Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
17h · 29
enough
hsn 17h
i wear
the cloak of expectations,
stitched from the sins of others,
woven tight like fig leaves —
covering the shame
that is
not mine.

they say,  
    be this,
          be that,
    carry the burden
                   of the world —  
              like the mount of uhud,  
                     heavy,  
                          and unyielding.  

but when i look
into the mirror,
it shatters,
like the moon split asunder,
pieces scattered
across the floor,
beyond repair.

    “just be happy,”  
                      they say,  
        “be perfect,  
                   be the image,  
                        the reflection.”  

but my soul
feels like a vessel,
empty,
lost,
waiting for the rain,
as if i am the dry earth,
thirsting for the mercy
of a single drop.

                                          i reach for the stars —
                                          but my hands
                                          can never grasp
                                          the heavens.

i look for the light,  
                  but the darkness swallows it whole,  
                  and i wonder —  
                   if i’ve stopped looking,  
              if the search  
                       was always  
                        a lie.  

     they say,  
              to be enough,
                 but the world  
                 only knows the hunger —  
                  the longing for something  
                          beyond reach.  

how many times,
must i lift my heart
like the mountain,
and yet,
still
fall short?

                            have i not been enough?
              am i not enough?
                            or was i never meant to be?

the ink of my life
is written on fragile skin,
prayers said in silence —
but no one listens anymore.

but when the world turns away,
i remain here

                                                                      lost,
                                                                 empty,
                                                        wondering —


                                                        am i enough?
17h · 28
"art"
hsn 17h
they say it is
a canvas,
                          a frame,
                                       a brushstroke.
                                                                              but it is a cage.

    beauty,  
                they say,  
      is symmetry,  
                           precision,  
        lines drawn tight —  
                               perfect,  
                               as if that means anything.  

a curve here,
a shadow there,
exactly right,
exactly wrong —
                                       the rules of a game
                                       no one remembers starting.

      who made the rules?
                 who decided  
                      what belongs in the frame,  
                           what is worthy  
                       of the gaze?  

does the brush bleed?
             is the color pure?
is it still art if it spills —
                          all over,
shattering the borders?

they say
"if you can't see it,
it's not there,"
                                       but can you see the space?
                                                                 the chaos
                                                    between the lines?

art —  

you say it is  
     "a statement,"  
           "an expression,"  
           "a revolution."  
                   but only the kind that fits.

art.

we call it beautiful
             only when it
                          fits
                          in the frame,
                                       the one we've built —
                                                                 to trap it.

   so what happens
         when the frame shatters?  
                    what happens then?
17h · 23
altars of flesh
hsn 17h
molded,  
      measured,  
            carved.  

           (cut down to size.)  

    a rib for eve,  
          a waist for venus,  
                 a bust for dionysus,  
                        a jaw for adonis.  

what is a body
if not a mirror?
if not a stage?
if not a cage?

    they say,  
             make yourself small.  
     they say,  
             make yourself more.
     they say,  
             make yourself worthy.  

break bone,
burn flesh,
bind, pinch, peel, pull —
closer. tighter. smoother. thinner.
broader. harder. taller. stronger.

     (they will still call you too much.)  

a scale is an altar,
a waistline a prophecy,
a mirror a judge,
a calorie a sin,
a muscle a shrine.

   and you?  
          a lamb—  
               fattened, then starved,  
                    offered up,  
                        to the god of empty stomachs,
                        to the god of unyielding fists.

who taught you to love your body
only when it is leaving you?

    who told you hunger was holy?  
    who told you pain was power?  

who decided a man is only worth
the space he conquers,
and a woman is only worth
the space she does not take?

and why did we listen?
hsn 17h
who among you has never let
the blood dry on your hands?

              does the shepherd not  
                          break the lamb’s leg  
                                               so it will follow?

does the potter not
drown the clay
before shaping it?

  tell me,  
      is the lion wicked  
              for its teeth?  

     or the serpent  
                for its tongue?  

                                                      ­  if the temple is built
                                          on stolen stone,
              does the prayer still rise?

if the offering is paid for  
            in hunger,  
                    does the incense still please?  

tell me,
is the knife holy
if it never cuts?

           is the river good
    if it never drowns?

              was judas ******
              for thirty silver —
              or for the kiss?

was peter saved
for love —
or for fear?

   if i call you righteous,  
              will you thank me?

if i call you wicked,
will you deny me?

   if i tell you there is no difference,  

                    will you crucify me too?
1d · 39
set the table
hsn 1d
they hold my name  
       like a coin in their palm,  
  turning it over,  
       pressing the edges,  
            but never spending its worth.  

their words —
gilded cages,
soft-spoken, silver-lined,
but rust blooms underneath.

i set the table,  
       place their names beside crystal and light,  
            but my own chair—  
                  empty,
                         my place setting,  
                                 forgotten.  

i weave threads into bridges,  
        careful, deliberate —  
              but they walk across  
                   without looking down,  
                         without ever knowing  
                                what held them up.  

i give them weight,  
          substance,  
                presence—  
                        but in their hands,  
                               i am air,  
                                      a thing to be moved through,  
                                                not held.

so i swallow my name,
unspool the thread,
clear the table.

    if they do not know my worth,  
                  then i will keep it  
                                  for myself.
1d · 33
tide and ember
hsn 1d
the wind learns to whisper,  
                                         then aches to howl.  

                              a shadow drifts, content in its absence,
               tucked into corners where light forgets —
      weightless, wandering, unmade.
              
    the river carves itself smaller,  
          pulling away from the shore,  
                longing to be mist,  
                     to be nothing at all.  

                   but the sky splits open,  
                        spilling voices like wildfire,  
                              hands grasping,  
                                    pulling,  
                                        demanding.

the echo becomes thunder,
the ember becomes blaze —
and the tide surges forward,
craving the pull,
the crash,
the storm.

   to be everything.  
       to be felt.

but fire burns,
and rivers drown,
and echoes stretch until they fade.

so the wind quiets,
                     the shadow folds,
                                      the world sighs —

            and it is still again.
1d · 165
the world
hsn 1d
a circle,
              (closed).

arms reach,
stretch,
but never
quite
touch.

    infinity spins  
                round —  
      no end, no start,  
                  but always moving.  

everything and nothing,
twirl,
dance —
a waltz of wisp and weight.

light glows,  
              soft, gentle,  
                         (but distant).  

the edges blur —
you almost see it,
almost touch it—
                                  but then it's gone,
                                              slipping —

           through cracks.  

completion?
or is it
just a loop —

                   a never-ending spiral?

    your place is here,  
                                        (but not yet).  
                   not yet.  

  the world,  
                  the world —  
         is beyond,  
                       above,  
                   inside.  

in every step,
                       every breath —
is the world.

                   you can see it.  
                   (you almost touch it.)  
     but it’s already gone.  

(it was never there.)  

    but you are.  

      spinning.  
             forever
                   waiting.
1d · 25
honey
hsn 1d
the mirror melts.  
  no — not melts, but pools,  
         a golden spill of reflections,  
a syrup-thick mirage     clinging to my skin.    

              i step forward,    
      (or maybe backward?)    
  my footprints fizz like swallowed stars,    
                 glimmering,  
       dissolving into the amber flood.    

who am i today?

             a prism refracting selves,    
   each face a sugared echo of the last.    
          i touch my arm,    
    (but which one?)    
                my fingers bloom into moths,    

their wings dipped in honey,
their voices whispering my name
in fifty-thousand flavors.

i am not one.
    i am not many.  
            i am—    

                  (i am?)

the river laughs,  
      its voice thick with golden light,    
            dripping into my throat,    
                 seeping into my bones,    
     rewriting the marrow into something    
           sweeter.
hsn 2d
there is a fissure  
            in the air,  

quiet like a breath held too long—
and in that silence,
i wonder if
you see
the cracks
in the way
i speak,
in the way
i bend,
in the way my skin
doesn’t fit
like it used to.

do you notice the way
i speak of “us,”
but never of “me”?

i’ve stitched my truth
in places you won’t look —
it hangs like a forgotten photograph
on the edge of a shelf,
where the light
won’t touch it,
where the air is thick
with questions
too sharp to ask.

            you ask,  
             but not really,  
             and i answer,  
                  but not fully.  

we are strangers wearing
the same names,
as if we’ve all agreed
that silence tastes better
than the truth.
so i hide behind my words,
dressing them in the
language you want to hear,
but they are hollow
like rooms
with no doors.

                 i feel the  
                     weight  
            of your eyes,  
                       but they  
                       are blind  
                 to what has shifted—  
             like a tree growing sideways,  
              the roots pulling away  
            from the earth  
                and the branches  
            reaching toward something  
                     you would never understand.  
      can you hear the hum in my chest?  
        can you feel the tremor  
               in the space between us?  
i have folded myself in half  
       so many times,  
                you can no longer  
                 see the shape of me.  

               but the fear stays,  
                 creeping in the  
             corners of the room,  
                beneath the words,  
            behind the smiles—  
      the distrust is a shadow  
           that no light can erase,  
    because every truth  
              i’ve never spoken  
                is buried in the dark,  
        and i wonder—  
    if you dig deep enough,  
          will you find me?  
          or will you leave me here,  
                    silent, hidden,  
                   waiting for a truth  
                     i cannot share?
im starting to really enjoy
this wobbly text formation
hsn 2d
it     starts with  
            a whisper       no — a            blink,  
the line — no, the edge— curls,
twisting like a thread that won’t stop unraveling
oh, it pulls at something deep,
something dark,
but soft—

            i am standing in the space  
where things don’t hold still,
the air bends — or is it me
bending it?
i try to speak but words bleed
out in
pieces —
broken sentences scatter, like
glass that never shatters.

"does it mean something?"
     i think it does.  
            but how could i know  
                       when time itself  
                    is        no longer  
                        the same?  
         clocks melt,  
                     but they don’t drip,  
                   they hum a sound  
       too far away to hear.  

        the sky— i think it’s still the sky—  
                  twists like a blanket  
           that never fully covers,  
   and underneath, there’s a door, but it doesn’t lead anywhere,  
   only back to a place i’ve been before,  
                  but forgotten how to leave.  

                 am i waiting?  
            or is this waiting for me?  

the mirror is smiling—
i didn’t know mirrors could smile,
or that they had teeth
but it’s there, behind me,
always behind—
trying to speak
but its words
are mine —
twisted backwards,
stretching,
thinning out like smoke.

there’s nothing to hold,
so i hold it all.
2d · 29
kaleidoscope
hsn 2d
we are all half-formed,
tattered in the mouth of the sky,
footsteps scattered like secrets in sand
half-told stories,
flickering like the last candle before dawn.

where do the rivers begin?
do they unravel in the mind,
or do they stretch in the soil of forgotten stars?
your hands do not belong to you,
yet you hold them as though they are the
beginning of something
but where is the ending,
if endings are just names written on clouds?

i have been inside of nothing,
and it was vast,
expanding like a breath held too long,
too thick for the lungs of anyone to swallow.
do you remember the moment before you knew yourself?
was it light or was it dark?
perhaps it was both
perhaps it was neither.

you are a shape that never fits,
yet you force yourself into corners,
into frames,
into expectations
but the walls are always shifting,
always bending like light
through the cracked glass of your understanding.

and when you look in the mirror,
what do you see?
the reflection has no name,
no shape,
no breath.
it is you,
and not you.
it is a thing that waits to be known,
but cannot be touched.

what happens when the self forgets itself?
does it shatter, or does it simply vanish
into the silence of unspoken words,
into the places where truth never grows,
where light has no color,
where time is only a whisper
a dream that never wakes?
2d · 38
chrysalis
hsn 2d
once, you were small enough to fit inside a whisper,
bones soft as moonlight,
fingers curled like question marks.
the world was too big to hold, so you clung to a name,
wrapped it around you like a second skin.

but nothing stays.

you learned that when your voice stretched,
when your laughter cracked open,
when the mirror started asking questions you couldn’t answer.

your hands,
look at them now
no longer tiny, no longer trembling,
big enough to shield your own eyes,
big enough to wipe your own tears.

the caterpillar never asks why it must split apart,
why the body it knew becomes a coffin,
why change feels like dying before it feels like flight.
but still, it unthreads itself into something else.
still, it breaks to become.

you will not be who you were yesterday.
you will not be who you are tomorrow.
but somewhere between the unraveling,
somewhere in the spaces left behind,
a pair of wings are forming.
hsn 2d
the world hums in static.
your hands—are they yours?
does your voice sound the same to others as it does in your skull?
who told you that you are real, and why did you believe them?

breathe

the sun rises because it must.
because we expect it to.
because we have seen it do so before —
and so we trust the pattern.
but who winds the clock?
who decides the rhythm of the tide?
what if the moon is just pretending?

they told you:
gravity holds you down.
the past is unchangeable.
the body is the self.
(you nodded,
you swallowed,
you never checked the label)

breathe

your mind is a funhouse mirror,
stretching, warping, turning silhouettes into specters,
turning questions into monsters —
and we name them knowledge.

but if every fact was fed to you,
if every truth was a hand-me-down,
stitched together from dead men's words,
what have you ever known firsthand?

does fire burn if you don’t believe in it?

breathe

we talk in recycled language,
walk on secondhand roads,
dream in someone else’s vision.
but where does the script end?
where do you begin?

—if you peeled back the sky like wet paper,
would it bleed static or nothing at all?

what would you do with that kind of silence?
hsn 4d
they hand you the script before you can read,
press it into your small, shaking hands —
heavy, bound in iron-spined expectations,
dog-eared by generations who never asked why.

they teach you to walk with your shoulders squared,
chin high, voice deep, footsteps firm —
a monument before you are even a man.
they teach you that softness is a sickness,
that hunger is a virtue,
that the only way to be enough
is to be more, more, more—
and never too much.

you learn to swallow silence like whiskey,
bitter but burning,
learn that weight is worn like a crown,
that fear is something you bury,
not something you name.
you learn that strength is measured
in clenched fists and bitten tongues,
in carrying the world without letting it show
in the corners of your mouth.

they call it the masculine dream—
to build, to conquer, to become,
but the dream feels more like a tomb,
more like hands that push you forward
without asking if you want to move.
you wake up every morning and pull the mask on,
the one stitched from responsibility and expectation,
the one that fits too tight against your skin.

there is no room for breaking,
no space to be small,
no air for the boy you once were —
the one who ran barefoot through the grass,
who cried without shame,
who laughed without restraint.

they hand you the script,
but no one tells you how it ends.
only that you must not falter,
only that you must not fail.

only that a man must hold himself together—
even when the cracks run deep.
4d · 45
old therebefore
hsn 4d
the wind hums like an old song,
but no one remembers the words.
once, they rang clear
soft voices, small hands,
feet bare against the earth,
before the dust turned to ash,
before the air tasted like rust.

the old therebefore,
when the world was wide,
when time was slow,
when a morning could stretch forever
and a night held no teeth.

once, the rain kissed open palms
without burning,
once, the sky bent low enough
to whisper secrets to the quiet.
once, a child could run
without knowing where,
without knowing why,
without the weight of knowing at all.

but the world teaches.
too early, too fast, too sharp
it carves lessons into skin,
shapes innocence into something brittle,
something that bends until it breaks.

the old therebefore,
when monsters only lived under beds,
not in boardrooms, not in uniforms,
not in the quiet spaces between words.

the old therebefore,
when promises meant something,
when love did not carry conditions,
when leaving was a choice,
not an inevitability.

but the past is a house
that no longer stands,
only the bones remain,
only the dust in the empty frame of a door
that once opened to something warm.

and yet
in the hush before sleep,
in the hush before waking,
the wind hums that old song again,
soft, quiet, waiting
for someone to remember.
4d · 26
the men
hsn 4d
the men behind the curtains are pulling strings again,
their fingers slick with something thick, something oil-slick black,
something that drips between the cracks in the floorboards
and pools in the mouths of the hungry.

they speak in circles, in ribbons of smoke,
in promises spun from gold-dipped breath.
but when you hold them to the light,
the gold is flaking, peeling back,
revealing the bone-white rot beneath.

they build their cities on the backs of the drowning,
pour concrete over the open mouths,
pat the ground smooth,
call it progress.
they carve their names into marble and call it history,
but the statues still weep at night
when no one is looking.

in the streets, the people move like ghosts,
hollowed out, emptied, made small enough
to fit between the gaps in the system.
they kneel before screens that flicker like gods,
praying in silence to the ones who will never answer.
outside, the neon signs are bleeding,
electric veins pulsing against the sky,
a city built from glass and hunger,
always hungry, never full.

somewhere, a mother cradles a child
who will never grow up to own the air he breathes.
somewhere, a man counts coins that will never buy him tomorrow.
somewhere, a girl stitches up the holes in her pockets
only to find new ones tearing open in the seams.

the ocean is rising,
lapping at the edges of empire,
a quiet, patient animal waiting to take it all back.
the earth cracks open like an old wound,
swallows forests, swallows homes,
spits back the bones.
the rivers run thick with something dark,
something too toxic to name.
they tell us not to drink.
they tell us to be grateful.
they tell us the sky is still blue,
but when we look up,
all we see is smoke.

the men in suits raise their glasses,
laugh over the sound of collapsing ceilings,
shake hands with the same red fingers
that signed the death certificates.
they talk about the future in rooms too high
to hear the wailing below,
too far removed to taste the ash on their tongues.

and still, we wake.
and still, we walk.
we gather what is left,
wear our hunger like armor,
carry our sorrow like torches.
if the sky will not clear,
then let us be the fire
that burns it all down.
5d · 19
quiet
hsn 5d
the classroom hums like a beehive,
buzzing with words that do not belong to me.
i sit in the back, hands folded,
trying to take up less space,
trying not to be seen.

but they see me.
they always do.
eyes like knives, voices like hands,
pushing, pulling, twisting
stretching me into something
too ugly to keep, too strange to hold.

i laugh when they laugh.
i pretend not to hear when they don’t.
my name is a song sung off-key,
passed between them like a bad joke,
a whisper behind cupped hands,
a note scrawled in the margins of a test
where the teacher will not look.

i carry their voices home in my pockets.
unfold them beneath my sheets,
let them crawl under my skin,
settle into my bones,
make a home in the quiet of my ribs.

the mirror holds me like a stranger,
mouth too stiff, eyes too empty,
body too much,
body not enough.

years pass, and their voices do not leave.
they linger, soft as breath on glass,
cold as a winter morning,
as a hand pressed firm against my back,
reminding me to shrink.

i speak, and my words sound borrowed.
i move, and i second-guess my steps.
i reach, and the world recoils —
as if i am still twelve,
still waiting for permission to exist.
5d · 27
table
hsn 5d
the plates gleam,
white as bone,
polished smooth like they have
never known hunger.

the chairs are full,
backs straight, hands folded,
laughter soft as candlelight.

i press my fingers to the rim of a glass
and pretend my touch does not leave smudges.
pretend i am not starving for something
that will never be offered to me.

the air hums with voices i do not recognize,
language slipping through my fingers
like silk, like water, like something
that was never mine to hold.

they do not notice me.
i am a shadow at the feast,
a hunger that will not be named,
a knife laid beside an untouched plate.

the table is set,
but not for me.
hsn 6d
roots buried deep in the soil,
twisting, clinging,
but always searching
for something just beyond reach,
as if to say,
"i belong, but never fully."

the stem stands tall,
fragile beneath its weight,
a spine bent by the wind,
swaying but never breaking,
holding the promise of growth
that feels too far to touch.

leaves unfurl in silence,
drinking the light,
but never truly satisfied,
reaching for something warmer,
something richer —
but always feeling the cold beneath.

a flower blooms,
beautiful for a moment,
and then fades
petals falling like whispered secrets,
crumbling into dust,
as though beauty was never meant to stay.

fruit hangs heavy with promise,
but when touched,
it rots —
sweetness turning bitter,
a taste of desire gone sour,
left to fall unpicked,
forgotten in the earth.

and yet,
the cycle repeats—
new roots,
new stems,
new leaves,
all reaching for the same sun,
knowing it will never shine long enough.
6d · 34
distance
hsn 6d
a room that hums with many voices,
but the air is too thin to carry them.

they float like dust,
slipping through the cracks of the walls,
too far away to touch.

the space between breaths stretches out,
a thread unraveling with no end,
tugging at the edges of a soul that has forgotten
how to be whole.

i am the chill of the moon,
pale and untouched,
casting shadows that refuse to be warm.
the light touches everything,
but it does not linger —
it moves through me,
like water through stone,
leaving no trace behind.

they speak,
but the words scatter,
like leaves on the wind,
and i am left holding the coldness
of their absence,
feeling it press against my ribs
like a bruise i cannot reach.

the hunger is a far-off star,
distant,
burning in a sky i can’t touch,
its light flickering in the corner of my vision,
too faint to grasp.
i stretch,
but my fingers turn to mist,
slipping between the cracks
of everything i reach for.

i am the echo of a song
no one remembers,
the silence after the storm,
the cold that settles in the bones
long after the fire has burnt out.
and still,
i stretch toward the warmth,
but it is never mine,
and the emptiness swallows
what little i have left.

i am the space between stars,
too far to be seen,
too close to disappear.
and in this endless drift,
i reach,
but never find.
6d · 29
waiting
hsn 6d
the air warps around me,
thick as honey,
slow as an apology that never comes.

i step in

a ghost with bones too solid,
a statue mid-topple,
something left in the sun too long.

the voices tangle like vines,
threading through spaces i don’t fit,
winding around my throat,
pulling too tight when i try to speak.

i hold my hands like they belong to someone else,
porcelain and brittle,
too smooth, too still,
waiting for someone to mold them into a shape
that makes sense.

the silence swells in my chest
a balloon too full,
a scream with no teeth,
a door that won’t open no matter how hard i knock.

i smile like it’s an answer.
i nod like i understand.

i stand in the center of the room
like a misplaced chair,
waiting for someone to sit,
waiting for someone to move me,
waiting to disappear.
hsn 6d
the sky split open like an old wound,
light bleeding through the cracks
golden, sticky, slow.

i reached up to touch it,
let it drip onto my tongue,
let it settle in my throat like a prayer
i never learned the words to.

                    (they told me god is warmth —  
    but warmth and fire feel the same  
            when you’re too close to both.)  

the ground swayed beneath me,
soft as a mother’s voice in the dark,
but lullabies are just soft hands on your
shoulders, keeping you steady before you go.

                           so i walked,  

barefoot over cinders,
over embers that called me darling,
called me home.

and the fire
curled around my ribs like a whisper,
like fingers laced together in sanctioned halls,
like someone humming my name just low enough
that i could pretend
i imagined it.

                      (but i didn’t.)  

                           i listened.  

hellfire sings sweetly —
and i hum along.
6d · 27
if a tree falls
hsn 6d
if a tree falls and no one hears it,
does it rot slower?

does it claw at the earth, desperate to be seen
as something more than a pile of splinters?

does it hold its breath,
waiting for footsteps,
waiting for someone to count the rings
inside its ribs and say,
"this was once here."

if i carve my name into the wind
and let it drift softly into the air,
will it hold?

or will it slip between fingers,
another whisper lost before it can reach a mouth?
hsn 6d
do you see it?

the ghost of a body still pretending to be whole,
stitched together with breath too shallow to hold,
stitched with nights that never end,
with mornings that never mean anything at all.

do you see the signs?

the moth drawn to the wick,
wings already smoldering,
the glass filling too full, too fast,
spilling over onto hands that do not flinch.

the rope hums its song in the rafters,
the blade dreams beneath the bed,
the sea sings with its mouth open,
waiting, waiting, always waiting.

and oh, if only you could see
how the body answers.

it leans over balconies,
toes curling against the lip of the abyss,
wondering how it might feel to be air,
to be a prayer half-spoken and swallowed whole.
it lingers at the water’s edge,
feeling the pull,
the old song of the tide,
the voice of god in the undertow.

this is how it happens, isn’t it?
not in fire, not in fury,
but in the slow and quiet way a candle drowns in its own wax,
in the way hands stop reaching,
in the way a name turns to dust on forgotten tongues.

why do you watch,
and why do you wait,
if not to stop it?

a simple answer, truly,

"because who can catch a shadow
when it has already learned how to slip
through the cracks?"
6d · 46
tomorrow
hsn 6d
there is a temple of iron and glass,
its doors gaping like a beast’s maw,
breathing in disciples,
spitting them out sculpted, shining, sure.
it hums in my ribs,
soft at first, then a roar, then a tremor that unroots me.

i do not enter.

instead, i map myself in the mirror,
fingertips skimming over fault lines,
skin stretched over the wreckage of someone else's war.

i am a house that has been broken into,
windows rattling at the memory of hands
that turned me into something hollow.

they say to run,
but my legs remember pursuit.
they say to lift,
but my shoulders recall the weight of silence.
they say to push, pull, press, forge myself into more —
but all i hear is
small, smaller, gone.

inside, the air is thick,
a storm of clashing metal and breath
from giants who have never learned to fear themselves.
but i am made of glass,
fractured and fogged,
a shape too fragile to shatter again.

they say strength is safety.
but strong was never safe.
strong was fists, voices raised, doors torn from hinges.
strong meant surviving,
but never stopping.
strong meant something was always coming.
strong was never mine.

so i walk past.

i keep my hands buried in the fabric of my sleeves,
let the night swallow me whole,
tell myself tomorrow.

tomorrow, maybe.

but tonight,
i let the ghosts win.
6d · 41
apple
hsn 6d
here, beneath the shadowed bough,
you reach —
a single, red glisten,
heavy with promises.
the weight of the world lies
in your palm,
unspoken,
sweet.

but the skin, oh —
it is too thin, too thin
to withstand
the breaking.

a bite, a ripple
through the quiet,
unhinging time,
unraveling the silence
as your teeth sink
deep.

your tongue tastes
the truth of the earth —
sour, sharp,
forbidden.
and from your mouth
pours
a flood of knowing,
flooded with the weight of seasons,
lost, swallowed whole
into you.

a garden crumbles.
the roots,
now tangled,
burden you —
bent, broken beneath
the fruit you’ve borne.

and so you stand,
in the ruins of choice,
eyes wide, waiting
for the consequence
to catch up.

the apple rests still,
forgotten,
waiting
for your next
bite.
Mar 24 · 128
on the mezzanine
hsn Mar 24
time unspools like thread from a spindle,
winding itself into shapes i cannot wear.
i drift between the curtains, weightless,
a shadow sewn to the edge of the stage,
waiting for someone to simply notice.
Mar 24 · 87
what love makes of me
hsn Mar 24
if love is a sin, let it burden me.
if love is a gift, let me cherish it.
Mar 24 · 55
rain that never falls
hsn Mar 24
my words slip soundless into the ground,
pooling at my feet like ripples of rainwater,
vanishing before they touch the ground.
Feb 25 · 28
envy
hsn Feb 25
it drips down like honeyed poison
this dysphoria of mine, a weeping
guillotine;           a mourning blade
Feb 25 · 40
affection forbidden
hsn Feb 25
as the gunmen circle around my fragile corpse
and my ichor seeps out my hollow vessel
my eyes will be forever trained on you
as i ask one final question:
is my love to be
paid in blood?
Feb 12 · 183
maid of iron
hsn Feb 12
i.
basilisk of steel
blades of fury
brisk justice
broken pact

this life is a maid of iron,
and i am the trapped husk
Feb 12 · 55
dear false believer
hsn Feb 12
how long will you be blinded by glimpses of heaven
before you realize the tainted blood of your words?
Feb 10 · 67
throwing stones
hsn Feb 10
you are the stone cast
and i am the water —
as you plunge deeply
into the weak nadirs
of my bottomless soul
hsn Feb 9
lest you fall asleep on the dreambound ferry
keep your eyes open for the ride forward

for the most beautiful things are along
the way and not where it ends
Feb 7 · 40
in your shadow
hsn Feb 7
i am a beacon of hollow skin
of which you have neglected
with your back turned; a
grand shadow cast
Feb 7 · 43
clinging
hsn Feb 7
it ruptures within me like a sweet abyss;
to you an undesired whole
Feb 7 · 91
caged
hsn Feb 7
my heart is a lie;
a false adoration for
all, but riddled in
silent sharp truths
Feb 7 · 149
rose gold
hsn Feb 7
aureate muscle of the
masculine dream, the
collective mind of many

it glows in the light
like a perfect bloom -
a grand yellow around
every young boy

i stand and watch it glow
with the dream laced
within me, but with
a shamed rose gold;

the stigma of men
is difference
Feb 7 · 106
provoked
hsn Feb 7
seething rage through metal bars
teeth bared like razor sharp knifes
an inferno builds up inside me,
a heat red under my own skin -
as you still and watch
mouths open in folly;
a circus lion to an audience
Feb 7 · 48
apolune
hsn Feb 7
ever-so distant, light chimes in the dark
   it whispers to me from all of this distance
      messages of a sadness evermore in null light;

there is no true spark in the darkness of night
Feb 7 · 99
solitary coffin
hsn Feb 7
up in a chokehold by lifes cold hands
color draining slowly from my eyes
everything now in black and white
i've been alone for so long now,
in this solitary coffin of mine
Feb 5 · 593
a perfect red
hsn Feb 5
seeping through brown-riddled veins
flowing a gently fervent stream from
my wrist, a perfect red
dreams of an escape from all of this
turmoil and stress can be attained
through a single temptation from
the acquired gaze of a small blade
haven't done it
but i feel like it
Feb 5 · 84
hive of a recluse
hsn Feb 5
i live in my own mirage of countless bees
and their honey-touched compliments,
the delicate petals they bear—the
only solace i'll find in this sad
dulled hive of a recluse
Feb 4 · 236
i am for it all
hsn Feb 4
a single touch of welcoming
is all i desire, no matter the
strain it will have.
i am for it all
hsn Feb 4
burdened on my shoulder rests a green, white flag
it's simplicity, yet it's alien appearance to all these
white blinded people with their white-like-mindedness-
-their morality consumed by (white) promises of humor,
telling me i should go back to where i left for their own sake
my mom tells me, "ignore their words." my father the same.
they wouldn't care since they have already found their kind
within this land of maple leaves and unpromising history
so why do i have to bear the burden of
carrying the flag of the stars for them?
Jan 19 · 142
dear god,
hsn Jan 19
why must i hold on to a light
that doesnt approve of me?
Jan 16 · 230
wax figure
hsn Jan 16
frozen still in silver secretion
forever perceived in a million
concepts; a story engrained, and
it goes...
art is interpretive and doesnt have a concrete purpose
it is up to the viewer to interpret the story behind all
things regardless of the artists intent
Jan 16 · 87
06
hsn Jan 16
06
that still lunar light;
it shines ever so brightly
in the quiet night
Jan 16 · 57
silent party
hsn Jan 16
it feels all to awkward
listening in to the chimes
of others as i sit silently
wondering why i even bother
socializing when there is no point
of me including myself within
their laughs and jokes
Next page