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I never grew tall enough to
confidently grasp the top shelf
cereal box on the first try.
Fumbling, I’d finger its corners—
swiping mercilessly at its edges
until I could feel it fill
the curves of my desperate palm.
It gives in. Gravity assists.
Heels hit the floor.
I won again.
Back then, Persistence was my
favorite professor who always
curved the final.

I never grew mindful enough to
confidently grasp when
I should end the chase.
Writhing, I want and want—
curating the parts of myself
I think he’d like the most, but
he never turns on the light.
I collect dust. The hour hand assists.
Heels hit the floor.
I have this lesson on repeat,
and the stop button is broken.
These days, Hope has become my
favorite form of punishment
who expertly disguises herself
as wisdom.
© Bitsy Sanders, September 2025
 3d
irinia
50 ways to wreck, get in line
Need to grow, have to push
Flicking through vinyl and feeding the rush
Kovacs

let's decenter love
crush it and mix it with pepper
let's put it in boxes and send them
to an uknown destination
let's caress our defeated hands
til they willingly remember
skin's magnetic charge, the magma of darkness

let's asphixiate the air till no longer tolerates words
excavate the emptiness, two fossils washed by rain our hearts
unbearable the silence hidden in the middle of teeth

let's not do impossible things like two acrobats of the invisible
certainties implode like stars' collapse into the ***** of space
your confetti smile, this brutal beauty of longing
let's stop counting days, stay resonant instead
we are a fleeting sorcery in  a dyzzing endless pace
Maybe I’m born to set things free—
to let them go, and
watch that distance
slowly swallow them whole.
Maybe (surely) my talent is
cracking my heart, little by little.
(But only during the thunderclaps
so no one else can hear.)
Busted but beating,
I fashion its fractures
into art by
filling its spaces with
vibrant pigments and
sounds that satisfy.
Good as new, I tell myself in
a tone that’s all too familiar,
and proudly display it for anyone
willing to have look.
They pick it apart with their
curiosity— their invasive wonder.
“What do you call this piece?”
they’ll ask.
With a smile, I reply,

“Yesterday.”
© Bitsy Sanders, August 2025
 Aug 29
The Gray Wolf
Stolen glances and veiled desires
A burning love with hidden fires
Through it all came a spark
A forbidden bond within the dark
Whispered secrets hearts aflame
Meeting in shadows a love untamed
People condemn a cruel decree
But loves embrace sets them free
Stolen moments bittersweet
Love is their treasure but incomplete
Both yearning deep within their souls
For loves destiny now takes control
Love will set them free
 Aug 29
b for short
I used to think I kept you like a secret.

Is it a secret if no one knows it’s being kept?
Maybe I’ll never know, but
if I did have the chops to say it out loud,
I’d tell them that
I have dreams about that plane ride.
I’d take the 6AM flight just so
the colors of the sunrise would
chase me for a thousand miles.

I’d sip my hot coffee
with too much cream at
my window seat and
make small talk with
the older woman seated beside me.
She has a kind face and
takes this flight often to visit her
son and his family.
(He relocated for work,
but couldn’t pass up the salary.)
She’d ask if I’m coming or going.
“I’m not sure yet,” I’d reply, and
offer to buy her a drink,
as I revel in and relive
every crumb of our story with her.
It’s a good one, I think.
(And she thinks so too.)
She places her hand on mine, and,
with the sincerest of smiles,
wishes me well on my adventure.

She’s always there, and I like her.

I dream that baggage claim is
a ghost town, but I
recognize your eyes beyond the carousel
before I recognize my own blue suitcase.
Sometimes you have flowers in your hand,
but you always have a hug.

There’s excitement and understanding in it—
a relief that teeters on tears
and lips that waited for so long
to whisper, “Finally.”
And I feel so safe and found.
I’m at home
in a place I’ve never been before—
in arms that have never held me.

My blue suitcase— still circling.

I laugh, and I can’t wait to tell you
that I dream of you in color.
I quickly give you instructions
on how to find me again
in case we get lost.
I tell you dream flights are cheaper
if you’re in bed before 9PM.
I don’t know if you hear me,
but before I can ask,
I’m awake.

I’m alone.

You’re my secret again.
The secret I’ve never told.
BWI direct to XNA.
© Bitsy Sanders, August 2025
 Aug 23
irinia
who sighs through the hollow spaces of time

light was tortured till it denied its colours
these roots are echoes of a silent voice without name
the wind seeks to unravel the knots of forgotten stories
who listens to the pulse beneath the silence
who dares to taste the corrosion of truth, the glow of feeling
the walls of the mind crumble into whispers of the unseen stories
we leap into the storm as if into rebirth
we trace our essence from one shadow to the other
let's unravel the fabric, step beyond the echo
a restless dawn bears the weight of tomorrow
who will…
fill the chambers of longing with the murmur of hopes
let poetry be no fugitive
confront chaos with the flame of awareness
we glimpse the world through fractured light
history repeats uncertainty, our fragile hands

who seeks to redeem the silence of wounds
 Aug 17
irinia
I am eyewitness of charm, a skinwitness of wilderness, a heartwitness for pain. I wonder if you tear your bemused silences or am I stripping you of stillness. sometimes I am silent as a plastic plant, scattered like the vowels of a foreign language or whole as an apple. only the rustle of my hands is enchanted. you are  an impossible congruence  for a witness of the progression of tears.
You are searching for something, the hush of blood in the intimicy of the ear, an oceanic tempo, a steamy vertigo.  time is reaping my breath with some fascination. there is this feeling, a filling of one's body with  the magnitude of the other. this absorbtion.
I follow the rupture lines as much as I can. there is no filling from the outside, they wait to be inhabited by one's blood. I would offer my skin flambe, the memory of your skin feels like a cataclism of fingerprints
 Jul 12
irinia
sometimes
I understand only  the texture of your words,
the distance of your skin
you curse the silence waiting to be heard
you count the hours of toil like one counts lithium pills
you empty yourself of nothingness
desire links the margins of time
sometimes you make the proverbial schnitzel you remember
how good the *** was on the dining room table
I feel  the bruise of steps, the tiredness of patience
the sharp edges of thought, the easiness of laughter
I keep on dreaming myself going out of the night
somewhere inside the purity of limits like a blade
there is this feeling of you, round
like the time that exhausts its depth
the echo of tears gets lost in your hands,
sometimes
 Jun 10
irinia
I was contemplating the interlude of breathing
the tease of the jasmine perfume
a wind without insight was resting in the hammock
a solitude round like the moon
the song of birds was inviting a blue exuberance  when
I had this dream... I dreamt streets flooded by blood
they seemed so real, like the amnesia of mercy
the intensity of red an amplifier for pain
violence this enclave of the soul hidden in plain sight
we watch wars on tv in the stillness of sofas
newborn tears claim the redemption of dawn
but we turn our back to the questions of time
no body line of thought but raw nerves,
blind tongues: as if our body is a world full of nothing
sometimes I have nowhere to hide from this feeling:
my blood is his/her/their blood
 May 30
irinia
where the eye understands the light &
the thought is not a forbidden zone
the sand is blue, the escape slow
into quietude

there we discover that
the tears have their own dying
dreams are not birds without sky
the prayers of the earth are heard by the trees

when I take you inside my temples
there the blood boils like a secret
from the depth of the moon
 Apr 9
irinia
who
the mind needs to repeat this journey
into the clarity of fruits/glasses/doors
they used to talk with voices without tears
they used to speak without tongue
we are pedestrians into aerial dreams sometimes
we live in this density of meaning too complex for a circle
an uncoscious trajectory so precise & mysterious
I throw myself into the pool of time,
in its seeds, dangers, spirals,
into the unseen in my eyes
who I am is a destiny
 Feb 14
irinia
Love is the opposite of triumph. The opposite of special. Love is the drop of water grinding the mountain. Love is Mariana trench. I am only the depth of my feelings. They create my  mind.  Love is the impulse towards a world that transposes  me. I know I because you. Love gives me a meaning and purpose for pain. So many meanings, hot and cold, deep and shallow, sweet and sour, immanent and transcendent, concrete and symbolic. The pain of knowing limits. The pain of keeping my eyes open. The pain of bearing myself.  The pain of not really knowing you because of the horizon. The pain of not fully knowing myself. The pain of fullness. The pain of emptiness. The pain of desire. The pain of letting go. The pain of change and decay.  In desire we are at most vulnerable, not triumphant. Giving in is giving up quietness and order. Outside of this body I  cannot know the world. A body without a mind cannot know love.  Love doesn't colonize but persuade.  Love pushes the boundaries. Love is not happiness, nor comfort, but motion and tension. Love denies its own myth. Love creates depth and wonder, dread and tears. Love destroys herself to renew the world.  Who can tell what love actually is. A mystery that searches for language and never finds it. Love is not everything that matters when the world doesn't love herself. Love is not adverstisement, no commodity,  it cannot be enhanced, only discovered. She holds the opposites imagined,  yet unimagined. To love is to learn how to live. How to let live. How to be wrong. How to fail. Love smells of clean sheets and ***** streets.
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