It hits you in the strangest places—
at the gas station
when the guy in front of you
fumbles with his change,
cursing under his breath like a man
who’s been fighting a war
you’ll never know the name of.
Or in the supermarket,
when you catch a glimpse
of a tired woman
staring too long at the frozen peas
as if they hold
some secret answer
to whatever the hell is breaking her.

And suddenly,
you feel it:
the sheer weight
of their lives.
People, everywhere,
carrying things
you can’t see.
Silent burdens,
private heartbreaks,
tiny wars fought behind closed doors.
It’s like looking into a hundred windows
on a cold street at night,
each one glowing
with some story
you’ll never get to know.

You try not to think about it,
but it’s always there—
the quiet truth
that everyone
is dragging something behind them.
The man who cuts you off in traffic
isn’t just an *******;
he’s late for a job
he hates,
or maybe he just found out
his kid’s in trouble again.
The woman who snaps at the cashier
has been holding back tears all day,
and now,
for reasons she can’t even explain,
she’s breaking down
over a bag of groceries.

It makes you feel small,
like your own pain
is just another drop
in a sea that’s already drowning everyone.
But it also makes you feel something
you don’t want to admit—
a raw, aching tenderness
for this wreck of a world
where everyone is limping
through their own private hell
while trying to smile
through it all.

And here’s the kicker:
you’re one of them too.
You lie awake at night,
wondering if the people you hurt
still think about it,
if they’re staring at their ceilings
the same way you are,
asking themselves
why nothing ever seems
to fit right.
You tell yourself
you’ll be better,
you’ll try harder,
but deep down,
you know
you’re just another story
playing out behind some window
no one’s looking into.

It hurts, doesn’t it?
To know that everyone is real,
that their lives are just as tangled,
just as ****** and raw as yours.
To know that behind every glance,
every passing face,
there’s a whole world
of love and loss,
hope and ruin,
and you’ll never be able
to touch it,
to truly understand it.

Maybe that’s why
we keep going—
because we’re all stumbling
through the same darkness,
hoping,
praying
that somewhere along the way,
someone will see us
through the glass,
and maybe,
just maybe,
they’ll understand
that we were never
just passing faces.

The clock spits hours like broken teeth
and the walls sweat memories I never asked for.
Outside, the sky is drunk—
staggering between night and neon,
while dogs bark at shadows that aren’t even there.
I laugh into my glass of whiskey,
because what else can you do
when life hands you a fistful of
nothing
wrapped in yesterday’s bad news?

The neighbor’s kid screams like a siren
while his mother chain-smokes apologies
to the universe through the cracks in her window.
There’s a man down the street
who argues with God every morning
like they’re old enemies playing cards.
He always loses,
but he plays again anyway.

I’m not crazy—
I’m just tuned into a frequency
no one else wants to hear.
Static and sirens.
The hum of dead stars collapsing quietly.
The sound of a world
that doesn’t even know it’s burning.

I haven’t slept in days.
I keep chasing my thoughts
like a dog chasing its own tail,
round and round,
until they collapse in a pile of exhaustion
and I sit there,
staring at the ashtray,
wondering why my heart
feels like a busted vending machine
spitting out all the wrong things.

They call me a lunatic
because I see the cracks
in their perfect porcelain smiles—
because I know
their gods wear suits
and their saints sell lies.
Because I walk barefoot
on the jagged edge of this world
and I don’t care if I bleed.

So I howl at the moon,
dance with my demons,
and kiss the chaos on its lips.
I scribble madness on the walls,
make love to the mess,
and call it life.
Because maybe lunacy
is the only sane thing left.

I’m dying of thirst.
Not for water—
but for something real,
something unfiltered,
something that burns when it hits the throat,
like whiskey or the truth.
I’ve drowned in cheap gin
and it didn’t fill me.
I’ve smoked a thousand cigarettes
and still can’t taste life.

They talk about beauty,
like it’s something you can hold
in your hands,
like it’s a thing to be bought
or sold,
wrapped in gold foil and put in a frame,
but all I see is hunger.
There’s no beauty in the world
when you’re scraping the bottom of the bottle
and staring at a ceiling
that refuses to speak to you.

She told me once,
“You’re not what they say you are.”
What the hell does that mean?
What am I supposed to be?
Some saint in a robe,
some poem written on parchment
that never makes it to print?
I’m just a human,
drunk on the emptiness of it all,
suffocating in the silence
of people who think they know me.
They don’t.

They say I’m lost.
Yeah, I’m lost.
Lost in the noise,
in the crowds,
in the streets where people walk past me
like I’m invisible.
And they’re right,
I am invisible.
I’m invisible because I’m trying to be something I’m not.
Because I’ve spent my life
pretending to be the person they want me to be,
but I’m still dying of thirst.

You’re supposed to find yourself,
they say.
Well, I’ve found myself,
but I don’t like what I see.
I’m just a **** wreck,
a torn-up book,
pages stained with the ink of mistakes
that never quite dry.
You don’t get to fix this,
no matter how many times
you try to put the pieces together.
They’ll never fit right.
They were never meant to.

But, hell, it’s fine.
I’m still breathing,
still walking,
still waiting for the next drink,
the next hit,
the next lie to fill me up.
If I don’t keep drinking,
I’ll drown in the thoughts
that keep chasing me down,
the ones that scream for attention,
the ones that tell me
I’m not enough.
And maybe they’re right.
But I’d rather be half-dead
and honest
than full of air and lies.

She called me “brave” once.
What the hell does that even mean?
I’m just a fool who didn’t have the guts
to shut up when it counted.
I’m brave because I didn’t fold
under the weight of the world?
Or because I kept showing up
when I knew I’d get punched in the face
for being different?
Hell, maybe I’m brave
because I didn’t run when I should’ve.
Maybe I’m brave
because I let myself be a fool,
and I wear it like a badge.
But bravery doesn’t mean a **** thing
when you’re choking on your own blood
and no one’s around to help you up.

There’s no poetry in this.
No high-minded words.
Just the crack of my knuckles
and the taste of blood,
the sound of my own thoughts
screaming at me to stop,
to feel something
besides the empty ache.

But the truth is,
I can’t stop.
I can’t stop chasing something
I’ll never catch.
I’ve been dying of thirst for so long
that I don’t know what it’s like to drink anymore.
Maybe I never knew.
Maybe we’re all just waiting
for a glass of water that never comes,
and we convince ourselves
we’re fine
as we slowly fade away.

You want me to be something more?
To be noble?
To be a saint?
Well, I’m not.
I’m just a fool who can’t escape
they’re own **** skin,
trying to find something to numb the hunger.
And if that makes me a coward,
fine.
Call me whatever you want.
But I’m still dying of thirst,
and I’ll drink until it kills me
or until I finally feel alive.

if I die,
it won’t be with roses pressed against my chest
or candlelight flickering
like some poet’s dream of a clean, quiet ending.
no—if I die,
it’ll be on a Thursday when the trash hasn’t been taken out,
the rent’s due,
and the world just keeps dragging its feet
through dust and noise.

will you write about me then?
will you scrawl my name in the margins of your mornings,
squeeze me into the spaces between your coffee and silence?
or will I vanish,
like the half-smoked cigarettes we used to leave
burning in old ashtrays,
forgotten until it was too late?

I don’t want the pretty lies,
no poetry about sunsets or fate.
just say I was here—
say I burned bright,
not with brilliance,
but with the stubborn flame of a bad idea
that refused to die.

say I laughed too loud in empty rooms
and drank too much in crowded ones.
say I cursed at the world
and loved it anyway
in the same breath.

there’s a kind of beauty in not being remembered
by statues or verses.
I never wanted to be carved in stone,
only in the raw pulp of memory—
messy, torn,
something you’ll think of
only when you hear a certain song
or smell cheap whiskey in the air.

if I die,
don’t put flowers on my grave.
put words on a page,
put stories in the air,
put that wild, laughing thing I was
back into the world,
if only for a moment.

but if you can’t,
if life gets too full of its own noise,
I’ll understand.
because dying is simple;
it’s the living that gets complicated.

Flames lick the edges of a city that never sleeps,
where dreams are charred, and hope smolders in the ash.
The night is a canvas of ember and smoke,
painted by hands unseen, indifferent.

In the alleys, shadows dance to the crackling tune,
while sirens wail like distant, mourning lovers.
The air, thick with the scent of despair,
chokes the whispers of those who dare to breathe.

Neon signs flicker, their gaudy promises
melting away in the heat of reality.
The boulevard, once a river of aspirations,
now a barren wasteland of forgotten footsteps.

Yet amidst the inferno, a lone figure stands,
eyes reflecting the chaos, unblinking.
A poet, perhaps, or just a fool,
scribbling verses on the back of a scorched receipt.

“Fires, fires everywhere,” he writes,
“and not a drop to douse the soul.”
The city burns, but he remains,
finding beauty in the blaze,
and solace in the ruin.

They say you’re the whole **** thing—
the stars, the beggar on the corner,
the lover who left you bleeding
and the cop who fined you for it.
One life at a time,
one failure after another,
you’re everyone and no one,
just waiting for the cracks to show.

Some holy fool whispers,
“You’re the universe learning itself.”
Well, what’s it learning, huh?
How to crawl through dirt?
How to choke on your own dreams
and smile while doing it?
It’s a sick joke, this cosmic egg,
wrapped in gilded lies and half-baked truths,
like Wilde’s wit, polished,
but bitter underneath.

You think you’re only you—
the tired eyes in the mirror,
the aching feet that shuffle home.
But somewhere,
you’re the king in his velvet robes,
drowning in gold,
or the soldier buried in the mud,
forgotten before the war even ends.
All pieces of the same shell,
all scattered across the floor.

They dress it up like wisdom:
You break, you’re born again.
Every crack a lesson,
every fall a step forward.
But sometimes,
it’s just falling.
Just hitting the ground over and over
until you forget what flying felt like.

Still, if you’re everyone,
then maybe the pain belongs to you too.
The laughter,
the warmth of a stranger’s hand,
the quiet moments that don’t ask for meaning.
Maybe that’s what holds it together—
this mess of cracks and light.
Maybe that’s why you keep living,
why you keep breaking.

Because someday,
when the last shell falls,
and the pieces finally fit,
you’ll remember.
You’ll remember you were everything,
and nothing hurt
as much as forgetting.

I’ve met the night a hundred times—
She carries no remorse,
Her silver hand upon my chest
A silent, steady force.

Her breath is like a frozen hymn,
Too soft for earth to hear—
Yet chills my soul, and bends my will
Until it disappears.

I sought to end the endless ache
With shadows on the wall,
But shadows only shift and shrink,
And answer not my call.

There is no mercy in the stars,
No kindness in the frost—
Yet some persist to claim that light
Redeems what has been lost.

End me, then, O faithful dark—
Unbind this brittle form,
And leave me not to linger here
Through one more bitter storm.