What a strange request
To beg the dawn to sleep once more,
To bid the tide retreat, forget
The footsteps swallowed on the shore.

Alright now then, what’s next?
The turning page, the ink that bleeds,
The tethered soul who dares reflect
A child’s dream lost in grown men’s deeds.

Mourn me the wonder in my eyes,
For in its place, a hollow gloom,
No star remains,
Only the shadow of a bloom.

Never thought I’d hold those days
Like yellowed scrolls in trembling hands,
Illiterate to youth’s own phrase,
Yet reading now what time demands.

How can it be? This ticking crime,
this slow betrayal dressed in time?
This slow betrayal robed in grace?
Let me vanish in their wake.

The darkness of night was torn apart by dawn,
Its fragile edge softening the gloom that had long held on.
From the love his soul had dared to find,
The weight dissolved, the light unbinds.

And the sky—oh, how it dances in the river’s embrace,
Its living waters, a mirror for grace.
He wakes—or thinks he does.
Is this dreaming? Or has he shed the fuzz?

No hum of dread, no weight that clings,
Just echoes of hope, as soft as spring.
He speaks until his shadow tires—
Yet she stays, closer than the shadow’s spires.

Her gaze, like scripture etched on reeds,
Lines that whisper what his heart needs.
In the black and white of her starlit eyes,
A galaxy stirs, infinite and wise.

She smiles, and it’s light—
Not the fierce glare of sun’s spite,
But a warmth that burns through winter’s frost,
Reclaiming what the years had lost.

The rivers, they continue their mournful hymn,
Pouring tears from edges brimmed.
Yet, by her side, they learn to dance,
Shaping dreams in a lover’s trance.

She brushes his hair, her touch so rare,
Calls him beautiful, lays his soul bare.
Her voice—a golden thread in twilight’s weave,
Binding a faith he once chose to leave.

The stars appear like lanterns lit,
Revealing dreams he feared would flit.
Yet tonight, beneath their watchful gleam,
His fears dissolve into her dream.

And there they sit, shoulder to head,
The living with the ghosts he’d fled.
The shadows that once held his heart in thrall,
Fade like whispers to her call.

For she is the dawn, her light supreme,
And he, reborn, wakes from the dream.

I felt the warmth, the closeness of my opposite,
But only in a dream.
I improvise a feeling I’ll never catch,
A storm behind a sealed door—
Locked away, swelling, ready to break.

Years and years grind against me,
Years and years grind against me,
Brass coins for a soul, silver tongues for deceit,
Golden crowns too heavy to wear.
Not the price I planned to pay.
But if I must, then let it not be dull,
For neither my ancestors nor their ghosts
Ever feared I’d live like this.

It is a burden, an ache in my chest,
My young heart and my old soul
Reaching for a kind of love that drifts miles away.
My insecurities, my fallen, wounded dreams
Hang heavy above my head.

Rest now, rest now, soul,
Let yourself be fed.
Far away, far away,
From Him whose name weighs heavy,
whose mercy outlives the silence.
If He hears not, still He sees.
Pray the pain away, pray the pain away.

Poison shall not touch your lips,
Fly now, fly now—run red, run free.

All gold and silver rather turn to dirt,
Rusting under time’s heavy breath,
Dissolving the viridian pulse of the trees,
Bleeding out the lapis hush of the sky.

A scent you cannot name,
A fragrance lost before it’s found.
A sight you long to see,

Pain and the sound of your own name, a curse.
Love that held you down, held you still, held you open.
Hope ripped out.

Enclosure and hands that fed, then struck.
The sharp edge of knowing too much, too young.
The mirrors you covered because you couldn’t stand the reflection.
The gnawing, the rotting, the self-destruction.

Gray in the soul,
Not the soft gray of morning fog,
But of the ash from a fire.

Pink, bounds the heart,
shivers the body,
makes the pupil bigger,
wets the dry eye,
untangles the lashes.

Makes slumber fall upon the restless wicked,
joys with the chest,
lets foolish ambition rest.
Colds the forehead with soft hands,
plays with the hair with silken strands.

Not a fire that devours, but one that warms.
Heat against skin frozen stiff,
a thaw that aches before it soothes.

Laugh, light and unburdened.
Voice, the hush between thoughts.
Eyes, a question left unanswered.
Absence, an ache beneath the ribs.
Name, a whisper that won’t fade.

A dream she had first.
A dream to escape from—or into.

Let the wronging lie in love,
and not the righteousness in fear.

If wait I must, let love abide in patience.
Love yet holds me not,
neither does it fade nor rot.

Her name lingers in ink-stained verses,
Yet her footsteps never trace my door.
I wrote her into a love eternal,
Only to find she read no more.

She was both the poet and the silence,
The muse who never turned my way.
Her absence carves my soul to ruin,
Her love—a grave where echoes stay.

So long as hearts can break, as time may grieve,
So long lives loss, and I shall never leave.

Oh humble sock, I sing to thee,
Soft guardian of my feet so free.
With threads of cotton, wool, or silk,
You cradle toes in warm embrace, like quilt.

From dawn to dusk, you serve with grace,
In every step, in every place.
A buffer ‘gainst the world’s hard ground,
In you, my comfort has been found.

In winter’s chill and summer’s heat,
You brave the elements, no small feat.
Through rain and snow, through sun’s bright glare,
With steadfast loyalty, you’re always there.

You may be plain, you may be bright,
In colours bold or shy and light.
But in your simplicity, I find
A solace true, a peace of mind.

So here’s to you, my knitted friend,
Whose quiet care will never end.
Oh humble sock, I sing to thee,
Your simple warmth, my soul sets free.

When she appears, dawn hides in shame,
It folds it's light.
Her eyes, twin fawns by the stream,
Framed by lashes that haunt like a dream.
I lean toward her as the thirsty lean,
To water’s edge in lands unseen

The font in her eyes—verses untold,
Etched by masters whose pens drip gold.
Each line I trace is a map to her soul,
A script where longing has taken control.

Her voice—like water over stone,
Soft, yet strong, wholly my own.
I need no riches, no kingdom’s throne,
Her smile alone makes the world my home.

I am a seed,
a husk of what once was,
a soil for what will become.

In this earth, my dead body is fuel,
flesh dissolving into the dark,
feeding roots that thread like veins,
pulling life from my decay.

Even in the loneliest of places,
where no eyes have lingered,
the trees stand as witnesses,
their leaves brushing whispers of acknowledgment.
The earth cradles my weight,
the air drinks my last breath.
Each moment, however brief,
leaves echoes in nature's memory,
etched in the bark,
traced by the wind,
carried by the quiet pulse of soil.

We live not in the length of our time,
but in the ripples we leave—
in the bending of grass,
in the songs of birds,
in the memories that hold us close
long after we are gone.

I am the quiet surrender to the inevitable,
the silence that gives way to green whispers,
a sacrifice to the bloom of tomorrow.

I do not ask for forever,
I do not beg to remain.
That I am in the roots, the wind, the rain—
That is enough.