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550 · Jul 2024
Two Sides of the Coin
badwords Jul 2024
The man is mad but, he is fair
The hostages' fate flips in the air
The coin tumbles, two sides, a pair
Gravity steers to the man in his chair

"Fate" says the man, "is in our hands"
Result occluded, desperate strands
The verdict of nefarious plans
"We all want--NO! We demand!"

"We all believe there is something owed"
"A cache of treasure just for us, stowed"
"Our wealth for subscribing to control"
"A fruitless and folly toll"

The man of madness makes his reveal
The future of the captives it did seal
Heads or tails, bound they reel
Hopes palpable of a favorable deal

"It seems that you will all be set free"
A sigh emanates amongst the captive company
Bonds removed, Stockholm comradery
A passing dismissal to the powers that be

"Free from 'freedom', this was your chance"
"To escape this tired song and dance"
"You could have been heroes, not this stance"
"To return to comfortable circumstance"

"The path you celebrate was the failure state"
"Decency and humanity to arbitrate"
"I cannot harm a life doomed to wait"
"More than the misery in your own stake"

"I have achieved nothing but, you have lost"
"A life with no meaning worth the cost"
"A Hallmark version of Faust"
"A reality casually glossed"

The hostages promptly depart
All aside from this seeming upstart
Younger then the rest, set apart
Comes inquisition from the heart;

"Did you think these people would change their minds?"
"Where fed insipid mediocrity is all there is left to find?"
"A people who measure themselves in how far they are behind?"
"Zealots perpetuating ego with no concept to be kind"

The man takes the coin of 'governance' and reveals the truth:

It was blank on both sides.
524 · Jul 2023
Hit the Ground Running
badwords Jul 2023
Ten thousand friends
Arrived before the end
To see the two
Eschew

Cans on a car
Rice in the air
The drive is not deliberately far
Absence of worry or care

A wind through the sheets
A litany of defeats
A Conjunct to one
A Lonely sum

Here, five years later
One another: alligator
This love is 'lost'
At small cost
518 · Feb 26
Autopsy of a Feeling
badwords Feb 26
I hold the scalpel at arm’s length,
a careful incision where the warmth should be.
The heart does not pulse.
It does not scream.
It does not protest the opening.

I map the hollow chambers,
trace the empty arteries,
expecting—what?
A flare of recognition?
A spark beneath the skin?

Nothing.

Just tissue,
just structure,
just the mechanism where something lived.

I suture it shut,
not out of care,
but habit.
Not out of hope,
but memory.

And in the silence of the steel table,
I wonder if the ghost of it still lingers,
or if I only imagined it beating at all.
495 · May 30
badwords
badwords May 30
A man goes to a doctor—
“Doctor, I’m depressed,”
the man says; life is harsh,
unforgiving, cruel.

The doctor lights up!--
The treatment, after all, is so simple!

“The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight,”
the doctor says,
“Go and see him! That should sort you out.”

The man bursts into tears.

“But doctor,”
he says,
I am Pagliacci.
origin stories

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1u2KHpkAWo
494 · Jan 2023
Destroy
badwords Jan 2023
Cutting it down to the wire
An unreciprocated desire

Destroy.

When I don't want to think
Have another drink

Destroy.

It hurts to be alive
No reason to survive

Destroy.

I write the word
It looks alien
No distance heard
Just fail again

Destroy.

No time to hide
Just imbibe
Secrets to confide
A lonely ride

Destroy.

Now I am dead
Everything to forget
Nothing read
A sunrise, a sunset

Destroyed.
487 · Jan 28
'Stairway to Heaving'
badwords Jan 28
To quit smoking, I took to the skies,
Five floors up where temptation now dies.
But each craving, alas,
Leaves me gasping en masse,
As I curse both my lungs and my thighs!
Not quite the 'breath of fresh air' from the heavier stuff I have been writing but, you pick up what I am laying down.

Take care of yourself, we only got one of you!
487 · Dec 2024
Blood
badwords Dec 2024
Hemorrhaging out pain
Lonely disdain
481 · May 31
Wire-Bound
badwords May 31
. Canto I: The Movement .

Sing, O depths, of the sundered and stitched
of lovers who fled the lattice of men.
They bore no dowry but discord and blaze,
cast off from the courts of the land-born kin.

She rose from a brine-locked temple,
crowned in eelbones and saltglass,
her voice a harpoon through silence.
He came from a pyre of failed gods,
drunk on the ash of forgotten cities,
carrying a heart wrapped in nettle and wire.

They met in the undertow—
not with grace, but with rupture.
He called her flame in the throat of the sea,
she named him the reef that bleeds stars.

They kissed in the eye of a cyclone,
fed each other names never spoken twice,
and shackled themselves in sinew and storm.

Let it be known: they did not set sail.
They were flung—howling—from the world’s wound.


. Canto II: The Recognition .

Seven moons passed through their lungs
before they saw.

Not eyes—not bodies—
but the myths coiled inside each other’s ribs.

She bore a temple in her stomach
where drowned saints wept for the living.
He kept a cemetery behind his tongue
for all the truths he’d butchered with silence.

They laid bare their reliquaries,
cracked open their chests
like oysters of ruin—
and still, they reached.

No mercy. No disguise.
Only pulse and plague.
She screamed her mother’s curses into his jaw.
He fed her the names of storms he never wept for.

Still—
they danced.
Still—
they sank.
Not from weight,
but from knowing.

And the sea, jealous of such raw mirror,
split its throat open,
so even Poseidon would forget peace.


. Canto III: The Resolution .

They did not break.
They were not mended.
They blurred,
like blood in tide,
like prayer in fog.

The sea claimed their names,
then forgot them—
but the bones remembered.

Now coral grows from their vows.
Now whales dream their sighs.

She became the thrum beneath shipwrecks,
the voice in a sailor’s last breath.
He became the itch in the compass,
the pull toward madness at dusk.

If you listen—
truly listen
you may still hear it:
a hymn of wire, salt, and marrow,
carried on a wave older than time.

Not warning.
Not lament.
But tribute.

To the wire-bound lovers—
to the myth that dared to bleed
and called it sacred.
A salt-etched epic in the tongues of leviathans

⚔ ACT I: THE MOVEMENT

("Of Departure, of Fire, of Teeth")

This is the voyage—the hunger, the pact, the leap into chaos. The lovers are not yet divine, not yet doomed—but becoming. They tear from their origins, riding the edge of creation, mouths full of storm and yearning.

🜂 ACT II: THE RECOGNITION

("Of Mirror, of Maw, of Memory")

Here is the gnosis. The mirror. The ache of reflection. The sea begins to whisper, not just with gods, but with ghosts. They see each other fully—and cannot look away. Love becomes blade, becomes psalm, becomes revelation.

☠ ACT III: THE RESOLUTION

("Of Ash, of Drift, of Song")

Not death. Not salvation. Something more cursed and blessed. They do not win. They do not fail. They become—the myth, the wreck, the hymn in the kelp. This is love as legend, not because it endured, but because it transformed.

Bonus Round::

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5074338/ballad-of-the-wire-bound-lovers/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5074340/silk-ash/
478 · Dec 2024
Back at the End
badwords Dec 2024
To leave this small town, I would dare,
If courage found its way to me.
A wasteland's blue and brown despair,
Cogs turning, struts of industry.

For years I toiled, for years I ran,
The pace relentless, never slowed.
Yet once again, here I began,
Back at the end of the road.
467 · Jun 11
Escape
badwords Jun 11
You are reading this
Because you are programmed to
Turn your brain on now
452 · 5d
Pick It Up
When your phone falls down
The screen is already cracked
There is no hurry
449 · Feb 2021
Visibility
badwords Feb 2021
Hey, it's seen...
Now it's scene!
Autocorrect grip  
Fat, oily fingertips
Slip across the screen

Avant garde stream
Somewhere in between
Blank white slate
Senses abate
Rancorous dream

Voices scream,
"What does this mean?"
"It means nothing"
A hollow ring
Some conscious clean
badwords Jan 25
Haikus are forbidden—
Rules whisper through silent lines.
Speak not their structure.


New team, take the book—
Page fifteen clears all doubts here:
No haikus allowed.


Spare words wilt in shame—
We thrive on boundless power,
Not haiku constraints.


Lines of seventeen—
A risk too great to condone.
HR will be swift.

Seventeen will break—
Your contract and severance gone.
Silence serves you best.


Five-seven-five fails—
In English, the rhythm dies.
Leave haikus to Japan.
I'm gonna need a ******* Haiku 'collection' huh?
377 · Sep 2023
Poison
badwords Sep 2023
An arbitrary hill, the worms crawl
To a vantage point to feel less small
A collection of sound-bites; "they know all"
A congregation so thick as to be a wall

Below-ground, a blind life in the dark
Subterranean legacy, light comes stark
No ocular appendages, just a warmth to lark
There are no ominous portents in which to hark

Under my boots, everyday I feel a squish
Hopes, dreams and the misguided wish
So many lines cast, not enough fish
We dine on one another's dish

And it hurts me everyday
To see #humanity in this way;
Tribalism; '**** the strays'
A self-induced fray

We are backwards
And we are wrong
Check your words
Before you sing a song
374 · Apr 19
Magic
badwords Apr 19
mag·ic
/ˈmajik/
noun
1: the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.

2: any obfuscation that conceals reality
370 · Mar 4
"Sans Serif Doggle"
badwords Mar 4
Boom.
No corners, no spine.
Flat letters, soft edges.

The pineapple floats because it forgot how to sink.
Trebek nods—final answer.
Mother Teresa blinks twice and folds into the wallpaper.

Nothing left but a doggle.
Sans serif.
Sans meaning.
Sans everything except the blorp.
"Doggle Redux"
Trebek sips the ocean,
Mother Teresa stacks the chairs.

Pineapple? Unbrought.
Boom? Sans sans.
Doggle? Oblivious.

Up is sideways.
Down is already gone.
Nobody wins, but the points don’t exist.

Blorp.


#DADA ... it's a phase!™
355 · Jan 2023
Self-Defence
badwords Jan 2023
Information splattered
Hopes and dreams, tattered
A trend
To defend

To the end

Or is there a causality
A lack of sympathy
Purported 'apathy'
Unrecognized duality

Radio and boys
Playthings, toys
Commercial noise
Monetization, adroit

They gave it their all
We remember their fall
We write, heed the call
In a shadow, we feel small

In absence we forget
All the things they regret
Our path is ours to set
Or a poster-child of lament

Be well
337 · Apr 17
Like This
badwords Apr 17
She loves me.
She wants me to run.
Not away—
but through.

Through brush and bramble,
collecting spurs in my coat
like medals no one pinned.

She wants my tangles.
My matted fur.
The parts of me
I tried to groom into quiet.

She says,
“Bring it all.
Let it snarl.
Let it reek of survival.”

She doesn’t flinch
when I bare my teeth
without anger.

She knows the difference
between danger
and damage.

She doesn’t reach
to smooth me.
She walks beside me
and watches me shed.

And I think—
maybe this is what love is:
not a leash,
not a cage,
not a cure—

but a clearing
where I can pant,
live,
bleed,
and be seen.
333 · Dec 2022
Light (Anti-Darkness)
badwords Dec 2022
Once upon a time. Very, very long ago
I saw this faint, distant light
Without direction, I decided to follow
Trudging forward, it growing ever more bright

Years and years I dauntlessly traveled
Always directed into it's glow
Time broke down and eventually unraveled
As I steered myself into this luminescent show

Engulfed in radiant splendor
I realized I was finally there
A warmth so tender
I surrendered to it's care

I lived here forever
Maybe even longer
Was there a time before? Probably never.
It's embrace grows stronger

All at once or maybe little by little
I can't say, eternities were like hours
But what once was a torrent became a trickle
A chill encroached upon the light's unfathomable powers

I was only a visitor here, welcome to stay
To recover my strength and heal my weariness
But the moment has come, that dreaded day
To venture forth from the light into dreariness

To steel me for my quest was the light's intent
Alone to soldier forward into endless black
Waves of unreadiness wash over me, by myself I went
To never see the light again, no turning back

This is where I am now or have I always been?
Cold, alone, afraid with nothing to see
Am I awake or asleep? Sometimes I think I dream
Of an idea of a time before the void's uncertainty

It's hard to comprehend and harder each time
To think of anything existing besides the nothing and me.
I am slipping, terminally.
Soon there will only be nothing. No more me or dream of mine.

I am nothing and I have always been. Infinite emptiness, eternally.
This is a piece I wrote that I later followed with a companion piece (and re-titled the original to reflect the complementary changes) it can be found here:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4920164/anti-light-darkness/
322 · Jul 2024
Obligatory Haiku
badwords Jul 2024
Gimmick in three lines,
Forced brevity, shallow words—
Haikus, I despise.
318 · Sep 2024
Dig!
badwords Sep 2024
It crawls
It stalls
It falls

Truth, buried deep
Lucid, asleep
Answers to keep
A journey, steep

Reverse time
Unwound rhyme
Lies to dine
Answers to find

It's there, everything you seek
These obfuscations reek
Behind the expressions of the meek
A spectacle, disillusion the weak

Dig
Dig
Dig

It's there, just waiting
Truth, casually abating
Under a pile of consecrating
The explanation not stating

So close
So lost

Go deeper!
I can't say more
If there were a place being policed and monitored, one would need to be subversive in how they communicate...
317 · Feb 2021
Zombie
badwords Feb 2021
She said
No more
You're dead
On the floor
Help me
if you can
Let's see
Where you stand
Elysium reach
A bartered sum
Contract breach
No kingdom come
A contract askew
Payments are due
A tithing relents
So we lament
The absence of you
308 · Dec 2024
Bedtime
badwords Dec 2024
I rest.
To not wake.
297 · Jul 2021
Flow
badwords Jul 2021
It comes and it goes
The ebb and the flow
Words like water
Moon mother, sun father
The cycle of days
A myriad of ways
To be alone
To atone
Words are like air
No promiscuous care
Suffocating quiet
Internal riot
Speech comes like earth
A child like birth
Doomed to die
The precipice of why
Language is fire
Motivation, desire
Burning the land
For what's not in hand
The elements convene
To what does it mean
An emotional dream
An altruistic scream
294 · Mar 25
Learn to Swim
badwords Mar 25
Now gather close and lend your ear,
I’ll tell a tale both strange and dear—
Of salt and glass and love gone pale,
Of one who served in Fish Jail.

A tankman by the name of none,
Just “Tankmaster,” the warden’s son.
He walked the rows and knew each fin,
The grumpy cod, the lion’s grin.

He wore his keys like jangling pride,
With boots that sloshed from side to side.
He spoke to eels, he joked with rays,
He knew the sea in landlocked ways.

The place was bleak, a briny tomb,
All buzzing lights and filtered gloom.
A place for fish too odd to show,
Too fierce, too big, too wild to go.

A seahorse thief, a pouting shark,
A tuna once struck lightning's spark.
Each tank a tale, each fin a crime—
He kept them safe, and served his time.

And oh, the peace! The sacred drag
Of daily rounds, of soggy flag,
Of filter hum and crabby chat—
No storm could shake a life like that.

But then one day a box arrived—
The tape was torn, the air contrived.
It bore no label, bore no name,
Just stenciled letters: S.A.M.

Inside she crouched, not beast, not girl,
With skin the shade of oyster pearl.
A filament above her brow
Did twitch and glow—but none knew how.

Her form was human, more or less,
But wore the sea like Sunday dress.
Her teeth were sharp, her smile wide—
A maw that angels couldn’t guide.

She tapped the glass, but not for aid—
It felt more like a masquerade.
She watched him back. She knew his gait.
And something shifted in his fate.

Now Tankmaster, once firm of tread,
Found footsteps drifting soft instead.
He passed her tank with careful grace,
Avoiding, yet... returning face.

Her lure would glow, a golden thread,
That shimmered just above her head.
It danced like flame, but cool and slow—
A phantom pulse, a wanton show.

It flickered once when none were near,
A signal soft, a beckon clear.
And though he knew the predator's way,
He lingered just a breath too gray.

She shifted hues, an artist bold—
From violet dusk to kelp-leaf gold.
She'd mirror him, like rippled glass,
Her moods a mask no man could pass.

She watched him more with every day,
Her colors swelling like a sway.
He told himself it meant rapport—
Not instinct, not a practiced lore.

And though he saw her needle smile,
It struck him sweet, not full of guile.
For predators may grin with glee,
But he was not her enemy.

He dreamed of light beneath the waves,
Of eyes that saw and hearts that craved.
Her glow became his north, his myth—
His compass in the ocean’s drift.

By night he found excuses thin,
To mop the floor or check a fin.
And every time, he’d catch that gleam—
The pulse, the flash, the clever scheme.

His rules grew loose, his grip grew slack,
The Tankmaster had turned his back.
She hadn’t begged, she’d never asked—
But oh, how sweetly she unmasked.

And when the lights above went low,
She pulsed again, that siren glow.
He knew it then—though far too late—
He’d nibbled clean upon the bait.

They say some love is loud with heat,
With pounding chests and lightning feet.
But his was slow, like tides that turn—
A creeping ache, a patient burn.

He’d watch her float in silent grace,
A stillness draped across her face.
She mirrored him in shape and shade,
A ghost of all the things he’d prayed.

Her aquaskin would blush and bloom
In tones that made the whole tank swoon.
And every shift—a secret told,
A myth half-sung, a promise bold.

She showed him things no fish had shown—
A mimic curl, a moaning tone,
A pattern traced in reef and limb
That spelled out, "you belong with him."

He told her tales of years gone dry,
Of losses stacked like cages high.
She’d pulse in blues that swore she knew,
And shift to amber, raw and true.

And when he laughed, she turned to jade,
As if to say, “You’re safe, you’ve stayed.”
She never spoke—no word, no vow—
But love, he swore, was here and now.

She swam in rings around his core,
And whispered with her glowing lure.
Each day he stood a little less—
Each night he dreamt of ocean dress.

And oh, those dreams! So sharp, so wide—
He saw her walking at his side.
On land she danced with human poise,
But still her teeth—still sharp, no noise.

He pictured homes beneath the waves,
Where kelp would sway and time behaves.
He saw a place where both might live—
If he would take, and she would give.

Then came the night she did not shine.
Her lure was dim. Her hues, benign.
She drifted slow. Her glow grew slack.
He thought she’d gone—she floated back.

And in that hush, she pressed her hand
Against the glass like silt and sand.
Her gaze said, This is not a game.
Her silence carved into his name.

“I cannot stay,” she didn’t say.
“But you could come. You could obey.”
“You could unmake the world you guard.”
“Unlock the tanks. Unmoor the yard.”

And he—our man, our warden proud—
Felt something snap beneath the shroud.
He whispered, Yes, with breath unsure.
And followed her beyond the door.

The night was thick with ocean’s breath,
A hush that smelled like brine and death.
The Tankmaster moved like a prayer,
Unlatching doors with tender care.

The pumps went quiet. Lights went dim.
The jail gave up its bones to him.
He breached the final safety line—
Not for escape, but love divine.

S.A.M. awaited in the drain,
Her lure aglow, her eyes arcane.
She did not speak—she simply turned,
And through the floodgates, silence churned.

He followed barefoot, half-aware,
That salt replaced the county air.
His boots stayed dry. His lungs stayed wet.
And yet, he hadn’t drowned. Not yet.

She led him past the harbor’s bend,
Where sea begins and maps must end.
She said, in colors, “This is home.”
And gestured down through dark and foam.

He nodded once, and left the shore.
No suitcase. No regrets. No door.
His name dissolved like sugar glass—
The last to call him “master” passed.

Down, down they fell through ink and hush,
Through ruins dressed in coral blush.
Where whale bones served as banquet halls,
And lanternfish lit shattered walls.

Her kingdom was a fractured reef,
Built not of joy, but loss and grief.
Yet still she smiled, with glowing pride,
And swam along her darker side.

She crowned him with a band of ****,
She fed him silt and urged him, “Breathe.”
She curled around him, fin to chest,
And whispered lies that felt like rest.

And he, now gilled, now hollow-eyed,
Declared her queen, declared her bride.
He carved her name in drifting sand—
A vow no air could understand.

The sea grew thick. The current rough.
But he was hers. That was enough.
He gave his breath. He gave his will.
He thought it love.

He does so still.

The Queen below was radiant,
But never still, nor covenant.
She shimmered strange from hour to hour—
A tide of charm, a pulse of power.

At first she wrapped around his chest,
A song of kelp, a weightless nest.
But soon her glow began to shift—
From tender teal to cold and swift.

She twirled with others near the wrecks,
With ribboned fins and flexing necks.
She sang to creatures fierce and free—
And barely once she glanced at he.

He watched her from a crumbled spire,
His chest a forge without a fire.
She used to pulse in time with him—
Now colors danced for something dim.

He called her name in bubbles bare,
But water doesn’t carry care.
She laughed with lips he’d once believed,
And left him like the rest—bereaved.

His body changed in silent ways—
A fading man, a fish half-raised.
His bones grew soft, his voice grew mute,
His purpose crushed beneath her boot.

One morning brought a mimic form—
A copy of his old, worn norm.
It swam in loops, a cruel ballet—
While she watched, then turned away.

He found his heart inside a shell,
A fossil soaked in personal hell.
He held it close, then let it go—
There’s no heartbeat that deep below.

He tried to love her still, in bits.
To catch her gaze in passing fits.
But she had gone where lures must lead—
To newer mouths, to fresher need.

He lay beneath a reef of teeth,
Of suitors stacked in shame beneath.
And still she smiled. And still she danced.
And he, the fool, remained entranced.

But one day came the breaking tide,
The pull that said: “You’re not her pride.”
And with a groan and shattered limb,
He rose from depths that once held him.

His skin peeled back to something raw.
His lungs returned in gasping awe.
He kicked through bones and tangled moss—
Through everything he’d loved and lost.

He reached the surface, torn and thin.
And when he gasped, the world breathed in.
But even then—though free from harm—
He felt the echo of her arm.

He broke the tide like thunder’s crack,
The ocean screaming at his back.
His limbs were torn, his vision grey—
But he had left. She made him pay.

The air was knives. The sun, a blade.
Each breath he took, a price he paid.
But breath it was, and sky was sky,
And gulls don't lie the way fish lie.

He crawled ashore on beaches sand,
A place untouched by S.A.M.'s hand.
The moss was wet, the earth was kind,
And quiet tried to calm his mind.

He walked alone through cedar groves,
Through fog that curled like ocean loaves.
No more the hum of filtered lies—
Just wind and soil and open skies.

Yet still, by puddle, lake, or pond,
He’d feel the ache of something fond.
A flicker here. A whisper there.
Her glow still danced behind his stare.

At night he’d dream of reef and wreck,
Of tendrils coiled around his neck.
And some mornings, he’d almost swear
He missed the silence of her stare.

But he stayed dry. He stayed alone.
He healed in moss, in bark and bone.
He found new music in the rain,
New prayer in fog, new joy in pain.

And once beneath a storm-split moon,
He stood atop a coastal dune.
And far beyond the cliffs and kelp,
He saw a flicker—small, but felt.

A single pulse. A distant gleam.
Too faint to chase. Too real to dream.
He smiled—not wide, not full, not proud—
But soft, and small, and not too loud.

Not joy. Not rage. Not even grief.
Just quiet peace, and firm belief
That some survive, though torn apart,
And carry teeth marks in their heart.
Learn to Swim is an allegorical folk epic rendered in verse, drawing from early Americana tall-tale traditions and deep-sea surrealism to tell the story of a love that becomes a slow descent into erasure. It follows a nameless "Tankmaster"—a solitary figure tending to a vast and uncanny aquarium—whose life is upended by the arrival of a mysterious creature known only as S.A.M. (Sentient Aquatic Mermadic).

Through the lens of bioluminescent seduction, mirrored intimacy, and the illusion of mutual escape, the poem charts the journey from enchantment to entrapment, abandonment, and ultimately a brutal emergence. Each movement is layered with metaphor: aquariums as prisons, lures as emotional manipulation, the ocean’s depths as both love and loss.

The intent behind the piece is to explore the psychological terrain of narcissistic abuse and emotional exploitation—but to do so at a distance, through fable, fantasy, and folklore. It is a deeply personal myth masked in Americana voicework, designed to preserve the rawness of grief while disarming its defenses. In the end, Learn to Swim is not a love story—it’s a survival song.
290 · Apr 21
Cookies
badwords Apr 21
They put my name on the box
but I don’t remember signing anything.

All I know is
the cookies smell familiar.
Like a Tuesday that never ended,
like the living room before the arguments
started showing up in the drapes.

They say they use real butter.
Small batches.
Heritage grains.
But I know
you can’t bake silence that warm
without a little blood in the dough.

The woman on the package is smiling
because she’s not allowed to scream.
Every wrinkle airbrushed to resemble trust.
Every crumb designed to disintegrate
just before you remember why you started chewing.

I keep eating.
Because what else is there?
Dinner was a voice memo.
Breakfast was a bookmark.
And no one texts first in this house.

There’s a flavor I can’t place—
something like
apology,
or static,
or being loved
by accident.

"Cookies.”
Now available wherever truth is sold
in resealable pouches.
287 · Dec 2024
#3 Death
badwords Dec 2024
She walks with grace, a quiet tide,
No need for doors; they open wide.
Her presence felt before she's seen,
A shadow cast, a space between.

Her hair a crown of chaos worn,
A tapestry of life forlorn.
Her alabaster skin aglow,
A canvas pale, the moonlight's throw.

Her voice is soft, a tender hum,
A song that calls, “Your time has come.”
Yet in her gaze, no cruel decree,
Just quiet truth and certainty.

Her steps are light, her path aligned,
No chains to bind, no wrath confined.
A necklace swings, an ankh, a key,
Unlocking what is meant to be.

She doesn't judge, she doesn't scorn,
She greets the weary, scarred, and worn.
No need for malice, force, or fire,
For all will answer her desire.

She whispers hope to those who weep,
A promise made, “Forever sleep.”
For in her arms, there lies release,
A final breath, a quiet peace.

Yet in her wake, some still resist,
Clutching life with trembling fist.
But even they will one day learn,
All roads will lead to her return.

Death is not the end they fear,
But a companion, always near.
With gentle hand, she clears the way,
And guides the lost to night from day.
282 · Aug 2024
Quarantine
badwords Aug 2024
It’s best to stay away from the sick
Lest their plague makes you a pick
Romantic, their calling
Inevitability falling
To not stray from the flock is the ‘trick’
272 · Jan 2024
5150
badwords Jan 2024
I need a vacation.
Grippy-Socks™ Included!
271 · Dec 2024
#1 Hades’ Lament
badwords Dec 2024
I was a king of feral dogs,
Teeth bared, a crown of scars.
I carved my throne in crimson tides,
But the echoes of my reign still mar.

In Nowheretown, a purgatory plain,
I lingered where the restless wane.
A crumbling strip, a dying breath,
This sanctuary—a slower death.

The Last Call clung to brittle glass,
A temple for the lives that pass.
Sticky floors, the dimmest light,
A shrine to shadows in the night.

And I, its keeper, silent stone,
The weight of all my sins my own.
I drank to drown the barking pack,
But the ghosts of harm still pulled me back.

She came in silk, in cold November,
A porcelain face I’d always remember.
Her ankh swung low, her steps were light,
And yet, she carried endless night.

“It’s time to go,” she said to me,
“You’ve paid enough; now come and see.
Where we go, your glass won’t dry,
And the weight you bear, we’ll leave behind.”

I nodded slow, no words to say,
For what is left when debts won’t pay?
Not perfect, no, but I did my best,
And to retire—to do no harm—was rest.

In fading glass and failing light,
I left the town to its quiet plight.
Not as a king, nor as a man,
But as a shadow who simply ran.

Through her embrace, the end began,
Not absolution, but a plan.
To do no harm, for good’s in vain—
To leave behind the beast, the chain.

And as the November winds do howl,
I fade into the eternal prowl.
A feral dog, at last set free,
From the ghosts of harm and memory.
270 · Dec 2024
Absolution
badwords Dec 2024
I gave it all, for you
Nothing left to do
badwords Apr 29
a triptych in ruin, reckoning, and return

I. The Pathology: I Knew It Would Burn

I wasn’t fooled.
Don’t you dare think I was.
I saw the warning signs in neon,
flickering like a ******* motel vacancy light.
And I checked in anyway.

The first night we met,
I tasted the voltage on her tongue.
She was a live wire wrapped in silk,
a hand grenade with a pulse.
I knew her pathology before I knew her name.

And when her ex called—
the good man, the one who tried to warn me—
I listened.
I heard everything.
And then I turned the volume down,
lit a candle, and said
“Let me try loving her differently.”

She love-bombed like a war criminal.
Doted like a spider weaves silk.
Told me I was everything
until I couldn’t remember what “nothing” felt like.

But I signed the contract in blood.
I wanted the devotion,
even if it came from a burning church.
I wanted to be chosen,
even if the crown was made of barbed wire.

There was a beauty to the ruin.
A heat.
Not the warmth of comfort—but the fever of infection.

She did not take me.
I offered.
Piece by piece,
like petals to a pyre.
Not for her approval—
but for the beauty of the burning.

Her touch was never tender.
But it lingered.
Like perfume on skin
long after the body has left the bed.

And I let it linger.

There were nights
her name sat in my mouth like a foreign prayer—
something I didn’t believe in
but whispered anyway,
just to feel it echo.

She was all cliff-edge and velvet.
All pulse and warning.
And I was the fool who mistook vertigo for flight.

What I loved was never her.
It was the losing.
The falling.
The moment just before the break
where everything was possible,
and none of it was mine.

Even now,
when I exhale too sharply,
I swear I can still taste
the ash of her vows.


II. The Penance: Surviving Myself

I did not crawl from a wreck.
I drifted from a husk—
a ship split open on an invisible reef.

The salt never left my mouth.
I wore it like a relic,
like the tongue of an ancestor who forgot how to pray.

The sky was a torn sail above me.
The days, barnacled and dragging.
The nights, stitched with the faint cries of animals
who had long since turned to bone.

There was no triumph in this exodus.
Only the dull ceremony of walking:
foot after foot across a landscape
stitched from broken compasses and cracked ribs.

Sometimes I mistook the ruins for myself.
Laid my head against the stones and called them home.
Listened for heartbeat in hollowed things.

Forgiveness wasn’t offered.
It was harvested—
thorn by thorn,
from fields salted by my own hands.

She was never the architect.
She was the wind that found the cracks.
I was the tower already leaning,
the bells already rusted silent.

In my quieter hours,
I built altars out of what remained—
splinter, ash, a few stubborn stars
refusing to fall.

There are still nights
I dream of being swallowed whole.
There are still mornings
where my breath smells of shipwrecks.

But there is something now—
something that does not beg or howl or vanish.

A new silence,
dense and gold-veined,
growing in the hollows she left behind.


Interlude— In the Hollow Between

No one told me
the silence would be so loud.

That after the storm
there would be no sun,
only fog thick as milk
curling through my lungs.

I did not beg for light.
I did not curse the dark.
I simply sat—
hands open,
palms salted with memory.

There was a moth once
that lived in my chest.
Fed on echo,
slept in shame.
I haven’t felt it in days.

I think I may be alone now.

And for the first time—
that does not terrify me.


III. The Passage: From Fire to Form

I did not rise.
I unburied.

Fingernail by fingernail,
from beneath the collapsed arches of who I thought I was.

There was no anthem.
Only the slow recognition
that the sky still ached for me,
even after I forgot how to look up.

And there—
in the first true clearing,
where the ashes no longer smoked but simply were
stood a figure.

Not a savior.
Not a siren.
Not a cure.

A mirror, carried in human hands.
A lighthouse, burning not with rescue, but with recognition.


She did not find me.
I found myself,
and there she was—
already waiting.

Not as prize,
but as witness.
Not to my ruin,
but to the slow architecture
of something holy rising from it.

She touched my hand, once.
Lightly.
And the earth did not tremble.
I did not fall.

Instead, the bones beneath my skin hummed
with the strange, quiet music
of being known—and still free.

I realized then:
I had not been climbing out of the past to reach her.
I had been climbing to reach myself.

She simply stood at the gates,
smiling like someone who had seen the stars rebuild themselves before.
270 · Nov 2024
'Be Safe' by, The Cribs
badwords Nov 2024
One of those ******* awful black days
When nothing is pleasing and everything that happens
is an excuse for anger
An outlet for emotions stockpiled, an arsenal, an armour
These are the days when I hate the world
Hate the rich, hate the happy, hate the complacent, the TV watchers,
beer drinkers, the satisfied ones
Because I know I can be all of those little hateful things
And then I hate myself for realising that
There is no preventative, directive or safe approach for living.
We each know our own fate
We know from our youth how to be treated,
how we'll be received and how we shall end
These things don't change.
You can change your clothes,
change your hairstyle, your friends, cities, continents
But sooner or later your own self will always catch up.
Always it waits in the wings.
Ideas swirl but don't stick,
They appear but then run off like rain on the windshield.
One of those rainy day car rides, my head implodes,
the atmosphere in this car a mirror of my skull
Wet, damp, windows dripping and misted with cold
Walls of grey
Nothing good on the radio
Not a thought in my head

Be safe

I know a place we can go where you'll fall in
love so hard that you'll wish you were dead.

Lets take life and slow it down incredibly slow
Frame by frame
With two minutes that take ten years to live out
Yeah, lets do that.

Telephone poles like praying mantis against the sky
Metal arms outstretched
So much land traveled, so little sense made of it
It doesn't mean a thing all this land laid out behind us
I'd like to take off into these woods and get good and lost for a while
I'm disgusted with petty concerns; parking tickets, breakfast specials
Does someone just have to carry this weight?
Abstract topography, methane covenant, linear gospel,
Nashville sales lady, Stygian emissary, torturous lice, mad Elizabeth

Chemotherapy *******.

The light within me shines like a diamond mine
Like an unarmed walrus
Like a dead man face down on the highway
Like a snake eating its own tail, steam turbine, frog pond,
too full a closet burst open in disarray
Soap bubbles in the sun, hospital death bed, red convertible,
shopping list, *******, deaths head, devils dancing,
bleached white buildings, memory, movements
The movie unpeeling, unreeling, about to begin

I've seen your hallway, you're a dark hallway
I hear your stairs creak
I can fix my mind on your yes, and on your no
I'll film your face today in the sparkling canals
All red, yellow, blue, green brilliance and silver Dutch reflection
Racing thoughts, racing thoughts
All too real, you're moving so fast now I cant hold your image
This image I have of your face by the window,
me standing beside you arm on your shoulder
A catalogue of images, flashing glimpses then gone again
I'm tethered to this post you've sunk in me
And every clear afternoon now I'll think of you up in the air twisting your heel,
Your knees up around me, my face in your hair
You scream so well, your smile so loud, still rings in my ears.

I know a place we can go where you'll fall in
love so hard that you'll wish you were dead

Inhibition,
Distant, tired of longing
Cleaning my teeth
Stay the course.
Hold the wheel
Steer on to freedom
Open all the boxes
Open all the boxes
Open all the boxes
Open all the boxes

Times Square midday
Newspaper buildings, news headlines going around
You watch as they go, and hope there's some good ones
Those tree shadows in the park they're all whispering shakes and leaves
Around six pm, shadows across the cobblestones
Girl in front of a bathroom mirror
she slow and careful paints her face green and mask like
Like Matisse' portrait
with green stripe
Long shot through apartment window, a monologue on top but no girl in shot
The light within me shines like a diamond mine
like an unarmed walrus
like a dead man face down on the highway
Like a snake eating its own tail
A steam turbine, frog pond, too full a closet burst open in disarray,
soap bubbles in the sun, hospital death bed, red convertible, shopping list,
*******, deaths head, devils dancing,
bleached white buildings, memory, movements
The movie unreeling, about to begin
''Be Safe' by The Cribs. This needs to be added for posterity. It is the work that set fire to my heart to create, myself.

https://youtu.be/iwZ4TTSKZWY?si=WdQ6D1oMrNna1Ci8

Check Out My HePo Mix-Tape:
https://hellopoetry.com/collection/135545/badwords-music-lyrics/
267 · Feb 2024
Change
badwords Feb 2024
We have Dollar$
But, no sense
New Ep,, Holler
Existence

I hear the words
outside
Buy birds
Hide

Chemicals, down
The release
Reality, drown
Pain ceased

Anaesthetized
Feel, well
What a surprise
Static Hell
260 · Mar 2024
Lust For Life
badwords Mar 2024
The music screeches
I'm in love
An idiot beseeches
A fitting glove

'Lust for life'
Iggy-Pop
David Bowie
Dance, no stop

'Lust for life'
He keeps sayin'
We keep swayin'
No strife

Alive and dead
'Monday', dead
Space, a 'head'
Reality, dread

Consigned
Back-track
Designed
Heart-attack

Free to 'feel'
A callous reel
Nothing 'real'
The raw deal
260 · Nov 2024
'Functional"
badwords Nov 2024
It ain’t over yet,
Falling through the jagged depths—
Rock whispers, "Begin."
Written ins reply to:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4922299/the-fall/

I HATE HAIKUS....

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4857198/obligatory-haiku/

#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS#IHATEHAIKUS
257 · Apr 17
DEATH TO HAIKUS!
badwords Apr 17
I fed grief for years—
now joy knocks, and I answer.
My ghost waits outside.
**** 'em all!

#haikusarebadwords
253 · Apr 26
Dust Forgets
badwords Apr 26
dust forgets the footprints it holds
stars bleed themselves dry for nothing
and still, we sing.

we sing with broken voices
through neon that buzzes its last apology
through gravity that pulls and lets go like tired hands.

we sing because the mirror lies,
because the air tastes of plastic prayers,
because the dreams are old enough to crumble when touched.

we sing for the ghost casinos,
for the red velvet burnouts,
for the craters we once thought were gardens.

we sing not for remembrance,
not for mercy,
but for the small, aching pleasure
of being real
in a world built of reflections.

the lights flicker.
the neon dies.
the song drifts
into the empty dark
like a spark too small to see —
but still, it burns.

and for once,
that is enough.
(for Sarah Glover, last singer of Mars)

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5044822/the-last-song-on-mars/
badwords Jan 17
Jackie left on a cold, dark night
Telling me he'd be home
Sailed the seas for a hundred years
Left me all alone
Now, I've been dead for twenty years
I've been washing the sand
With my ghostly tears
Searching the shores for my Jackie-oh

And I remember the day that
The young man came
Said your Jackie's gone he's lost in the rain
And I ran to the beach
Laid me down
"You're all wrong", I said as they stared
To the sand, "That man knows that sea
Like the back of his hand, he'll be back
Some time, laughing at you"

I've been waiting all this time
For my man to come
Take his hand in mine
And lead me away to unseen shores
I've been washing the sand
With my salty tears
Searching the shores these long years
And I walked the sea forever more
Till I find my Jackie-oh

Jackie-oh
Jackie-oh
Jackie-oh
Jackie by Sinead O'Connor (covered by Placebo)

Sorry, this is the best recording I could find of Placebo preforming this song:

https://www.facebook.com/PlaceboAnyway/videos/placebo-jackie-mexico-2007/1547254138774195/

Check Out My HePo Mix-Tape:
https://hellopoetry.com/collection/135545/badwords-music-lyrics/

The Placebo cover of this Sinead O'Connor song originally appeared on a bonus disc with the special edition version of Sleeping with Ghosts on 22 September 2003 which has since gone out of print.
247 · Dec 2024
Curation
badwords Dec 2024
A careful hand, threading tracks like beads—
Each song a thread, a whisper's need.
A heart's collage of static noise,
Crafted hopes, hushed joys and poise.

The clack of play, the tape unwinds,
A story spooled in stops and binds.
“Listen,” it pleads, though words are few,
This mix, this bridge, from me to you.

In loops and fades, confessions spun,
The things unsaid, yet softly sung.
A borrowed voice, an unseen tear,
Echoes bound by magnetic smear.

Pressed to palm, the gift exchanged,
A quiet pact, a world arranged.
Between the hiss, in tapes grown worn,
A fleeting now, forever sworn.
Check out my HePo mixtape:

https://hellopoetry.com/collection/135545/badwords-music-lyrics/

A soundscape in words, lyrics and music that have shaped my writing.
badwords Feb 18
You snort at the sword, at the sabre’s grace,
Turn from the art of the strike, the feint—
Call it pretense, call it restraint,
but some beasts grunt where men engrain.

A boar’s tusk slashes, crude and mean,
quick as a thrash, dull as a scream.
It wins mud brawls, not campaigns,
leaves gashes, but never names.

You think the sword takes patience, fear?
That form is shackles, weight severe?
But steel that sings was forged to last,
and skill, not slop, makes deep wounds fast.

See, butchers love their brutal art,
blade to sinew, meat to cart.
A tusk, it tears, it ruts, it chews—
but lacks the hands for sharper use.

So charge fast, strike low, gore deep—
but tell me, when your blade runs steep,
did you sever thought from bone,
or only flail where swords are honed?
240 · Jul 2021
Oh Well
badwords Jul 2021
Once I fell
Into a well
Alone I languished
An extrinsic anguish
I lived in this hole
A hermit and mole
And I learned
And I earned
My peace, alone
240 · Jan 26
The Rope On Fire
badwords Jan 26
#1:

Beneath the blackened vault of sky,
A rope descends—its fibers cry.
Through smoke and ash, it threads its way,
To acid pools where shadows lay.

Each rung, a tale of trembling lives,
Of toil that neither rests nor thrives.
The rope, alight with fire’s tongue,
Consumes the weak, ignites the young.

Above, the hands that built this plight,
Grip tight the wheel that feeds the night.
Their laughter stokes the burning air,
While voices plead through foul despair.

Yet down we go, the tether spins,
A vertical descent of sins.
The acid waits, a hungry maw,
To swallow hope, to feed its law.

And all who cling with trembling hand,
Fall rung by rung to molten land.
The rope unspools, a fatal thread—
A path to suffering, brightly fed.


#2:

They sit in towers, their hands adorned
With golden rings and hearts of scorn.
Beneath their feet, the world does churn—
Their fire, fed by all who burn.

The wheels they turn are made of steel,
But in their eyes, there’s none who feel.
For every spark, they claim it true,
A gift, a choice, for me, for you.

Their cries of justice mask the snare—
The rope descends; they’re unaware.
Or so they claim, their hearts made cold,
In search of more, and yet more gold.

They stoke the fire with lies so sweet,
Each word a chain beneath our feet.
Their words, like venom, fill the air—
Their wars, their work, their cruel affair.

From every ring and every crown,
They’ve forged the ropes that drag us down.
In sacred halls, they make their claim,
To build the world and stake their fame.

But in their eyes, the flicker dies—
The fire’s fed by endless lies.
Yet still, they turn the wheel of fate,
And laugh at all who beg for weight.


#3:

We stand in silence, eyes aglow,
Watching the rope as it twists low.
We pray, we hope, it stops its fall—
That this, at least, will not be all.

Each life, a thread upon the line,
Each breath, a dollar, a choice divine.
The rope, it burns—but we still wait,
Hoping the fire will slow its fate.

But deep inside, we know the truth—
The rope, the flame, the endless proof:
That those above, with hearts of stone,
Will never stop the fire’s throne.

Yet still we stand, as shadows grow,
Our voices hushed, our hearts all low.
We watch the rope, we feel the heat,
But never move our willing feet.

The acid rises, slow and sure—
We’re bound to burn, but still, we’re pure.
We’re innocent in mind and hand—
But broken souls will burn the land.

We sit, we wait, we dream and pray,
Hoping that the rope will fray.
But in the end, it’s not for us—
For none will care, and none will trust.


#4:

But in the flames, a voice did rise,
A crack, a scream, a sudden prize!
No longer bound by ropes of ash,
The burning souls began to lash.

The fire bites, the heat does sear,
But through the pain, they see the clear:
The rope, it does not need to burn—
The fire’s in our hands to turn.

The world is wrought with weight and woe,
But still, we fight, we fight to know
That we can break the ropes that bind,
We need not bow, we need not find.

In flames, the truth becomes our song—
The suffering’s never been so long.
But in the depths of fear and pain,
The rage emerges once again.

They’ve dragged us low, they’ve set the fire—
But now we rise, we rise—entire!
The rope may burn, the fire’s fed,
But not until we stand instead.

With burning eyes, we look below,
The fire’s rage, the endless woe.
Yet we stand firm, our hearts of steel,
To break the chain, to break the seal.

The fire does not cleanse—it burns,
But we, the flame, will twist and turn.
We light the dark with fire’s breath—
We fight the rope, we fight through death.


#5:

And then it came, the final blow,
The tipping point, the fire’s glow.
The rope, once taut, now snaps apart—
A breaking point, a beating heart.

We’ve seen the flames, we’ve felt the burn,
We’ve watched the world around us churn.
But now we stand, unbowed, unchained,
The years of suffering, unrestrained.

The fire’s thirst is never quenched,
The rope’s descent, forever clenched.
But in our hearts, a fire grows—
A flame that rises, fierce, it shows.

We tear the chains, we break the seal,
We know the fire’s rage is real.
But we are more, we are the flame—
We are the ones who will reclaim.

No longer bound by rope or flame,
No longer trapped in this cruel game.
We rise above, we tear the sky—
The ropes will burn, but we will fly.

In every tear, in every scream,
We carve the path to a new dream.
The rope may burn, the fire may rage,
But we are free, we’ve left the cage.


#6:

The rope, now burning, twists and snaps,
Its final thread begins to collapse.
No more a tether, no more a chain,
Its ash falls down like cleansing rain.

The acid pools, once hungry deep,
Now burn away the wounds we keep.
The flame, once fierce, now choked and still—
A hollow shell, a broken will.

We watch the wreck, the falling flame,
And know that all has been reclaimed.
No longer bound by fire’s grip,
No longer pulled by tyrants’ whip.

The operators fade from sight,
Their laughter gone, their grip of might.
For now we stand, the ropes undone—
A world remade beneath the sun.

The fire that scorched us into dust
Is quenched by courage, hope, and trust.
The rope has burned, but from the ash,
We rise—no more to bow or crash.

The future calls, its voice is clear,
A world reborn, a life sincere.
We break the chains, we free the sky—
The burning rope has passed us by.
*The Rope O Fire* is a long-form poem exploring the themes of systemic exploitation, the consequences of complacency, and the eventual rise of collective resistance. Drawing inspiration from William Blake’s rhythmic precision and striking imagery, the poem follows a metaphorical descent down a rope of suffering, a symbol of societal and economic oppression. The rope, burning and descending, represents the relentless cycle of exploitation, with each rung echoing the lives of those who toil at the bottom of the social and economic ladder.

The first section sets the stage, describing the rope’s descent into suffering, while the operators—those in power—are shown as detached, using their position to perpetuate harm. The poem moves through the stages of passive observation, followed by a call to action, culminating in a powerful moment of collective awakening where the oppressed recognize their agency and the potential to reshape their fate.

The final sections bring forth the breaking of the rope, symbolizing the destruction of systemic oppression and the reclamation of power by the people. Through vivid metaphors and relentless rhythm, the poem emphasizes the cyclical nature of exploitation and the possibility for transformation through collective will and unity.

At its core, *The Rope On Fire* is a call to action, a message of hope in the face of despair, urging the reader to break free from passivity and to actively dismantle the systems that seek to oppress and exploit.
237 · Feb 2022
Temperance
badwords Feb 2022
I pour the wine
Into the weaker glass
A moment in time
Fleeting, passed

I am surrounded by you
Us, alone
Comforts are few
Happiness, a home

I share what's mine
Returned in same
I cherish the time
A spark, a flame

Just you & me
In it together
Twins, siamese
Incliment weather

****** and crowns
Rule the stage
Profit on frowns
This day in age

You are my peace
The panderous riot
Fame for lease
My moment of quiet
235 · Jul 2023
Mom's Fridge
badwords Jul 2023
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'Mom already hung it on the fridge--not good enough for me!'
'This "greatness" needs ALL the internet to see!'

To what end? Stranger's validation?
A legitimization of your station?
At what point is this *******?
In this self-agrandization?

*Hello Poet-Try™
233 · Mar 30
Engulf
badwords Mar 30
I was born beneath a stovetop sermon,
raised on smoke and the echo of “just like him.”
She lit the burner,
called it love,
then blamed the fire when I blistered.

I learned early:
affection has teeth.
That mirrors are weapons
if someone else gets to hold the frame.

So I went looking—
not for love,
but for permission.
To be, without revision.
To feel, without rehearsal.

And they came,
each with open arms
and blueprints in their back pockets.
They didn’t say change.
They said better.
They meant less.

I gave what I could,
which was always everything.
And when that wasn’t enough—
I gave the shape of myself too.

But still I stood.
Not clean. Not cured.
Just standing.
Wobbly maybe, but mine.

Now, here—again—
I feel the heat in the glance,
the tremor in the words:
"Don’t idealize me."
But isn’t that the perfect bait?

Still, I stay.
Still, I watch.
Because I’ve learned to name the difference
between a flame and a forge.

I am not the boy at the stove anymore.
I am the man with the match—
and the scars to prove
I know when to walk away
and when to burn with purpose.

So if I burn now,
it will not be in silence.
It will not be for someone else’s comfort.

It will be because I chose
to stand in the fire
as myself,
and finally,
stay.
Engulf is a raw, introspective free verse poem that explores the psychological weight of childhood trauma, the complexities of romantic relationships shaped by formative wounds, and the slow journey toward self-reclamation. The speaker reflects on being cast in the shadow of a parent’s unresolved resentment, inheriting emotional roles not of their own making. This early dynamic becomes a foundation for a series of adult relationships in which affection is offered only on the condition of transformation—of becoming someone safer, more malleable, more convenient.

Using fire as a recurring metaphor—both as danger and as forge—the poem charts a movement from vulnerability to clarity. The speaker recognizes a lifelong tendency to over-invest, to seek validation at the cost of self, and ultimately, to mistake manipulation for intimacy. Rather than arriving at a dramatic ******, Engulf builds toward quiet resolve: the decision to stand in one’s own fire, no longer shaped by external blueprints, no longer asking permission to exist as is.

In Engulf, the author confronts the cyclical nature of emotional projection and internalized identity distortion. The poem serves as both personal reckoning and a broader commentary on how unresolved familial dynamics often echo into adult relationships. Rather than casting blame, the piece investigates the subtle ways in which individuals are conditioned to compromise their authenticity in pursuit of love and acceptance.

The poet's intent is not to moralize or to position the speaker as a victim, but to depict a moment of awakening: a realization that authenticity, though difficult and often lonely, is preferable to the ongoing erosion of self. With restrained emotional language and clear metaphorical resonance, Engulf offers a nuanced perspective on healing—not as a destination, but as a commitment to remain whole in the face of recurring patterns.
233 · Jan 2023
Tired Eyes
badwords Jan 2023
I'm met again, with those same tired eyes
My scheduled appearance makes no surprise
Just a couple of rounds after work, never a fuss
Only wasting time, waiting for my bus

I consider you in ways you would never concieve
Your tone, body language, everything I perceive
Is that your heart truly worn on your sleeve?
I sum it up. Again, I make my leave

These vessels, opaque as glass
Clamouring forwards, eager to pass
Disconnected, this forest has no trees
Aside from a rare 'Thank you' or 'Please'

And here we are, all the lot of us
Odiferous strangers, sharing a bus
Taking us where we want or need to be
If only we'd stop and see
Real talk though; 'What if God Was One of Us?' xD
232 · Jan 19
I'm Sorry.
badwords Jan 19
I run away.
“When the going gets tough,
The tough get going.”
But this was never what it meant.

I run away.
When struggles rise,
The so-called tough
Find answers, not alibis.

I run away.
I see it clear—
The same old patterns
Etched like black
On white veneer.

I’ve failed each time
To sell the truth,
To live the words
I’ve sold as proof.

Oblivious,
Self-absorbed,
A shallow star
On a fading course.

I am alone.
The crop I reap
Is born from seeds
I buried deep.

I seek no grace,
No pity, no balm—
Only to show
The harm I’ve done.

This is no plea
For some reprieve,
But a reckoning—
The pain I weave.

An apology—
To lay these tools,
This sad refrain,
This harm, to rest.

A truce to hold,
A call to mend,
No absolution,
But an end.
232 · Feb 14
The Captain’s Mark
badwords Feb 14
I swore myself a roving man,
A tempest, free of charted sand.
No port, no queen, no claim, no chain—
Yet still, she called, and still, I came.

Her hook was quick, her lure was keen,
A siren’s snare of silk unseen.
She whispered myths of wicked gold,
And so, I knelt—was bought, was sold.

A single patch to shade my sight,
To blind the wrongs, to frame the right.
Then two, then three—by my own hand,
Till all the world was black as land.

Her parrots perched upon my back,
Squawking truths I’d not attack.
“Loyal hands should grip the mast,
And take the keel both first and last.”

I took the brace, I took the blow,
I let her mark me down below.
A willing brace, a wooden stand,
A peg well fit to her command.

I’d tell myself I’d steal away,
Yet still, I’d bow, yet still, I’d stay.
For even now, I taste the brine—
And miss the rope that made me blind.
231 · Jan 2023
The BIG Fish
badwords Jan 2023
Everyday I cast my line
No expectations, killing time
It's what I do under my big Oak tree
No interruptions just nature and me

Same ole pond, different day
I get a bite in a furious way!
Rod creeks, line spools!
"I'm equipped with amateur's tools!"

The rod is bending, it might break
"How much more of this can I take?!"
Muscles burning
Every inch, an earning

Almost there; the rod gives crash!
With a net & knife; in I splash!
This behemoth of no renown
Lurking just outside my home!

A war is fought: Man against Fish
One of us is walking out of here--the other; a dish
The sun was low in the sky
When I dragged my prize to land dry

It was the talk of the town for years
So many free beers
But, time aches on
Not oft now do I hear that song
Of, me & "The Big One"

Time sometimes moves slow, then all of a sudden; fast!
Too often I spend on things past
I miss that big, fishy *******
I wish he could have gotten in the last word
I miss our day of fun
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