I say please.
I say thank you.
I shrink when I should expand.

I smile when I do not mean it.
I soften my tone,
I round my edges,
I play nice
so that people will like me.

And what did it get me?

A seat at the table
where I apologize
for taking up a chair,

where I am too afraid
to ask for a bigger plate,
so I tell myself my hunger
is all in my head.

I tell myself
I should believe it by now.

Some days,
I almost do.

i love you.
you don’t know me,
but i love you.

not in a way
that asks for anything.
not in a way
that needs to be defined.

just in a way
that says,
"i am here. you are here. let’s be here together for a while."

You do not belong to this soil,
not the way they did—
feet sinking into peat,
lungs lined with salt and prayer,
bodies turning to moss before memory.

But still, you stand here,
four generations late,
hands in your Primark pockets,
mouthing names you were never meant to carry,
even as they sit inside you,
your first name stamped with their last,
a borrowed relic you never earned.

Your brother gripped the wheel like a lifeline,
right-side driving out of Dublin,
left shoulder braced against muscle memory,
like he expected the road to turn on him.
Mom rode shotgun,
printed-out censuses fanned across her lap,
highlighted, annotated, dog-eared—
a roadmap made of the dead.

You sat in the backseat,
cheek against the window,
watching Ireland unfold in slow exhales—
stone walls dividing nothing from nothing,
a horizon stitched with ruins,
the color of a postcard left too long in the sun.

Mom recited their names like prayer beads,
rolling them through her fingers,
waiting for recognition
that did not come.

And then you were there—
the grass, damp and grasping,
twined around your ankles,
softened under your weight,
pulling you down like something remembered.

The graveyard was older than the road that brought you there.
Headstones leaned like tired men,
softened by wind, by rain,
by the weight of a hundred years unspoken.
Their names smoothed into murmurs,
the dates washed into dashes.

And at every grave,
a small stone sign,
half-buried in moss,
letters chipped but certain:
KNEEL AND PRAY.
Not a suggestion. A sentence.

You did not kneel.
You touched the name instead,
ran your fingers over the grooves,
over the letters that built you
without ever knowing you would come.

A crow clicked its beak from the low wall,
watching the three of you like it had seen this before,
like it knew how this ended.

You whispered something you could not name.
The wind took it from your mouth,
tucked it into the tall grass,
laid it at their feet.

And then you left,
but the wet earth held its claim,
clinging to your soles,
like it knew you’d be back.

You are not the first to stand here,
shifting your weight from heel to toe,
listening for something that won’t answer.

This was someone’s altar once—
iron-veined and humming,
burning red under the weight of hands
that bent it to their will,
knuckles split and salted,
prayers exhaled through gritted teeth.

They worked like men who had no choice,
backs arched into the shape of tomorrow,
sleeves rolled past their elbows,
skin browned with the kind of sweat
that never washes off,
that seeps into the ground
like blood, like proof.

You were born too late to know them,
but their bones remember you.

You carry their names in pieces:
a slanted initial in your passport,
a jawline that sharpens the same way,
a craving for salt, for silence,
for anything that lingers—
but never long enough.

Time has worn them down
to a Sunday ghost,
a muttered grace before supper,
a name no one says right,
a thing you promise to remember
but never write down.

The rails are rusting,
but still they hold.
The ties are rotting,
but still they grip the earth.
The past is splintering,
but still it snags your skin.

You wonder if their hands ever ached
the way yours do,
or if the ache was different—
deeper, heavier,
rooted in something you can’t name.

You wonder if they knew
they were building a road
no one would walk back down.

And you wonder if they’d still have done it,
knowing they would fade into dust
long before you came looking,

long before you ever thought to ask,
before the rust reached the marrow,
before their prayers turned to silence,
before you let their stories slip
like sand through your teeth.

February bites down—
wind with a switchblade edge,
sky like the underbelly of something dead,
clawing at a season that turns its back,
half-winter, half-wishbone,
stuck in the throat of the year.

Sidewalks crack like dry lips.
Trees wear loneliness like a borrowed skin—
bare, brittle, bracing for something
that never arrives.

The sky stays gray,
an unanswered text.
Days sink like forgotten receipts in my tote,
asking things I can’t answer,
whispering, Didn’t you think you’d feel different by now?
Didn’t I?

The cold is a debt I keep paying in shivers,
in chapped hands, in mornings that taste like spoiled perfume
and dreams of other cities, where I wake up panting,
where I breathe out his name like an epiphany,
and let my eyes sigh closed like a prayer.

I walk through the days like a half-lit hallway,
never sure what I’m looking for,
never sure I’ll find it.

I forget what my hands were made for.
I press my palm against the frost-bitten glass,
just to prove I’m still warm-blooded.

February unspools, soft and slow,
a ribbon of time that never quite ties into a bow,
a breath held too long in a house too small.

And I—
I stand at the edge of the month like a skipped stone,
almost ready to sink, almost ready to fly,
caught in the soft ache of almost,
in the half-light of wanting.

March will come like an answer
to a question I don’t remember,
but tonight, February lingers—
a ghost-limbed thing,
a name I still chase in the dark,
leaving me unfinished,
half-written,
half-here.

(verse1)
You always had a talent for leaving the room,
Broad-backed, sharp-dressed, all charming and doomed.
Your entrances grand, you’d win over the crowd,
Drop stunning subtleties ‘til the lights dimmed down.
"See me," a soft plea, your eyes on the floor,
Like I should memorize your tragedy but never ask for more.

(pre-chorus1)
I ignored the fine print;
"Lead actor has a habit of vanishing mid-play."
I killed my role as the girl who believes,
but belief alone won’t make a bolter stay.

(chorus1)
Exit, stage left, door swinging wide,
You ran like you rehearsed it a thousand times.
You said, “See me,” but meant, “Don’t look too close,”
You wanted a witness, not someone who knows.
Left me with questions folded like paper planes,
Tossed into the air, but never explained.

(verse2)
Playing the beats, thought we were learning this dance,
But you let go mid-spin, never gave it a chance.
Said, “I don’t think you love me,” like a closing remark,
Like you needed an ending that cast you as smart.
And God, you delivered that line with ease,
Like a man who never had to beg on his knees.

(pre-chorus2)
I should’ve caught the way you blinked too slow,
Like you were already erasing our bloodstained tableaux.
Should’ve noticed how your hands stayed cold,
Like they knew how to pinch but not how to hold.

(chorus2)
Exit, stage left, no roses, no rain,
Just the weight of your quiet, hollow and plain.
Left me with questions I can’t even write,
Like a coward who mistakes falling for flight.
You said, “See me,” but meant, “This isn’t quite real.”
Like we were just a scene to perform, not something to feel.

(bridge)
Do you ever slip, do you ever miss,
The way I knew you before all of this?
Do you search for my outline in backlit frames,
Or in the curve of girls with softer names?

Do you fold your love letters before they’re sent,
Start a confession, then drop the pen?
You speak our language when no one’s around,
I know you flinch at the ******* sound.

Tell me, when you walk past mirrors at night,
Do you see a man, or just another boy in flight?
Do you ever wonder if you could’ve stayed,
Or do you still mistake running for being brave?

(chorus3)
Exit, stage left, no sound, no applause,
Just a door swinging shut, the quiet that claws.
Left me with echoes that won’t let me rest,
Like names on a headstone you never addressed.
You said, “See me,” but meant, “Don’t get confused,”
A love built on punchlines, but never for two.

(outro)
No curtain, no bow, just the echo remains.
No curtain, no bow, just the echo remains.
No curtain, no bow—just you crossing out my name.

At dinner, you carved our initials
in the table like we were kids
who couldn’t handle paper.
And when you kissed my forehead in that bar,
it felt like the closest thing to a war.

Who else deciphers you?
Who else lets you be this cruel?
You laughed like nothing ever stays,
while the room held its breath—
thousands of ways to break,
none of them mine.

You lit a cigarette, exhaled
my name, said love is just another
bruise to frame. Played Elliott Smith
until the vinyl screamed. The room went hollow.
I stayed, half-dreamed.

I’ve memorized the script you bleed,
still call it poetry, sharp and obscene.
Each line I write pulls teeth,
but silence is a grave too deep,
and I’m not ready to be buried.

The skyline’s fading into bruised blue,
and I keep writing about you.
If I ever make it big,
I’ll tell them the truth:
I sold my soul to the ghost of you.

Your eyes were glass;
your hands, stone.
You look like someone
who dies alone.

Who else watches you rot so sweet?
Who else begs to sit at your feet?
You kissed like a guillotine—
cold and clean—
said nothing’s sacred,
not even dreams.

You pressed your hands to my ribs,
sighed like a wave that knew it would drown,
said, “I wonder what breaks first—
the cage or the tide?
Does the cage crack open,
or does the tide betray?
Which one admits they wanted it that way?”

You laughed like the question wasn’t insane,
and I felt both collapse
in the back of my brain.

The tide swallowed the cage;
the cage choked the tide,
and I stood in the wreckage
of what neither survived.

As they broke, I saw it clear:
neither could win—
only disappear.

And I keep writing you,
line after line,
a hymn to the hurt
I still call mine.
If I ever make it big,
they’ll read every verse
and know I traded my best
for your worst.

Here’s to the ruins
we called our own—
the table we carved,
the war we’ve known.
Your eyes were glass;
your hands, stone.
You look like someone
who’s already gone.