Feelings tend to be hard,
From them,
We long to break apart.

But if you're going through hardship,
Baby, know that you're loved,
You're stronger than what you oppose.

Do you know it hurts to leave me here?
Bleeding, scarred, begging for someone to see,
And you won't shed a single tear—
Even though we've been through so much—for me.

Didn't you know?

Do you know it kills me when you walk away?
Your back is turned, footsteps left, and I still stand,
But you keep leaving me there, day after day,
So I fall and fall, but you won't ever see me land.

Didn't you know?

Do you know how I die when you lie?
Hair over your eyes that are glued to your feet,
Nervous like I won't see through the things you hide,
I know I'm too much, but you took the heat.

Didn't you know?

Do you know that I cry because I don't know?
I don't know why you aren't here anymore, by my side,
I'm so lost in this sea, in the music, in this twisted show,
And you're too callous to see my goodbye.

Didn't you know
It's my time to go?

I want
      the lungfuls of
Your       breath

I want
           the lucidity
Your laugh rings

I want
         to nestle in
                   between
Your smile lines,             
         
                           never
                              ever
     leaving   the  even
                                ing

When I take my last breath,
I will fight to be free.

I will struggle with every gasp,
I will drag my strife behind me
tired and wrinkled
even in dusty ruins
I will bare my chains,
in between the teeth of angels
they will break for me.

To set myself free
I will break the boundaries
of my imagination
to see all possibilities
ahead of myself.

In between the teeth of angels
lay heavenly possibilities
and beyond the horizon
dreams await me.

©️ 2025 By Amanda Shelton

Hold off on your verdict for her now.
Put by your own condemnations.
You never lived behind the wall
In the grip of grievous self-abnegations.

In the morning, while opening eyes,
She destroys and despises herself in whole!
She hates herself! She abhors the world,
Which she has made by herself alone.

She wants everything would disappeared,
Evaporated as though it's never been
So that there's nothing left around,
Nothing reminded of her as she's been.

And she would start with a blank sheet.
Forgiven, redeemed and clearly blameless,
Hold off on your verdict for her now,
For her, who leans over ruins.

I watched my father
take his last breath
Drugged , deprive of food and water
slipping away into death

Yet he resisted ,
he struggle to say .
But the drugs
prevented him
as they held him
in sway

The memorial crossed
my thoughts tonight
Then spread to the history
of my life by the light

From the earliest beginning when I was just
child
Death was stalking me
following me around all of the while

A neighbor from tornado
Crib death of a child
plane crash , polio
Mile after mile

Death became second nature
A fiend always that be
That shadow always standing there next to me

I used to joke and call him my friend
But I never saw him smile or attempt to grin

So as the wheels of life continue to spin
I'm left here standing next to him

I tell death I'm moving on beyond his grasp
Entering a new dimension
where he cannot pass

There are no emotions
in his vacuous eyes
And I wonder if he believes it's just more of those lies

his thoughts twist like rivers,
carving paths no one else would walk.
at first, i only followed out of wonder,
curious how someone could think in stars
instead of steps.

now, i read him like a second language.
not native, but fluent.
and every word still catches the light,
like something holy.

he tells me he doesn’t belong,
but maybe he was never meant
to fit the world.
maybe he was built
to fit me.