during my cigarette break
i met a perfect stranger
(his hands smelled of bleach,
mine manicured and adorned)
he a cleaner
i a teacher's assistant

we spilled words like loose coins,
quickly, easily
about pasts
that refused to stay buried.
how mental illness
gnawed quietly at the edges
of our days,
how Christmas was
a fistful of broken promises,
how parents became
ghosts of voices
we no longer called.

we confessed
to the solitude of crying
when the walls were thick enough
to keep secrets,
and i saw in his eyes
something frighteningly familiar—
the weight
of almost,
of never quite enough.

him a cleaner,
i a teacher's assistant,
yet between us,
no distance,
only the soft unraveling of
what it means to be human.

I shook his hand
with utmost respect,
the kind reserved for warriors
who fight wars no one sees,
and I asked for his name—
(it hung in the air
like a fragile bird).

he told me softly,
as if ashamed of his own syllables,
as if names could erase
the years of invisible labor
or the silent rooms
he scrubbed clean of other people’s messes.

and in that moment,
he was no stranger,
no cleaner, no shadow—
just a man
whose story brushed against mine,
soft as shared breath,
sharp as shared pain.

when I walked away,
the smoke of my cigarette
curled into his absence,
and I wondered
how many lives
we pass without touching,
how many names
we never think to ask.

How many mountains must I climb
To catch a glimpse of sunrise.
How many boulders must I move
To clear a path to my doorway.
And how many rivers must I ford
To leave this gloom behind me.
ljm

Wildflowers grasped in their hands,
Eyes expectant, waiting still—
Resplendent, she, in pearls and lace,
Crystals veiling iron will.

Upon a stallion, proud she gazed,
The cliffs below—waves, hungry, wild—
A dreamer young, her heart betrayed,
By guilt unpardoned, yet beguiled.

To marry love, the soul must pay,
An execution—hope undone.
Laudanum soothes the troubled night,
But daylight sees what grief has spun.

Rumors drift like soft exhale,
Tinkling laughter—shadows hide.
A sparrow leapt from trembling hands,
Defiant, boundless, unallied.

Death does not part, though life divides—
Choices, wounds that dare reveal.
Do we hurt to feel what’s real,
Or punish what we cannot heal?

Her fingers danced on shadowed skin,
Curtains swayed in darkness shared.
Together sought, together lost,
Unpredictable, love dared.

It is of no consequence, they said,
A black sheep wanders where none see.
Yet whispers linger, soft as waves—
A love alive, though never free.

I have a fascination with
all things love,
Daydreams constructing expectations
and a daily need for a thing which
I have yet to experience,
It's an obsession which has
evolved into a fear ~
Fear of a broken heart,
of a lonely life,
of distracted dreams.

~ Funny my ability to
overthink.

White, black, green, and red,
Waving a flag.
Let the world know
There is a right to be alive—
The people of Palestine have,
In their own olive land.

Open up my wounds
Drench me in my sorrow

With every waking day,
hand me another pill too hard to swallow

It gives me thrill
A taste of a dark state of bliss

For who can resist
another opportunity to wallow?

My very own mind made misery
A haven from the first sign of glee

Take me there
so I can go nowhere

Lock me in
the sanctuary under my skin.

Anxiety wraps
itself around me,

like a coat that
doesn’t fit me

like a lover that
doesn’t love me

like a fire that
doesn’t warm me