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You are reading this
Because you are programmed to
Turn your brain on now
The feeling
The peeling
A reeling
In a can

A place
That’s ‘safe’
A home
Unknown

Dust, kicked into the air
Particulates everywhere


Abrasion
I stare


A cyclone of dust
Your want and must
I offer my trust
Decay and rust

Is this bust?

Softly
You decree
My difficulty
To see in me
What you see

I am hungover
On the dream
We drank
Together

I am addicted
And afflicted
Conscripted
And submitted

To your law

I am nothing
I am no one
Until you
Look at me

I am a mirror
I am a mirror

I am nothing
Until you look at me
If you get it, you lost it.


I am here
(On this platform it is evident for your reading now)
I express myself
(Heads scratching, wondering what and how?)


I share pieces of me
(A defragmented glimpse of an experience deemed ‘worthwhile')
Callous, sensuality?
(Or a traitor in sheep cosplay?)


A dead-end hi-way?
Or this pawn from yesterday?
Here, your final say


This family we never asked
Amontillado without it's cask
Dry and cheery
Heart’s are bleary
We own this laborious task

My sins are scrollable, thumbed in haste,
Wrapped in ribbons of curated taste.
A gallery of masks, all timed just right,
My shadow dances in the ring light.
What of shame when shame gets likes?
What of thought when thought’s in spikes?
I weep in drafts, but post a grin—
The world won’t wait for the shape I’m in.
So brand the bruise, then sell the hue:
A wellness tip in sponsored blue.
This self I host in feedback’s cage—
A pet, a post, a digital page.
I bare my soul (or just its shell).
You’ll never know. I sell it well.

I logged on seeking something undefined,
A tether, maybe—some reciprocal ache.
But all I found were mirrors misaligned,
Each smile too wide, each word opaque.

The comments pile like leaves, not read.
Applause from ghosts, replies from ghosts.
I feed the feed, it feeds instead—
A hunger that consumes its hosts.

I draft a truth. I dress it twice.
Add polish. Then delete.
I write in blood, convert to nice,
Make trauma fit a beat.

No lesson left. No higher shelf.
Just one more version of myself.
So many places
that I wanted to see.
I traced new paths on the maps,
softly, with my hands.

Certain journeys were never taken.
I will keep them in my memory.

I looked for the lost keys,
and I saved the never-bought tickets
in small boxes of my heart.

I smile at the happier people
through colored glasses,
held to my eyes.

This is my eternity closed into moments.

Walking alone by the Tiber’s side,
I entered the antiquarian bookstore,
finding synchronic sentences,
small insights,
and I came back with relief.

To my home—to myself.
Without excuses,
without doubts,
without fears.

Writing my song of the world
that flows through me.
The old reality transformed
into a new technological skin.

Now, when I open my window,
I breathe the scent of jasmine.
The rain after the storm is so calming.

I see my solitude chosen,
my friend,
my tender companion.

Being with her,
I am present
with all my senses.

Now,
the one who remains.
The only one.
badwords 12h
I wandered in where winds grew tame,
My boots half-mud, my throat all flame.
A village small, but sky so wide—
And there she was, with hands in rye.

She did not ask my name or song,
Just passed me tea, both steep and strong.
And though I came from lands unkept,
Her gaze was calm. The earth had slept.


She taught me how to grind the root,
To draw the balm from bark and fruit.
In her, the silence sang of rain—
A pulse beneath the orchard’s vein.

I tuned her father's fiddle bones,
Brought voice to what had once been stone.
She wept not once—just breathed and played,
And grew in light the dusk had made.


She grew the field. I grew the flame.
She called each beast, I carved each name.
Where she gave bread, I gave belief.
Where she gave balm, I offered grief.

And joy, and awe, and all between—
The dreams of places never seen.
She fed the belly. I fed the fire.
One kept the hearth. One climbed it higher.


“Stay,” she said, “and plant with me.
Let song take root beneath this tree.”

“Come,” I said, “and walk the wind.
Let fields be tales we never penned.”


But roots, like roads, cannot be one.
And dusk will bow to either sun.
She kissed my hand. I kissed her brow.
We loved in full. That was enough.


I go where roads forget their ends.
She stays where earth renews and mends.
Yet in the hush between two strings,
Her name is what my silence sings.

And in her fields, if wind is kind,
My stories echo through the rind.
Some loves don’t need a common ground—
They bloom where motion turns around.
Have you ever seen a person drown?



You fight, muscles straining as you reach--flailing helplessly toward what you need most. You can't stand it anymore as your body screams for oxygen. You gasp-- hoping, praying this is a dream, but a searing burn rushes down your throat and through your lungs as water floods in. It shouldn't be there, you know it-- every cell screams but it's too late, the water is inside and keeps flooding in. You reach for the light one last time, it filtering and bending into bright rays around your fingers. Your vision grows dull, your muscles no longer respond to what your brain is telling them to do. The light growing dimmer and dimmer as the last bubbles float to the surface. One last ray of gold slips through your fingers... Then nothing...



It's to be expected for any animal to struggle as much as possible while drowning in the water. Some will put others of their kind underneath them, just for precious moments of rest and survival.
So what do you do when you find a person overboard, drowning in the sea of black?
Naturally, I throw the life preserver in hopes that they will grab onto it and I can save them.

Remember what I said when some creatures will force their own kin under in order to live?
Well, what do you do with a creature like that?
Eventually, it's you or them. At this point, it's natural to choose you!
A lil practice on narrative structure. Hope y'all like it
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