will you still love me
if I don't smile today?
if my tears fall like raindrops
and my world tears at the seams?
if my voice breaks when I talk
and I seek the comfort of dreams?

will you still love me
if I don't cheer up today?
if I sit rigid in silence
and spend the whole day in bed?
if I find solace in cigarettes
and don't keep myself fed?

will you still love me
if I don't laugh today?
if I keep my thoughts hidden
and don't say what I mean?
if I curl up in darkness
and stare at a screen?

will you still love me
if I don't calm down today?
if my patience wears thin
and snaps like a thread?
if my eyes no longer sparkle
and are absent instead?

will you still love me
if I don't smile today?

I am the willow bending, lost in winds
that do not whisper to me but to the world—
a rootless prayer, an echo in the dusk,
my leaves trembling, soft as the sound of sorrow’s kiss.

They ask for everything.
Their hands, like rivers, pull from me.
The sap, the marrow, the breath in my bones,
while I am but the hollow echo of a dream
that never took root in my own soil.
I owe them the stars, the moon, the sun’s dying glow,
yet the sky above, I do not claim as mine.

I give them what they seek —
a smile, a warmth, a promise kept in the ache of silence,
but within me, the storm stirs and swells
in a language that does not ask for a name.
For what am I but a leaf that falls,
drifting, never grounding in the earth
that would cradle me if I knew how to kneel?

They speak of love, of duty, of the weight of living —
but what of the weight of nothing?
The weight of giving until the marrow wears thin,
until I am no longer flesh,
but a song that no one sings,
a tear that never falls,
a shadow of something that once was,
but is now forgotten in the night.

The seasons pass and I remain,
an offering to those whose hearts I cannot touch.
A hollow tree standing tall in someone else’s forest,
my branches stretch toward the skies,
but I am not their sky to reach.
I am the earth —
but not my own earth.

And the forest knows me not,
for I am a whisper without voice,
a breath taken by someone else,
a thought lost in the wind.
and I owe them everything—
all that I was, all that I could have been —
and yet, nothing of me remains.
Not even the memory of the sun,
as it sinks beneath the weight of all that I’ve given.

I am only a flicker,
fading, never to be remembered.
And in the quiet dark of endless sky,
I give until the stars forget to shine.

I see him rise again —
draped in fire, wrapped in light,
and I, the quiet one,
can only reflect what he gives me,
can only follow,
never lead.

He burns without asking permission.
the clouds part for him like scripture,
the trees lean toward him in worship,
the world spins just to feel his warmth.
No one ever asks what it costs me
to chase someone who never turns around.

I am the Moon —
soft, silver, cold in comparison.
But still, I pull oceans to their knees.
Still, I move the blood in your veins,
still, I rise in every poem about longing
and make it hurt a little more.

He does not love me.
he probably never will.
but I dream of it anyway,
like a sinner kissing the gates of Heaven
knowing they won’t open.
Like thirsting in a drought
and calling the mirage divine.

He is the Sun —
So bright it hurts to look.
So far I can’t breathe when he’s near.
So beautiful I could scream.
And I do.
In silence, in tides,
in every broken wave that crashes
because I couldn’t hold it in.

I make storms when I’m angry.
I make art when I’m desperate.
I drag the night behind me
Like a velvet funeral shroud,
because loving him feels
a lot like dying slowly
and calling it romance.

Sometimes, he looks over his shoulder.
just barely.
Just enough for me to write epics
about things that never happened.
Just enough for me to mistake heat
for affection.

I am not jealous —
I am envy incarnate.
I am longing with teeth.
I am the boy who watches from a distance
and writes sonnets with shaking hands
While the world burns for someone else.

He doesn’t know what I’d give
to feel his warmth
without blistering.
To stop orbiting
and finally touch.
But I am the Moon.
He is the Sun.
And that is all we were ever allowed to be.

So I smile in silver.
And I shatter the sea.
And I say his name quietly
when the Earth is sleeping,
as if that will make it real.

As if that will make him mine.

How solemn is spring;
as azure tears kiss the blooms,
the rainbow drinks deep.

There is a fire that consumes quietly,
its fingers tender as they trace the outlines
of things we were once too afraid to burn.
A heat, soft as loss,
devouring without asking —
like the stars that fall
in silent bursts,
vanishing without a sound
but leaving the night warm,
like the stillness after the storm.

I sit by the hearth,
the flames licking at the silence,
as if they know
that destruction wears the face
of something fragile —
the way a lover leaves,
softly, as though they were never there,
and yet, the room remains
so full of them
you wonder
if absence could fill a space
with something deeper than presence.

The fire speaks in ashes,
as if to say,
"I was once the sun,
and I, too, will set."
But still, I reach my hands toward it,
searching for the warmth
of things that vanish —
the way a poem disappears
on the page,
leaving graphite stains
in the shape of absence,
telling you everything
without a word.

The hearth hums with the quiet
of things undone —
a quietness like the seamless
works of Rilke,
where the evening spreads its wings
like a forgotten prayer
that no one remembers to say.

Here, too, in this soft destruction,
there is no voice
but the one that burns the edges
of every thought
until it is nothing but the flicker
of light you cannot hold.

I burn not because I wish to be
consumed,
but because I know
that some things must be lost
before they can be remembered,
like the way the heart still beats,
long after the body forgets
how to feel.

And the hearth,
a poet in its own right,
sings a hymn of things
we cannot keep —
the fire dancing
in the shape of what we leave behind,
warm,
and empty,
like a song that was never meant to end.

How strange
Is the Autumn rain

As it all falls down
In October

you are the fire
burning in my heart

and on a lonely winter night
there is only desire

a candle bleeds wax
as you watch.

it drips, drips down
like the frost on your heated windows.

can you see my face as you look in a little closer

feel my rosy-cheeks
they are not red in heat

do you know of desire?

tell me about the fire.