I stumble, I redefine,
Each version still a thread of mine.
For even stars must shift their place,
And find new fire in endless space.

So let me change, and let it be,
A hymn to our humanity.
Not proof I’ve lost my truest hue,
But proof I’ve lived, and listened, too.

What if I told you, in hush not heard, but felt,
That the ache you name as longing
is the echo of a promise kept?
Not in some far-off fortune,
but in a chamber of the Now
where time folds in upon itself
like linen soft with memory.

You want it deeply, don't you?
That golden glint behind your ribs,
the ache that doesn’t bruise but burns,
not a wound, but a whisper.
It is not born of lack.
It is the future’s fragrant breath
blooming backward into your soul.

These aren’t dreams, my love,
they are breadcrumbs dropped
by a wiser You who’s already danced
through that doorway,
wearing the life you crave
like sunlight wears the morning.

Intuition isn’t guessing,
it’s remembering,
as the river remembers the sea.
Desire is not begging,
it is recognition,
a soul pointing to its own reflection
just beyond the veil.

So walk like it’s yours.
Breathe it. Speak it.
Dress your days in its colour.
Let the vision not be a someday shrine
but a mirror, a map, a marrow.

Because what you want is not ahead,
it is within,
waiting only
to be believed in.

I close the book, its spine sighs shut,
the whisper of a thousand nights drawn in.
A chapter folds like hands in prayer,
but not all endings are so clean.

The lantern dims. The room forgets.
Yet on my fingers, dusk still clings,
not with fire, but with a bruise,
of words that bled with shaken wings.

I turned the page; it turned me back,
a mirror’s glance, a hollow swell.
The tale is done, but silence keeps,
what ink refuses to quell.

The parchment sleeps, but I remain
marked by the shadows love once wore.
We name it "past", but past is ink,
and ink remembers so much more.

So let the book stay closed awhile,
beneath the dust, beneath the rain.
The lines may fade, but not the ache,
of what was written in hurried vein.

I do not know what waits beyond
This pale horizon’s shifting seam,
The road is fog, the stars are gone,
Yet still I follow some old dream.

No map, no mark, no prophet’s voice,
No compass etched in stone or sky,
Just breath and hush, a wavering choice,
To walk, though every reason asks me why.

Each footfall hums a softer tune,
Not brave, not bold, but something near,
A whisper shaped beneath the moon,
Not “Go,” but simply, “Still be here.”

And is that not what hope becomes,
A rhythm carried in the chest?
Not knowing where the morning drums,
But rising still, and doing our best.

So let the dark be what it is,
A cloak, a gate, a sea unspun,
My soul has learned the art of this,
To step, not seeing, toward the sun.

For poetry walks where language breaks,
In silences the heart completes,
Each step a faith the future takes,
Though blind, the path beneath me speaks.

Pain is not a fleeting shadow,
nor a thief that steals in the night.
It settles deep, like roots in earth,
clutching marrow, dimming light.

It speaks in whispers, sharp and raw,
etching echoes through the bone,
a language carved in silent cries,
a weight we carry, yet unknown.

Yet, even in its cruel embrace,
where sorrow stains the breaking dawn,
the soul remembers how to rise,
though weary, aching, battle-worn.

For pain is not a sovereign king,
though it may claim the throne awhile,
it bows before the quiet strength,
that lingers in a weary smile.

We learn to hold it, not to break,
to breathe through fire, soft and slow,
to meet its presence, eye to eye,
and teach it when to stay or go.

Through tender hands, through patient steps,
we weave our wounds with threads of grace,
allowing light to find the cracks,
where love and courage interlace.

For pain is but a passing storm,
it bends, it rages, and it sways,
but hearts that learn to bear its weight,
will find their peace in softer days.

So let it teach, but not consume,
let it shape, but not define,
for even pain, when held with love,
becomes a bridge from dark to shine.

I am but a fleeting phrase, a sentence in your tome,
A whisper in your journey, where countless voices roam.
Yet, in my quiet brevity, a universe took flight,
Filling shelves of boundless thought in the corridors of night.

The libraries you have built within my fragile heart,
Each word, a gilded memory, a masterpiece of art.
I penned your name in starlight, on pages bound with dreams,
Ink flowing like a river through love's eternal streams.

Your smile, the prelude to a sonnet soft and true,
Your laughter, the refrain that the poets always knew.
I've scrawled you in the margins of the world I hold inside,
Where metaphors of longing in endless echoes bide.

Each fleeting glance, a chapter; each touch, a verse divine,
Your presence is the epilogue where I would rest my spine.
Though I am but a sentence, your spirit swells my page,
A symphony of essence no volumes could encage.

My quiet voice may falter as your story carries on,
Yet echoes of my cadence remain long after the dawn.
For though the ink may dwindle, and time may turn to dust,
The libraries I have crafted will never know distrust.

I am merely passing through, a footnote to your tale,
Yet your light ignites my parchment, a flame that will not pale.
So leave me in your chapter, or let my lines erase,
For still, you are the atlas of my soul's most sacred space.