verb

1. i am no stranger to tormentum, to cruciatu. i have become champion to my own mind, with dead languages on my tongue. Ego summitatem parietum and I will not be restrained again.

2. i choose to be unknowable, to be Intemerata. you must work to uncover my secrets, to comprehend my speech. my soul is not free to any who might stumble across it, as it once was. because of the past failures of others, anima mea constringitur, corrupta est anima mea.

3. calloused and consuevit i stare unflinchingly into the void. i almost welcome the glacies seeping into my veins.

4. pompous and presumptuous, is that what you think of me? you know nothing but my superficial mask. loqueris ad me and we shall see.

h.f.m.

adjective

1. we were all creatures of the sky, once. so do you remember how it feels to fly? tumbling and swooping through the air, the wind in your face and a laugh on your lips. in your arms it did not seem possible that i would fall. you saved me and i am unable to return the favor.

2. your eyes shine like merry stars and i am lost gazing into their depths. i can trace constellations across the bridge of your nose and when your mouth meets mine i suddenly feel weightless in the absence of gravity. the voices tell me i'm home.

3. the universe is an omniscient creature, and it knows your name.

h.f.m.

noun

1. the scent of after-rain and earthy vanilla saturate the pages of the time-worn books piled around me like my very own wizard tower. multiloquent magician that i am, weaving words with merely my will and a quill, i cannot help but think that the smell itself is its own kind of strange and wonderful magic.

2. the sound of faint bass through headphones hanging from around my neck twines through the counter-melody looping in my head and is like my own background music. life is a movie-set and in every recording there is a harmonious strain picked up by the mikes with no discernible source. i am my own hero in this one.

3. the taste of mint on the tip of my tongue as i inhale the perfume of my garden reminds me of tree-shadows under noon-day sun, or creeks trickling through boulder fields. sparrows nestle on my collar bones, tickling my throat and filling my mouth with the summer-dust flavor of feathers.

4. the sight of a sweet shop or a library or a craft market or a street busker sends an effervescent thrill across my shoulders, seeing the pieces of the puzzle that makes up my art, on display for the world.

5. the feel of a pen in my hand is akin to being touched by the divine, with the power of pure creation at my fingertips. a world of my own making unrolls before me. it is an ever-evolving, stirring, dynamic creature of ink that is singing singing singing to my soul.

h.f.m.

noun

1. i will always be afraid.'bold, heroic, daring...' these are words to describe another. despite this, i will never shy away from myself. i may not be brave, but i am honest.

2. have you ever found a poem that touched you, brushed your very soul, and sent shivers across your skin? inexplicably, indisputably, a dust-spark alights gently in your lungs. inhale, fire. exhale, smoke.

3. flames on my tongue like a shakespearean sonnet, embers on my lips searing like birdsong. i am too terrified to speak. for you, i would.

4. i am finally doing something right.

h.f.m.

that* (pronoun)
\ˈthat, thət\

used by the misunderstanding to describe the depth of thought and/or emotion experienced by the reader upon reading poetry that has been ripped directly from the author's soul

Se⋅ren⋅di⋅pit⋅y n. 1. The uplifting, seemingly never-ending weightlessness brought on by a beautiful event of pure happenstance. 2. When light hits one's face, esp. a friend or lover, in just the right way, and every aspect of one's inner beauty is displayed: lying in the morning sun / the ghost of curtains over faces / dust mote flurries around sleeping figures / or under the dim glow of decorative lights / and digital clocks reading 3:06 AM / exposed hearts, exposed minds / out on our sleeves / your inner beauty visible externally / to the world, to me / your face aflame with embarrassing thoughts / my face aflame with visible affection / or lying out under the Milky Way / under the Universe / constellations and bodies of memories hang above our heads / and watch us grow from millions of years in the past.

verb

1. a rapid tempo beats behind my ribs, beats inside my skull. a marching drum within my skin, setting the pace. we run, we fly, twirling and leaping in the clearing around the blaze. the stars flash between the leaves above in time with your pulse. you laugh, wild and loud and full. you are a dancing creature of the wood, and i never tire of watching you.

2. we would win no prizes with our art but our movements are synced with our breathing, and is there a better definition of grace? stumbling over each other and using each other's arms to keep upright, our laughter is a tangible thing twisting along beside us in the dark on the slick, dewy grass.

3. this moment is forever, a background soundtrack of reckless, boundless joy tinged with fire and moonlight. this is the epitome of the immortal, boundless youth.

4. this moment, this dance, this one eternal night... think of this when you think of me.

h.f.m.

noun

1. you call me pessimist— doubter, defeatist, doomwatcher. you might as well add dangerous, defiant, disruptive to your list. you dare label me? you who believe the common people —the world— can do no wrong? you prove my point, hypocrite. am i not a person with second chances? or am i entirely deserving of your up-to-now withheld scorn, merely for the fact that i now see the truth clearly and you remain pitifully blind?

2. how can i trust when all trust, again and again, is proven unfounded? people just want something from you. they always want something. you are dangerously naive to believe otherwise.

3. do not pity me. i care not for your sympathy. i prefer your revulsion, your loathing. at least then you know like i do. you know the truth —inherently we are selfish inherently we are self-centered inherently we are self-serving inherently we only care about self self self— i only care about myself. you only care about yourself.

4. bitter, sardonic laughter follows my every word. i know the truth because if all only care or self, they can only see if they don't even care that much. i am apathy incarnate, no emotion clouds my vision. i see all, and know that honor does not exist outside fantasy and fable.

h.f.m.

adjective

1. i wonder what you think when you look at me with those oh so perfect sweet eyes. do you think what a monster. do you think i am seeing a legend in the making.

2. we all bleed the same color when the thin armor of our skin in cut and parted. the pain is only temporary. everything is temporary. but this blood is such a vibrant red.

3. the other day you lay on the damp grass in the school field wondering aloud why the people could be so cruel, why the sky was so covered in smog, why the world was so cold, why, why, why. wouldn't we all like to know.

4. this is all we are. pathetic creatures who don't know what we have until it's gone.

5. they call me bitter. they call me cold. they call me hollow. i am merely a more honest one of them.

6. and do not forget— you are just like me. you too have no soul.

h.f.m.

noun

1. sharp teeth, fluttering hands, heart of a dying star— icarus himself could not imagine the heights you have climbed or your glorious, blazing fall. your bones are burning, your bones are ash, scattered across this never-place between life and death and eternal limbo.

2. you're permanently damaged, but it's fine, you're fine. you can always expect a myriad of scars to accompany the trauma. it's not like it's anything new, either. at least if you burn you might be able to take this unkind world down with you.

3. the inferno surrounding you dances with deadly beauty. and as we all know, beautiful things are lethal.

4. you understand you are a liability?

5. you don't want to go back to that dark place in your mind again. it would be better to be mere cinders.

h.f.m.

noun

1. this end is only a new beginning, the man at the podium affirms. a better place, a new adventure, is waiting for all of us when we pass on. i care not for that, watching my family's stony faces. there is a terrible wrenching where my stomach used to be. it's name is guilt.

2. i haunt my own home for the next several days, the next several weeks, the next several months, the next several years. i watch over them, trying to pay back their kindness from a past life. there is a pull where my chest used to be. it's name is obligation.

3. a man comes to be, insubstantial. rid yourself of this burden, he says. you need not be their keeper. they have forgiven you long before your passing.

4. i am free, i am free, i am free.

h.f.m.

adjective

1. i never asked to be like this, consumed utterly. when i run out of ink i dip my quill in my own veins and scratch out beautiful, ethereal, unutterable words in crimson. passion and pain are interchangeable in my mind, each one bleeding into the other and through each other.

2. words forge my palace and my prison. i compose poetry and story and power, like a creature possessed. my pen flies across the page, like it has a mind of its own.

3. i run out of space on the page in front of me, filling my notebook, filling innumerable napkins at various cafés with half-formed thoughts and unintelligible scribbles. i ink 3am inspirations and epiphanies on my skin, up and down my arms, a living testament to my obsession, my mania.

4. i must move mountains and i have a teaspoon for a *****.

h.f.m.