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 Jun 20 Damocles
Kalliope
You're quiet thunder
I hold storms behind my teeth
Still you heard the rain
If the sun never shines again,
And these clouds never clear?
Well, I've always loved the rain
And someone else will love it here.
 Jun 20 Damocles
Kalliope
I cradle hurricanes in my ribcage
while words swirl around my head.
I try to catch the good ones-
but mostly, I wish I was dead.

I do everything too much-
the joy, the sorrow, the dread.
Yet somehow, I’m never enough-
what a curious truth to be force fed.

If I laugh, it’s always too loud;
my mouth too sharp to make anyone proud.
Crying is a dangerous game,
I could sob away a city, drown in the blame.

My rage leaves no survivors,
as if I line people up on personal pyres.
When I vent, they hear preaching-
a sermon no one wants, a fear of my leeching.

I don’t love, I dissect-
obsessively search for the trap I expect.
I can’t just leave; I burn it all down-
the bubbly, funny girl wears a permanent frown.

I do too much and my inner child feels seen,
She's acting out, we aren't this mean
I just get scared when the vibe is off, and ruining the mood makes the blow more soft.

Despite the chaos I still crave love, an equal partner, wearing fireproof gloves.
If I weather your storms, could you handle mine?
Storm chasers have never been easy to find.
 Jun 19 Damocles
Traveler
Herbicide rich farm lands..
Pesticides on every lawn..
Long live the American dream!
Capitalism is a long lost song..

Roundup sprayed ski slopes and golf course turfs!
Bucket list of old rich folks dying of cancers..
City water that stinks..
The ink of our receipts..
Testosterone levels,
rapidly deplete..
Year’s of no regulation,
Aluminum in the sky..
They obviously want to make sure…
No one gets out alive!!
Traveler Tim
 Jun 19 Damocles
Kalliope
If I rewrite the narrative,
make you say things you’d never-
it hurts a little bit less.

If I picture you sending my screenshots,
laughing with your friends
about how I’m pathetic,
it hurts a little bit less.

If I melt the candy coating off your words
and read them as they are,
my chest doesn’t feel as hollow.
The pages rinse free of hope,
replaced with finality.

If I say it was just a game,
and now I have to log out-
close the window, shut it down,
you’ll never log back in.

My lungs can fill with air again,
My eyes remain dry.
This grief stops sitting on me,
I can stop wondering why.

You’ll always be
my favorite book I picked up-
but maybe you were one
I was never meant to read.
I wish I hadn’t stitched you into all of my fabric.
There’s nothing to do that keeps you off my mind.
You are everywhere and nowhere all at once-
like a ******* ghost seeping into all my rhymes.
 Jun 19 Damocles
Kalliope
I didn't say goodbye
I couldn't find the strength
No, I took the cowards way
And slipped out in the rain
I had a lot I wanted to say to you
About the way I've been feeling
I decided I couldn't say it
Out of fear your response interrupts my healing
Maybe you'd have begged me to stay
Or worse you'd have urged me to go
Neither response would be what I want
So I had to leave without letting you know
I know in my heart we will never speak again
There's part of me that hopes that isn't true
But I expressed my goals and intentions
Whatever does, or doesn't, come next,
Will be up to you.
 Jun 19 Damocles
badwords
There was once a child
born beneath the sign
of unburial.

She carried too much—
not in arms
but in tethered memory.
Things with no names,
only weights.

A cracked watch
that ticked in reverse.
A button from a coat
that no one had worn
in three generations.

A feather
from a bird
dreamt once
by her grandmother,
never seen again.

She believed—
as those marked by absence do—
that keeping meant remembering,
and remembering meant
nothing would vanish.

Others crossed her path,
offered to help unfasten the straps.
She refused.
They did not know
which talismans bled
and which only looked like wounds.

So she walked.
Through salt seasons,
through bone-rattling frost,
through forests with no floor
and skies that never asked her name.

The bag grew heavier.
She grew cleverer.
Silent.

And then—
on a day that wasn’t special,
under a sun that wasn’t kind—
she set it down.
Not as surrender.
As an experiment.

The earth did not crack.
The ghosts did not scatter.
Her shadow did not abandon her.

She sifted the contents.
Some were dust.
Some were still singing.
Some curled away like dried petals
and begged to be left behind.

She took a key.
She took the bell.
She left the rest
for the moss.

She walked on.

Not lighter, exactly—
but less governed
by the shape
of her grief.
 Jun 19 Damocles
Nobody
parents
 Jun 19 Damocles
Nobody
i'm afraid that i'm going to turn into you
i don't want to hurt people like that
i know everyone is afraid to become their parents but i really don't want to ruin someones life
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