soft foam glides gently
along the pearly shoreline;
gentle, bobbing calm

the moirai thread life
from it's birth to termina;
the knots of kismet

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?

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?

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.

as far as i can tell,
it's a waste of time
to give your heart
to people who will
crush it and leave it
to wane and wither

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

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

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.

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?

she said: "i'm pretty when i cry"
oh , how i relate to her so deep
for when i tear up, i feel weak
and yet i feel so warm and in
my skin, so comfortable and
all the more scarier through
my convulsing body
at ease

light-bound revered idol in the sky
preaches velvet soft respect for all
and  yet, it seems all too wrong
considering all believe opposite
but then call themselves  
              'saved'

is it always this loud,  
         or have i just started     listening?

the air        pulses—  
      not from sound,  
               but from        expectation.  

      what if i forget how to breathe  
            without someone watching?  
     what if i already have?  

the ceiling sweats.  
      the walls lean in.  
           does the room know  
              i’m trying not to fall apart?

my skin        buzzes,  
         not from fear,  
                 but from      waiting for it.  
       for the sharp thing,  
                   the wrong word,  
                        the slow blink that ruins everything.  

why does silence feel like accusation?  
      why do voices sound      like mirrors?

       i blink,  
            and the world repositions—  
       not violently,  
              just enough to unseat me.  

          the chair shifts under my weight.  
     am i too much again?  
                or is it just the thought of being seen  
                         that makes me so?  

every word i speak  
         frays at the edges,  
     like it's trying to escape me mid-sentence.  
            are they still listening?  
                  were they ever?

    my heartbeat stutters—  
         not in fear,  
               but in     anticipation  
                        of fear.  

      there is no danger here.  
            then why does the door  
                 look like a verdict?

i want to ask for help,  
         but the words feel  
                  like spilled glass—  
                         how do you pick them up  
                                 without bleeding?  

         and if i’m always breaking,  
     who would stay long enough  
           to gather the pieces?

        how much of this  
              is just being alive?  
        and how much  
                is whatever i’ve become  
                       while trying to hide it?

     what is the name for this feeling—  
             not drowning,  
                   not burning,  
                        just shaking  
                              beneath still water?


       when does the body  
             stop mistaking its own breath  
                        for danger?

my heart is a lie;
a false adoration for
all, but riddled in
silent sharp truths

i've realized that
me weeping out
in the form of ink
and words won't
make a difference
for my betterment

and yet, it feels
all too beautiful
to spread my tears
in the form of art
everywhere i go

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.

it ruptures within me like a sweet abyss;
to you an undesired whole

how long will you be blinded by glimpses of heaven
before you realize the tainted blood of your words?

why must i hold on to a light
that doesnt approve of me?

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.

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?

it drips down like honeyed poison
this dysphoria of mine, a weeping
guillotine;           a mourning blade

two faces, two egos
to my face you tell me everything is fine
for every flaw i perform, for every mistake
and yet, you spit venom behind my back on my name

how funny, am i right?

interwoven bodies everywhere
frightening weights of "love"
they almost make me gag, this
fake admiration for another
and yet, i find myself wishing
for that same close company
all despite my irks

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.

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

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.

they come to you, arms outstretched,  
            voices cracked open like old leather.  
                    you gather their sorrows,  
                           tuck them neatly between your ribs.  

    you are the light in their storm,  
            the hands pulling them from the water,  
                    the voice that hums, "it will be okay."  

    but when the tide rises for you?  
            when your own chest caves like a hollow house?  

    silence.  
            not cruel, not malicious—  
                    just absence.  

    the weight is yours alone to carry.  
            you, the listener.  
                    you, the healer.  
                            you, the foundation that must never crack.  

    (but sometimes, even stone crumbles.)  

    when will someone pull you from the flood?  
            when will someone sit beside you and say,  
                    not in passing, not out of duty—  
                            but because they mean it—  

                                   "it will be okay."

how long will i have to live,
knowing that i am forever
incapable to attaining the
same feats as the other boys
who stand before me?

how long will i have to cope
with the fact that i will never
cure myself of the boney skin
that have distinguished me
from the fit and the brawn?

how long will i feel my envy,
like violent waves crashing
onto the still shore, brewing
inside of me at the meer glimpse
of his glorious "belonging?"

how long will i stay sorrowful
how long will i stoop down to
my lowest level
and how long will i never try
to change, as if
this sadness is eternal?

a single touch of welcoming
is all i desire, no matter the
strain it will have.
i am for it all

topsy turvy truth
silent lips and shut teeth
sweat swells solemnly  

i beat around the bush

to find the peace of mind
that has fleed in a fearful frenzy

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?

i am a beacon of hollow skin
of which you have neglected
with your back turned; a
grand shadow cast

mind is pacing
hands are full
calendar ticking
away towards
bound due dates
sweat in sleep that
no tablefan can fix
thoughts of
exams and fears
reoccuring torment
of embarrasing moments
that i want to keep away

why must this be the life
god has carved for me?

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?

the glass stood tall once.  
       smooth, untouched,    
               shaped to expectation.  

then came the fall.  
the slip,  
         the drop,  
                 the ruin.  

hands hovered over the wreckage,  
  whispers of what was,  
    what could have been,  
       what will never be again.  

    no one wanted the pieces.  
           no one knew what to do with them.  
                they stared, they sighed, they left.  

      but someone stayed.  
             or maybe no one did, maybe just the dust.  
                    just the dust, and the silence, and the weight of absence.  

gold is a lie they tell to make it bearable.  

   it does not erase the cracks.  
      it does not restore what was lost.  
         it only makes the breaking visible.

   not untouched,  
           not perfect,  
                   but standing.  

   they call it beauty,  
             but it is only survival.  
                      they call it art,  
                                 but it is only memory.  

       if light filters through the seams,  
             does it mean it is still breaking?