She planted small hopes
in the cracks of a dying world—
timid sprouts, fragile but defiant,
pushing through the ash.

Even as the sky forgets the sun,
her dirt-scored hands
remember the language of survival.
A faint stir rises within the earth—
roots quivering beneath barren soil,
aching for water's warm touch.

The air hangs thick,
against the cold truths
of metal machines—
her ears strain for warmth,
her hands sink into the ground,
seeking a quiet song.

The soil clings—ancient, enduring,
unbroken by decay.
She kneels, and in that moment,
the dirt softens beneath her—
It cradles her hope,
a green breath
in a place the sky forgot.

And still, she moves,
as if her breath
might wake the heavens—
as if the softness of her hope
could dispel the dark.

I thought it was a place once—
walls sagging like tired lungs,
a door swollen from a summer swell,
its brass **** that fit my hand—
now it slips through me, the way
colors fade from old paintings.

There is a howl tucked inside words—
an ache carved into letters,
a sound like a bird hitting glass.
Each time I reach for it,
it shatters differently—
a place I fled barefoot
when no one was looking—
a warmth rubbed thin,
threadbare as past voices
heard through a slamming door.

Now,
I wonder if it was ever real,
if home was the heat I carried
in the hollow of my chest,
the space I carved between ribs
and marrow, where I could
curl up and sleep.

Maybe it’s not a house,
after all but a scent—
wet towels or burned toast.
Maybe it’s the way the air
catches a shiver at dusk,
a voice still calling—ragged
and raw—asking to come back,
not to what was once,
but to something wide open —
an unlatched gate,
a stranger’s open palm,
wanting nothing but to stay.

It doesn’t sit right—
not anymore
the way three chairs
got up and left
without even
looking back—
it’s not right
when nothing is left.

I set a plate
anyway
push the salt closer—
just the right seasoning
for food
and wounds
left open—

It doesn’t sit right—
alone—
having leftovers
left and right
with a table
left standing—
It doesn’t sit right
when a table
can’t even talk back.

I stand in the hollow of night,
where silence drapes like a second skin—
thick, unmoving, a wound
stitched shut with my own hands.

The Keeper kneels beside me,
palms open, as if gathering dust.
Her ribs are a locked door, where
she keeps pain from harming others—
her voice an echo she swallowed.
Pain nests in the crook of her collarbone,
tucked away where no one can reach,
where even the wind forgets to look.

The Bleeder is near too—
a storm dragging its nails across the dark.
He spits out rage in poison-dipped syllables—
the night flinches beneath his breath.
He is all jagged, all reckless, all out—
the kind of flame that does not warm,
only burns, only consumes.

The Keeper whispers,
words soft as a bouquet of flowers—
a quiet ache—a heavy toll for just one.
The Bleeder snarls, that’s all he knows,
shaking his fists at the sky,
as if anger alone can unmake the past.

I am between them—
one foot in silence, ready to cover
one foot in fire, ready to lunge.
I feel them both inside me—
the silence that suffocates,
the fury that devours.

And I wonder—
which one will I become,
when the night finally calls my name.

They ask,
How can I live?

And say,
They could not.

I laugh
and they laugh along.

Some days after,
They ask again,
How can I survive?

And say,
They wouldn't be able to.

I laugh again,
So they laugh along.

Now I ask myself,
How cursed am I?
& I let myself
Cry.

And when they ask again,
I just smile.

Where dust divides, a hue of difference in colours,
A country, one side, then other, invaders
We're mere humans, yet we claim our provenance
Confining gaze, a breath of tainted air.

The wall ascends, a shadow cast in fear,
A tangle wrought, where whispers disappear.
Eyes, distant pools, reflect a foreign face,
A phantom "other," in this bounded space.

We carve our claims, on earth we cannot own,
A fleeting reign, on seeds of discord sown.
Then plunder deep, and leave the hollow shell,
A vacant home, where echoes darkly dwell.

We chase the sting, to taste a fleeting sweet,
A twisted chance, where joy and sorrow meet.
A wheel that turns, a truth we cannot break,
A hollow faith, for empty futures sake.

What bones lie buried, beneath our polished lies?
A silent scream, where nature slowly dies.
The withered leaf, the silenced, hunted cry,
Reflect the void, where true reflections lie.

Beyond the walls, beyond the love and hate,
A question hangs, a sealed and shadowed fate.
Are we but echoes, of the lines we drew?
Or something more, forever breaking through?

We are one but thousand more
the fields that grow more than one grain
We look in our hands, the bone structure
Find the colour only when I become just dust.

Ever wonder what changes be in history
If victors lost and the other side raised the flag
We'll be uprooted to another philosophy
We're bred, We don't keep our originality.

It's  so much better
(let this be said):
be a happy fool
than a miserable sage