we build with trembling hands
convinced that care alone will keep things whole

we think if we love right
soft, honest, and quiet
that it’ll stay

but nothing lasts forever

even the sun, loved by every leaf
eventually leaves the sky

i get uncomfortable when someone cries
not the usual kind shifting feet eyes darting away
but the kind that settles in the ribs like a cold ache
like something is carving a hollow in my chest with bare hands

i want to reach out
say it’ll be okay
wrap the air around them like a blanket
but their pain is a country i don’t have a map for
i can’t walk their road i only know how it looks from where i stand

and that’s the worst part
that i’ll never know their grief exactly
only my version of it
only my helpless echo of what they must feel

i remember the night
the room was dim not dark enough to hide in
just soft enough to make everything feel more fragile
they sat on the edge of the bed
eyes red voice cracking on a name they couldn’t finish

i didn’t know what to do with my hands
i thought about reaching for theirs
but something in me froze
not fear not shame just that aching awareness
that nothing i could say would unbreak what broke them

so i just sat there
and the silence between us grew heavy
like grief had a body and it chose to lie down between us

and all i could think was
i wish i could wear their pain for a day
just long enough to understand it
just long enough to make them feel a little less alone

but all i had was my version
my own memories dressed in different names
and in that moment it didn’t feel like enough

i’m tired of writing these poems
tired of chasing the right words
for a feeling that never wanted to be named

tired that nothing i write
comes close to the way it felt
to love you
and lose you
and still carry it all

no stanza, no line,
no late night whisper into the void
has ever been enough

the love i have for you
deserves more than language
and yet
language is all i have

i wish bougainvilleas wept rust instead of color
i wish fear brushed more shoulders than it missed
and the emptiness spoke in a silence too familiar to be strange

i wish eyes didn’t flinch from what it is
i wish, more often than not, people saw things as they were
not softer, not kinder, just as they are

i wish life had been easier to some, and harder to others,
just so we’d stop pretending fairness ever had a say

i wish someone had named it all earlier
the ache, the quiet, the not-enough-ness of being here

maybe then we’d carry it better
maybe then we’d know that some things only bruise, and never bloom
maybe then we’d stop waiting for wounds to turn into flowers

the quiet stretches like a slow wound
dragging minutes into lifetimes
i breathe between memories
that never quite finish dying

there's a photograph we don't look at anymore
not because we forgot
but because remembering feels like swallowing glass

it's tucked in the drawer beside the broken charger
the old watch that still ticks
and the letter you never finished
half a sentence half a goodbye

grief doesn't arrive with thunder
it comes in the quiet
in the way your name still autofills
in the way the wind knocks on windows like you used to

people say time heals
but time just teaches you how to walk
with a hole inside you
wide enough for a life that won't come back

some nights i still leave the porch light on
not because i believe you're coming home
but because love - real love
doesn't know how to stop hoping

when you no longer serve a purpose
youll be left with nothing but your thoughts
and all the time in the world to rot inside them

theyll set you aside like a finished book
not even a glance back at the story you bled for them

and the worst part is
you gave it willingly
you thought if the pages were honest enough
if the love was loud enough
it would matter

but each passing day drags you closer
to what you always knew but never wanted to admit
that unconditional love doesnt exist

you deceived yourself on a fundamental level
you let it twist your softest traits
fed your soul to a hope that was never real
now even your own heart feels foreign

you believed if you showed them
how much you cared
how much you were willing to lose
theyd meet you halfway through

but they just take
and take
and leave
and they sleep just fine

so dont fall in love
its exactly how you feared

the 12yo you saw it clear
before the world taught you to doubt him
before you mistook your bleeding for beauty
and called it proof of something more

you werent wrong to believe in love
you were just wrong to believe it had no teeth

im often reminded of things long past gone from my life

of how impossibly far they are from my grasp

sometimes i think
im only meant for wanting,
only made to desiring
never to have
never to be close

ive learnt too early, maybe too deeply
that no matter how much your heart speaks
no matter how loud your longing is
some people do not turn back
some things just arent yours
no matter how much they feel like home

and sometimes letting go of that feeling,
that you are meant for something or someone,
is the only way forward

sometimes
the kindest thing you can do for yourself
is close your eyes
without asking the morning to come

you fancy your mouth with cunning words
but you mistake everyone a lesser men than you

you blind yourself with confidence in your craftsmanship yet you shame others for things you are ignorant of

you dress yourself with the clothes of a free thinker yet you are as narrow as any

you dont realise your patterns and that is ok.

You are human. You will not be perfect. You will realise your hypocrisies too late. You will fail to improve.

You will end someday, and that is the only free thing you will ever be a part of.

I will etch your name onto the skin of my soul lest i forget my purpose hereafter

yet again i wake up knowing we've moved apart long ago
that my dream was a reaction of a bygone misfortune
i wish i was there

you've deemed yourself undeserving of my love

i wish i could unmake your past
i wish i could help you
i wish for you to know that you are loved you are worthy of love and the whole world's affection and praise

i wish your parents tried

being alive feels strange sometimes
like i am walking through a story i do not remember writing
pages missing
sentences crossed out by hands that were not mine

some days i wake up heavy
not from sleep
but from the weight of having to begin again
again
and again

i smile like it fits
like i belong here
but most of the time
it feels like pretending
like nodding along to a song i cannot hear

there is a quiet kind of grief in not knowing where you are going
in watching everyone else move like they have a map
while i am just following the cracks in the road
hoping they lead somewhere soft

i am tired
but not the kind that sleep can fix
tired in my bones
in the part of me that used to dream louder
want more
believe deeper

still
i get up
i show up
not because i am strong
but because something in me refuses to go silent

maybe that is enough
maybe that is what survival really looks like
not heroic
not poetic
just continuing
even when the world does not clap for it

loving you feels like standing in the rain
calling out to someone who never turns around
like i am always a few steps behind
always almost reaching you

you never ask me to stay
but you never ask me to leave either
and so i stay
hoping my presence fills the silence you do not know how to speak through

i see you shut down
fold into yourself like a house with no lights on
and i wait outside the door
cold
but willing

sometimes it feels like i give you all my warmth
and watch you wear it like armor
never noticing the chill i am left with

i want to be angry
i want to scream that this is not fair
that love is not meant to feel so lonely
but instead i go quiet
and keep loving you in the only way you seem to allow

and maybe you will never say it
but i think you know
i think you see all that i carry
all that i lose to make space for your silence

and that is enough

we were almost
whatever that means

almost a touch
almost a look held too long
almost something that could’ve saved us

she smiled like nothing hurt
i broke like everything did

i wanted her
like the sky wants its stars back
like hands want what they can’t hold

but she
she never reached
never stayed
never wanted

and i
i loved her knowing
it would end
it had to

some stories
are written only in silence
and some loves
are born just to be lost

there's space in me that doesn't fill
and i can't remember when it started
everything moves around me
but i stay still
waiting for something i can't name

the days blur together
empty
and i wonder if they always felt this long
maybe i'm not meant to feel whole
just to keep going

no quiet can unring the noise
no word ever lands where its meant to

i never learned how to hold all this
or maybe i was never supposed to
maybe the breaking was always the shape

some nights i speak to a god who's gone
ask to be taken apart
not fixed just ended

everything else has fallen still
and i remain
the last sound in a place
that forgot how to listen

your silence isnt mine
your ache doesnt bruise me the same way
and even if i hand you every word
you still wont bleed like i did