The best way to lose an argument
Is to belittle whom you’re speaking with
Instead of hearing what they have to say
Doing all you can to put them in their place
Battling for your right to be wrong
Hoping to score some extra points

The best way to lose an argument
Is to try and take more than you give
Not seeing things through your opponent's eyes
Or realize there are two sides
If all you want to do is etch a notch or two
You'll never get round to, the real truth

The best way to lose an argument
Is to dive right in before you learn to swim
Placing all your focus on the prize
Though you could be wrong and they might be right
Does any of this make any sense
Being the best way to lose an argument

I have a room inside me that never learns to stay lit –
the bulbs hum like old refrigerators, tired and polite.
It is not only sadness; it is the slow settling of stone,
the placing of a palm on a wound I cannot name.

My smile is a borrowed coin pressed into the mouth of a beggar,
metal cool and unfamiliar. I practice saying fine –
the syllables are tidy, a drawer snapped shut against the dark.
Talking feels like choosing which limb to cut off first.

Mornings arrive like tax bills: inevitable and cruel.
I open my eyes and the world is a ledger of small violences –
the sun a pale creditor, the coffee bitter and obedient.
Breathing is a job I clock in for and instantly forget why.

There is a weight that knows the map of my bones better than I do,
it presses where directions used to be, flattens neighborhoods of hope.
Pain has become a general ledger: no line item, only balance
always a number red and endless, always due.

Sometimes I imagine carving a window into that room –
letting a sliver of weather in to see if weather remembers me.
But the shutters are welded with sentences I did not finish,
and the key is small and lost in the pocket of some other life.

The worst is the geography of it: no sharp edge to point at,
no bruise with a date, no neat explanation for why the rain keeps staying.
Only the knowing that whatever I touch comes away colder,
and I learn, slowly, how to fold myself into an acceptable silence.

If I could name the hurt, I’d dress it in words and parade it out –
but language is thin clothing for a storm this old.
So I wrap myself in softer lies and hand them to strangers,
say I'm fine and watch them believe me because they want to.

Tonight, I will tread the house of my own chest and count the rooms
the kitchen where hunger goes to sleep, the attic of all the almosts,
the cellar where my laughter ferments into objects I no longer own.
I will not find an answer. I will find the weight again, patient and exact.

Existing has become empty, a hollow rhythm,
a clock with no hands.
The worst is not knowing where the wound begins,
only that it’s everywhere –
a bruise spread across my soul, aching without edges,
bleeding without proof.

It hurts,
always hurts,
and I cannot name it.
I only know
it never leaves.

©️ Dark Water Diaries

I had his trust
Until I didnt
I ****** up and lost his trust
What will happen?
Who knows.
The depression has been worse
Maybe a few cuts
How bout some pills?
How bout smoking?
A couple drinks?
All just to make the pain go away
The thoughts are to much.
Lack of sleep
Lack of food
Lack of emotion.
How about i just grab the blade?
Add some new scars.
Go deeper this time
How about i take some old meds?
Just a few
How about i smoke and drink?
To forget about the pain
To clear my mind.
It seems I cant do anything right
I never will do anything right.

Is life just a race we run silently,
through caverns of our mind,
through sands of each passing hour,
chasing love, acceptance, truth,
knowledge, wisdom, enlightenment
and yet, what do we hold
when the finish line arrives
and the moments we lived
slipped uncherished through our hands?

Every accomplished goal, every achievement,
grievances or dreams
why do we seek validation through the eyes of others?
Is this how we measure pain, measure joy,
as if comparison could define our worth,
as if milestones could weigh our lives?

We ask the heavens for signs,
just to not feel alone in ourselves,
for sympathy, for proof
that our striving mattered, that we matter.
But too often time passes blindly,
so do minutes, so do days.
We forget to breathe, to feel, to touch,
to taste the fleeting sweetness of now.

Moments pass while masks we wear,
the charades filled with smiles we force,
in our minds, the races we run for applause, for “can you see me now?”
None of it matters really
in the quiet shadow cast upon the grave.

I have stood on both sides,
felt the burn of regret, sorrow, and longing,
the hollow echo of unclaimed moments
that have passed through timeless treasures.
Many questions remain,
but none so honest as this:
what are we truly chasing,
and at what cost do we spend this life
or fail to live the life that waits
in the present?

Pressing pause, perhaps mid-dogma,
stopping the clock from moving
forward while you’re readying
to commit, allowing your listening
to catch up with your hearing, giving
a moment’s pause, allowing
a deeper breath ahead of taking
the next step, perhaps contemplating
where to place your foot - changing
your long held direction, gauging
the sudden breeze, stepping
back or testing
the next step of faith

- all this is possible in this pause called poetry.