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.[Voice like broken glass in a silk sock].

In the beginning, there was grit and stubble,
And morning’s mirror, cracked in gospel light.
He shaved with steel, not for the look—
But ‘cause the world don’t treat the soft ones right.

He wears a scent distilled from job rejections,
And legal threats scrawled red on unpaid bills.
Top notes: divorce. Mid notes: eviction.
Base note? Charcoal. Regret. And sleeping pills.

Hard-Life™—a fragrance forged in fights you lost,
In bar tabs paid with teeth and bleeding pride.
It lingers long, like silence after news,
Or knowing you were right—when no one died.

No citrus here. No dreams of Tuscan beaches.
No musk of gods, or mountain air, or snow.
Just smoke and bootblack, diesel, final warnings—
The scent of men too stubborn not to show.


.
A warm wind touched my face.
I walked out into the open space,
I saw a blurry, fading horizon.
Somewhere, you are,
I am here, after a sleepless night,
Writing another reflection,
Tired like an empty battery.

I do not like the masks that shout.
The fight over who is right.
I do not want an analysis.
I touch the bark of the tree,
I hug the birch with my arms.
I see its white pages,
Written with irregular lines,
Torn, fluttering in the wind,
Which I cannot read.

Her eyes look straight into me,
They understand –
How well they understand me.
The rustle of leaves lessens the tension.
Autumn will come soon,
The summer wind whispers to me:
This country, this language,
These people, these doubts.

This is not blind luck,
This is your blessing,
Purple, rainy months, a fleshy heart,
Falling hair, joy when relief comes,
Crying into a pillow –
So as not to disturb another’s dreaming
About the so-called reality.

Bare feet touch the ground.
I tread carefully on the edge of worlds,
To be both here and there
With my integrity.
I am everything and nothing.
I am gestures, epilepsy,
The belief that I see human thoughts,
Inconsistent with what they say.

Blue, sun, and somewhere you.
How good that you stayed.
When everyone was saying:
She is different,
She talks to ghosts.
You stayed, showing me
Your true face.
My thoughts strike from within.
Anger, helplessness, then tenderness
crash against an invisible wall.
The helmsman has set a course
for unsteadiness—
in an hour, maybe two,
another wave of doubt will come.

The sum of scenarios
weighs more than yesterday,
tattooing my soul from within.
I’m waiting,
freezing my tired mind.
Forget?
I can't anymore –
The anchor sank deep.
His voice rests in my depths.

I don't want to sail alone,
even though words of assurance
sound like a childish game.

I divide my loneliness into two,
adding up the “what ifs” –
I forgot the order of operations,
still remembering that my heart
beats slower, then faster.

I take a calm breath.
An invisible pin
pierces the back of my head.
It hurts—physically hurts—
But I won't back down.

I don't want to sleep.
I'm waiting for dawn,
for the solution to the equation
of my life,
with two unknowns.

I'm waiting
for those hands,
for that gaze,
for that smile,
for that warmth.
badwords Aug 8
Beneath the red glow of the lanterned flame,
Two dancers meet and set their steps in line.
One keeps the beat as though it were the same
Since first the devil taught him how to shine.

His fire leaps high; the crowd can feel its heat,
Each practiced turn a well-remembered show.
Yet while the rhythm makes his work complete,
The steps have nowhere further left to go.

I move beside him, not to take his place,
But shift the tune to see what else might play.
The floor becomes a wider, stranger space;
We find new shapes in night as well as day.

He holds his ground with admirable grace,
Each pivot strong, each landing firm and true.
Yet I drift outward, testing empty space,
And find fresh patterns blazing into view.

The devil smiles to see such steps unfold,
For heat alone won’t keep his ballroom warm.
The dancer’s art is not just to be bold,
But bend the blaze into another form.

The crowd may cheer the skill they understand,
Applaud the lines they’ve learned to love before;
But some will watch the one who shifts the sand
And wonder what else waits beyond the floor.

When music dies, the truth is sharp and kind:
The dance that grows will outlast any round.
To keep the flame is art of one clear mind,
But greater still to change the shape it’s found.
  Aug 7 badwords
Agnes de Lods
I sat on the edge of the bed.
You smiled.
I am your daughter,
But words mean to you
Something else.

I took your hand,
Telling you I haven’t slept for a year.
I write reflections,
Tame the voices behind my left ear,
Assemble thoughts about the darkness.

I pour a warm, salty liquid
That burns the skin – it doesn’t moisturize.
It helps me,
This pseudo-therapy.
I hide behind my nickname,
So that no one holds me accountable
For what I’m supposed to be.

You also sat up at night,
You read books.
You carried hidden sadness,
I stick a smile on my lips.

I hug people who carry Egregores.
You and I,
we are not afraid of the night.
Your hand is cold.
You smile,
You put together syllables into strange words.

You know that I matter to you.
I pretend to understand
What you wanted to say.

In a moment, it will get hard.
You’ll start screaming like a little boy,
Or again you’ll wait
Until this state of life passes you.

Life?
It’s a kind of space
Where people, because of fear
Bite and scratch
Like frightened, rabid dogs –
And then soothe it
With controlled tenderness.

I sit with you on the edge of the couch
And I think:
We write with the left hand.
We are beings of the night.
Our path was shared –
In fear, to protect a small piece of “I”.

I fear I’ll lose language.
I desperately defend myself against silence.
I dream of non-human languages.
I write words as if I wanted
To cast spells on reality –
Still, it’s not enough.
The anesthesia stopped working.

One day, this will be the end,
Yet as long as I live,
I’ll be the naive one.
That’s what I want.

I choose sweet, sugar-coated hope,
With pink sprinkles,
Telling myself that he, she
Didn’t mean to trample –
Only life pushed them
Into that dark corridor.

My hope
Is not a soft blanket,
This is a heavy, tight helmet.
  Aug 7 badwords
Malcolm
Can’t you see?
It’s time for me.
I’ve played the tune in lower key,
Where silence hums eternity.
So what’s the deal? I’ll keep it real,
I ain’t afraid, my bed is made.

I guess the devils got a place for me.

I’m not so bad when I know the truth,
Confessions end in a lonely booth.
I’ll see you there amongst the flames,
With Paul and Peter and St. James.

Oh I danced with doubt, drank with pain,
Slept in the gutter, sang in the rain.
Laughed at life, cried at death,
Made peace with ghosts and held my breath.

I lit my sins like cigarettes,
Watched 'em burn with no regrets.
The preacher screamed, “You still got time!”
But I was too far gone in song and rhyme.

The Devil’s got a place for me,
Front row seat, infernal heat.
I'll bring the wine, you bring the scars,
We’ll toast beneath those falling stars.
And if the angels disagree
Well, hell was always home for me.

I wore the guilt like second skin,
The price I paid to let light in.
But now I walk with open eyes,
No more prayers, no more disguise.

The mirror told me all I need:
I’m not the monster, just the seed.
Planted deep in doubt and dirt,
Grew thorns of rage from every hurt.

No choir sings for blackened grace,
But I still smile in this cursed place.
Don’t need no wings, I’ve got my voice
And fire is just another choice.

So use your brain, break every chain.
This world was wired to make you tame.
But in the spark, the mind sets free,
A thousand doors, infinity.
The fools obey, the brave create
And I walked right through the fiery gate.

The Devil’s got a place for me,
And that’s just where I’m meant to be.
Can’t bribe my soul, or buy my fate
I built this path, I sealed the gate.
So come on down, and dance with me
Where truth is raw, and we’re finally free.

Why don't you come down and join me.
But freedom's price ain’t peace or grace,
It’s seeing Hell in a clearer space.
You break the chains, then break some more
And find the Devil at your door.
The devils got a place for me.
07 August 2025
The Devil’s got a place for me
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
Originally written as a song
badwords Aug 7
It no longer fits.
Not because it’s wrong—
because there is
no longer
a shape for it.

It waits at the door
of a structure
that has sealed itself
to mystery.

No one silenced it.
No one feared it.
It was simply
not needed.

---

Not in fire.
Not in argument.
But through erosion
of context.

A slow recoding
of all signals
into currency,
and then
into noise.

It is not buried.
It is not archived.
It is
unrecognized.

You could hold it in your palm
and no one would call it a shape.
They would ask
what it is for.

And you would have no answer
they could use.

---

The system is not cruel.
It is
indifferent,
efficient,
alive in a way
that has moved past
texture.

It does not punish difference.
It dissolves it.

---

The ones who still carry it
do so improperly.
It cannot be shared
without being reshaped.
It cannot be translated
without being lost.

So they stop speaking.
Not out of bitterness—
out of futility.

Language becomes costume.
Gesture becomes content.
Feeling becomes
an old way
of being wrong.

They are not martyrs.
They are not rebels.
They are remainder.
Background error.

A trace.

---

Eventually,
the thought will be referenced
as a footnote to dysfunction.

Once, they dreamed in metaphor.

Once, they misused their time
to describe beauty
no one asked for.

The tone will be clinical.
A paragraph in the training module
on obsolete impulses.

---

No one will recover it.
Not because it was hidden,
but because no one is
looking
in that direction.

The shelf collapsed
years ago.
Its dust recycled
into something measurable.

If a trace remains,
it will be decorative—
a design choice
in a digital museum
of failed emotions.

A misread glyph.
A corrupted tag.
An unclickable file
in a format
no longer supported.

---

Still,
somewhere in the static,
a pulse misfires.

Not a message.
Not a warning.
Just the rhythm
of a shape
that refused
to dissolve.

It says nothing.
It means nothing.
But it does not
go away.
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