I don’t think I ever said
How much you meant to me.
My words were quiet, my actions small,
But my heart knew it all along.

Now that you’re gone, I hold on tight—
To the memories, the laughter, the light.
I wish I’d said it more back then,
My love for you, my dearest friend.

So you know how sometimes when you start to give up on humanity
someone wonderful happens?
Like when you just walking somewhere and a stranger says that they like your outfit
Or someone that you've never before smiles and waves
And you think that maybe
People aren't so bad?

My idea of a successful life
Is to be that person
As many times as I can

Today I got a hug, out of the blue                                                             ­     
                                                           ­                                                               
and it even came with an "I love you''                                                            ­    
                                                            ­                                                        
Such a simple kind gesture                                                          ­                                                  
              ­                                                                 ­                               
  It brought me such pleasure                                                         ­                     
                                                                ­                                                          
It picked me up when I felt down                                                             ­                       
                                         ­                                                                 ­      
  turned my day totally around                                                           ­                 
                                                                ­                                                  
  Just when I thought no one cared                                                            ­            
                                                                ­                                        
someone loved me, someone shared

i let it all get the best
of me
again

i don’t know why

This is after the
grandly mundane
drama, after the
endless timeline,
after the tallying,
after the lure of
the handcrafted,
kettle-cooked salty
potato chip, after
the endless conquering
of it and them, this
is after the hypnotic
spell of perfumed
images, after
being a verb disguised
as a noun, after
pretending to be
a palpable thing,
this is after  
being something, and
this is after
being nothing.

I’ve left the oven on
for years.
Somewhere between metaphor and meaning,
something’s always been burning.

But no one’s eaten in a while.

They called it voice.
I called it
a slow confession wrapped in rhyme.
A sugarcoated breakdown.
Something easy to swallow
if you didn’t read too carefully.

They wanted brevity.
I brought blood.
They wanted truth.
I brought formatting errors
and a whisper shaped like static.

Do you remember the one
with the anti-light?
No?

Of course not.
You don’t remember the one who screamed last.
You remember the one who rhymed "heart" with "start"
and got 200 likes for it.

Now my name is on the box
but it’s spelled wrong
and the font is smiling too hard.

The cookies still crumble
but no one eats the edges.
That’s where the poison is.
That’s where I lived.

So I’ve folded the apron.
Swallowed the last word
before it could become a quote.

Let the gods of good taste keep their ovens.
Let the algorithm rot.

I’ve got shoeboxes full of unsent stanzas
and no more hunger
for applause shaped like echo.