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What happened  
to slow-dancing  
in rain-slicked streets,  
to trembling fingers  
folding paper hearts  
sealed in wax-red promise?

Now,
we’re offered
chains dressed as charm,
red flags stitched into roses,
gaslight glows mistaken
for moonlight.

They call it love—
but it bruises.
It breaks.
It bleeds.

We settle
for breadcrumb kisses,
for apologies soaked
in venom and velvet.
We wear wounds
like wedding rings,
and call it passion.

What happened
to poetry—
to consent,
to slowness,
to souls peeling back
each other’s layers
like pomegranate fruit—
bitter, sweet, divine?

Now they want
power,
ownership,

ego-fed feasts
where one devours
and the other withers.

We’ve forgotten
how to write love
without trauma
as punctuation.

I don’t want
a story
where I’m shattered
then thanked
for still being beautiful
in pieces.

Give me
gentle.
Give me
growth.
Give me
a partner,
not a puppeteer.

And stop calling
toxicity
a twisted kind
of romance.
It’s not.
It never was.
Why are toxic relationships being normalized?
What happened to romance?
They called her child,
yet the stars bent down to listen
when she spoke.


She was born
with galaxies behind her eyelids,
ash of ancient moons
in the crescent of her palms.

In classrooms,
she learned nothing new—
only watched
as the world caught up
to what her marrow already knew.

She stitched silence
into her sentences,
wore grief like pearls
strung along the collarbone of time.

Rain would hush for her,
mirrors would blink twice,
and clocks sometimes refused
to tick in her presence.

She moved
like someone who remembered
being fire
before flesh.


And when the grown-ups
chuckled at her wisdom,
she simply smiled—
a soft, secret smile
like she’d seen their ghosts
and offered them tea.
“wise beyond your age”
She blooms where grief forgets to sleep,
beneath the sallow hush of twilight trees—
a flare of red in softened ash,
the last confession of the breeze.

Petals curled like whispered sins,
each one a blade of memory—
a wound too pretty to regret,
too sacred to let bleed freely.

She doesn’t seek the sun like roses do.
No, she is the flame of parting steps—
ephemeral,
like the breath between
goodbye
    and
      gone.

Born of myth and muddy water,
they say she grows where spirits roam—
a guardian of thresholds,
the keeper of the in-between,
wearing sorrow like a crown
no one dares remove.

And still,
   she rises.
Not for life,
but to remind the world:
some things only bloom
      in farewell.

I’ve been collecting broken mornings
in jars that once held
moonlight.

Each one fogs the glass
like a soft exhale
from a dream I couldn’t finish.

But still—
the birds keep singing,
and the clouds,
like gentle leviathans,
float on as if they know
the sun will show up again.

I pass trees that bow
from the weight of weather,
yet bloom
without apology.

I want that kind of peace—
not loud,
not sudden—
but the kind that grows in the cracks
of yesterday’s heaviness,
that drips down like honey
into a life
that remembers sweetness.

Some nights I cry
for the version of me
who thought love had to hurt
to be real.

I’m softer now—
not weaker.
There’s a difference.

And I know
the world doesn’t hate me.
It just rains sometimes.

And sometimes,
the right people
arrive like spring
after a ruthless frost—
quiet,
warm,
and entirely enough.

I’m not there yet,
but I’m going.

And maybe that’s
the most beautiful
part.
Maryann I Jun 18
I plant a garden with trembling hands—
then salt the soil at dawn.
I lace the sky with paper birds
then chase them off with storm songs.

I cradle peace like porcelain,
but breathe too hard,
and shatter it.

The mirror forgives me
until I touch it.
Then it cracks—
right where my face lives.

I keep building bridges
out of wax and wishbones,
then light them from both ends
just to see
if anyone notices
me
burn.

Some nights,
I set fire to every chance I prayed for,
just to prove
I don’t deserve warmth.

And still—
I water the ashes,
hope something bruised
might bloom again.
I’m learning not to push things away just because I’m scared they won’t stay.
I’m trying to grow things without pulling them up to check if they’re still there.
It takes time, but I’m trying—and that’s enough for now.
Maryann I Jun 6
you touched my cheek
as the sun melted into its grave
and I swear the clouds wept,
bleeding copper and violet

your voice—
a frayed lullaby
threading through
my breaking

the world
slowed to an ache
and in that hush,
even the wind knelt

you smiled
like it wouldn’t be the last
but I saw the sky
forget how to breathe.
Maryann I Jun 2
Velvet sunlight in my palm,
a golden globe, blushing
with the scent of summer.

One bite—
nectar floods like monsoon rain,
dripping down my chin,
hot, sweet, unstoppable.

It tastes like July.
Like heatwaves resting on your tongue,
like skin kissed by dusk.

Flesh so tender it trembles,
ripe and reckless,
honey tangled in citrus silk
and firelight.

The juice—
a soft explosion,
a sunbeam melting into flesh,
a kiss that lingers.

I lick my fingers
like a prayer,
grateful,
greedy,
laughing.

It’s not food.
It’s a spell,
a secret,
a world inside a fruit.

I close my eyes
and the taste stays—
warm, wild, alive.
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