he told me:
“addiction is just gravity.
you try to climb out,
but it pulls you back,
over and over.
at some point,
you stop fighting.
you call it home.”
then he wiped his nose,
snorted another line,
and laughed.
like gravity was a joke
only he understood.

she kissed me once,
in the dark corner of a bar
nobody we knew would ever walk into.
her hands were trembling,
but her lips—
god, her lips knew exactly
what they wanted.

and for a moment,
I let myself believe
she could be mine.
just for a moment.

she pulled away like she’d been caught,
looked around
at all the strangers who didn’t care,
who didn’t even see.
but she saw them.
she saw their eyes in her head
even when they weren’t looking.

“this can’t happen,” she said,
like it hadn’t already.
like I wasn’t sitting there,
still tasting her on my mouth.
“you don’t understand,” she said,
and maybe she was right.
because I didn’t understand
how you could feel something that big,
that loud,
and still pretend
you didn’t.

but I didn’t fight her.
I just nodded,
because I’d seen this before.
not with her,
but with others like her—
women who carried love
like a smuggled thing,
hidden deep in their pockets,
afraid to let it see the light.

she called me late sometimes,
when the fear wasn’t as strong
as the wanting.
we’d meet in motel rooms
on the edge of town,
where the curtains were thick
and the walls were thin.

and in those moments,
she was alive—
all fire and ache and need.
but when the sun came up,
she’d be gone before I woke,
like a ghost
afraid of being caught in the daylight.

I told her once,
“you don’t have to live like this.
you don’t have to hide.”
but she just shook her head
and said,
“not everyone is as brave as you.”

brave.
what a word for it.
it didn’t feel like bravery.
it felt like ripping myself open
over and over,
waiting for her to decide
she was ready to step out of the shadows.

but she never did.
she stayed in her closet,
her church pew,
her tight little box of shame.

and I stayed outside,
watching the door,
waiting for it to open.
but it never did.

I lie.
I cry.
I scream until the walls shake,
until the dogs bark three streets over.
I make people mad.
I twist their love into knots,
leave them holding pieces of me
I’ll never get back.

It’s not that I want to—
God, I don’t want to.
I’m filled with love,
I swear I am.
I carry laughter in my chest
like a burning engine,
but somehow
it always comes out wrong.
Too hot,
too wild,
burning holes in everything
I touch.

I try to be better.
I try to hold steady,
but the ground shifts under me,
always has,
like I was born on some fault line
no one else can see.
One moment,
I’m standing tall,
telling jokes,
making them laugh,
feeling light—
like maybe,
just maybe,
this time I’ll get it right.

And then—
snap.
Something breaks,
some unseen wire in my head.
I **** it up again.
The lies spill out before I can stop them,
dumb little things
that don’t matter
but somehow
always do.
I don’t even know
what I’m lying for.
I just see the wreckage
and keep piling more onto it.

I see the way they look at me—
people I love,
people I want to hold onto—
and I can tell
they’re wondering
how much more
they can take
before they go mad too.
And still,
I keep going.
Keep tearing at the seams.
It’s not that I want to,
but what else
is there to do?

Maybe that’s life.
Maybe it wrecks us all,
drags us through its mess
until we’re raw
and ragged,
trying to find love
in the middle of it,
trying to laugh
so we don’t cry all the time.

I don’t want to make them sad.
I don’t want to be this way.
But somehow,
I always end up
standing in the ruins,
laughing through the tears,
wondering
how it got so ******
again.

I guess that’s life.
It destroys everyone,
slowly,
relentlessly,
until there’s nothing left
but the love you tried to give
and the madness
you couldn’t hide.
And maybe,
just maybe,
that’s enough
to keep going.

I kept the book you gave me,
the one you never finished.
The corners are still creased
where you stopped -
a moment frozen in paper.

I tried to read past it once,
but the words were ghosts
of a story I didn’t know
how to end.

So it sits on my shelf,
not quite forgotten,
not quite forgiven,
like the memory of you.

some mornings,
I wake up like a god—
fire in my veins,
everything electric,
everything possible.
I could climb
the highest ******* building,
shout at the sun,
make it blink first.
I could tear this city apart
just to see how it’s wired.

other days,
I wake up
already halfway buried.
there’s no fight,
no fire,
just the weight of everything
I thought I could be
piling up,
brick by brick,
until I can’t tell
where I end
and the shadows begin.

and in between—
the waiting room days,
the ones that don’t count,
where you sit
with your hands in your lap
watching the ceiling crack,
wondering which side of you
will win tomorrow.
maybe neither.
maybe both.

I’ve tried to explain it before—
how one minute you’re on fire,
and the next you’re just ash,
how living like this
isn’t something
you ever
get good at.
you just ride it,
hold on
until it throws you off,
then crawl back up again,
because what else
is there to do?

sometimes,
in the quiet moments,
when it’s all leveled out—
no beast to tame,
no hole to fall into—
I feel something
like peace.
but peace
isn’t what I came here for.
I’m here
to burn,
to rise,
to fall,
to ride the beast
again and again,
until I can’t tell
if it’s carrying me
or I’m carrying it.

She smiled,
but only barely,
like it was a secret she didn’t want
you to know.

And for a second,
it felt like the world
might not be so bad after all.

They say you’re wise,
grown for your age,
like some cracked old mirror,
reflecting a world that doesn’t care.
The way you speak—
too much weight in those little shoulders,
eyes that’ve seen too many things
they shouldn’t know yet.

They say it like a compliment,
like they’re giving you a crown
for walking barefoot through fire
at seven years old,
your laugh too quiet,
your smile too rare.

They say you’re “mature,”
as if it’s a badge to wear,
but behind that mask
is a kid who never got to be one.
A soul too old too soon,
forged in the furnace of life’s *******.

It’s sad, you know—
you got dealt a hand
meant for someone twice your age,
and now they call you grown,
like it’s something to be proud of,
but all I see
is a heart that’s lost its sparkle,
and a mind that’s heavy with what it shouldn’t know.

You act adult,
because you had to,
but there’s nothing more tragic
than having to grow up
before you’ve even had the chance
to be a kid.