Whose pen commands the garden of her grief?
The vines grow perfect—never choke the gate.
Each thorn arranged, like pain seeks its relief
In blooms too neat to carry real weight.

She sings like sirens housed in mirrored halls,
A practiced ache that never truly breaks.
Each echo wears a mask, each silence stalls—
A thousand deaths, but none that rattle stakes.

Is she the ghost, or just the mourning veil?
A candle lit to cast a gentler shade?
The wax runs clear, the flame too soft to flail—
Like sorrow dressed for show, not meant to fade.

The plains of the highlands were dry
Succulents, monsoons, morning dew
Arid land yet perched homes near the sky
Some existence simply making due

The string and the tether
Something more than ever
A clear sky, no weather
This longing for better

Storms see the means
Clouds reconvene
Darken the sky
Electrify

The people they flee
Escape travesty
Flashes as scores strike the ground
Pelting rain, deafening sound

Everything built
Falls too fast
Usurpers of
Our mother’s throne

Years of nature
To atone
Green she creeps
Now she’s alone

Of failure,
Forgotten, unknown

You say you are the background—
but I've seen the way shadows bend light.
Even absence can leave fingerprints
on the glass we think is clean.

To recede is its own kind of dance—
a soft gravity, pulling without touch.
There is power in being still,
but stillness too has shape.

Are you silence?
Or are you waiting to be named?
Because background is never neutral.
It is the stage. The scent. The sky that swallows all.

And I don’t fear what hides—
only what hides in beauty.

*If you speak, I’ll listen—not to echo, but to understand.

They want bodies.
Warm, compliant bodies. Moving parts.
Hands that open doors and flip switches.
Spines that bend but don’t break.
They want eight hours of labor, plus the commute,
plus the side hustle,
plus the ever-present smile that says,
"I’m lucky to be here."

But bodies need rest.
And there is nowhere to rest.
No shoebox. No storage unit.
No couch, no floor, no friend with a spare key.
Just asphalt and backseats—if you’re lucky.
Just parking lots and fear and pretending to be fine.

We’re told to buy the things that prove we’ve made it:
the ergonomic chair, the smart toaster,
the streaming subscription that numbs the noise.
But where do we put it?
Where do we live with it?
They expect us to consume while we disappear.

They want machines
—but with human elegance.
They want efficiency
—but with soul.
They want labor without the laborer’s needs.

We are the product and the producer.
The face and the function.
They demand dignity at the front desk,
but deny it in the zoning map.

We work full time,
and still live in our cars.
If we have one.
If it hasn’t been towed or repossessed.
If there’s a safe place to park without being harassed.

Why?
Why can you clock in at dawn,
and still sleep under stars you didn’t wish for?

Because they want bodies.
But they do not want the burden of keeping us alive.

Don’t ******* call me
like you didn’t grind me down
to bone and breathless compliance.

Don’t ask how I’m healing
when you handed me the wounds.

You used my body
like it was a rental—
no oil change, no thank-you.
Just mileage and abandonment.

You praised my resilience
while watching me split.
You called me devoted
because I crawled back bleeding.

I was your hospice—
not your lover.
Your proof of concept,
not your partner.
And now you wear compassion
like a new coat
over the same rot.

I see what you’re doing.

You want my silence
to sanitize your story.
You want to use my dignity
as a character reference.

You want me to pretend
you didn’t **** me raw,
leave me rawer,
and call it love.

You want me to pick up
just so you can hang up
with a cleaner conscience.

But I’ve learned
that ghosts don’t need phones.
And abusers don’t get closure.

So here it is:
the only call you’ll get—
straight from the wreckage
you refused to name:

You don’t get to rewrite me.
You don’t get to remember me gently.
You don’t get to touch this ruin
with clean hands.

(for my floofy derpy boi)*

You were never built for stealth—
a black blur of static and fluff,
three feet tall on hind legs
but softer than garage smoke in summer.

Bugs survived you.
Couches forgave you.
And every room you entered
adjusted to your gravitational field.

They named you S.T.P.—
some lubricant ghost from Arizona asphalt,
but I knew you were more riff than oil,
a slow groove in cat form.
So I called you Stoney.

Because you looked like a soundcheck
and moved like a stoner god,
missing flies with commitment
and knocking over your own shadow
just to watch it fall.

You were the only thing in that house
that didn’t hide.
You lived—floofy and absurd,
like a bassline with fur.

And now you’re somewhere else,
in a room I can’t enter.
Still shedding joy on furniture
I no longer recognize.

But I hope you’re derping with pride,
haunting someone else’s blinds,
letting your purr shake loose
whatever silence they carry.

I still hear you sometimes,
a phantom thunk from shelf to floor.
A tail flick in memory’s corner.
Still Stoney. Still rolling.

Step by step,
no louder than breath—
I walk beside
what isn’t mine to name.

No banners,
no blueprints,
just this sound
of stone learning softness.

You open a window.
I keep the door unlatched.

Let fear finish its echo.
Let the dark chants drift.

Not all ruin is ending.
Some of it
is soil.