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You walk the valley of the blind
and call it wisdom
yet you see nothing.

You drink from envy’s cup,
mouth full of rot,
and still pretend
the flavor isn’t bitter.

Your tongue splits a serpent
forking left, right,
each hand ignorant,
each hand guilty.

You preach love
but every kiss is venom.
You swear honesty
but your breath stinks of deceit.

You sing your holy lies,
choirs choking on righteousness,
but your heart
your blackened, rotting heart
beats only for sin.

I would rather vow silence,
starve to death
on the edge of truth,
than feed on the carrion
of what you serve.

I would rather never sing,
than bury my voice
in the filth of your song.

What is pure?
Where is it hiding?
The scent is gone
nothing left but ash
and the stench of man.

Even the candle of the just,
the brave,
flickers, fades
because oppression laughs,
and the strong
are gagged in chains.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
18 August 2025
I laid my body on the tall grass.
She wrapped me in a rustle of green.
I closed my eyes in the shadow of a tall pine,
curling up so the pain wouldn’t spill beyond my heart.

Consciousness sinks into nothingness.
I feel the particles of my “self”
breaking into a million molecules.
I flow through the grass and seep into the earth.

Now my body puts down roots,
nestling against the pine that weeps with resin.
My emotions pass through the trunk of the tree.

The thread of memories is a long earthworm,
crawling through the empty
corridors where once blood pulsed.
White bones remain still,
slowly dissolving into the vessel of eternal life:
Earth, water, air, lost particles of light,
and my longing for the final union.

Doubts hollow a chamber,
soft and warm – my new home.
When my dream ends,
I will dwell in it.

Now I am the pine.
My needles, bark, and resin
radiate invisible light
for this space, for this world.

Yes, I was once human.
Two friends shared a bond full of cheer,
In laughter and love, they drew near.
With joy in their hearts,
They danced like fine arts,
In a world that embraced them so clear.
limerick love laughter friendship world cheer bond fine arts dancing
I float in the space between
his words and silence,
like sunlight stretched over a cracked sidewalk—
warm, but fractured.

We laugh across digital oceans,
my stories spilling like spilled ink
onto his quiet, unread shores.
He saves them, collects them,
a lighthouse for his eyes
while I drift, wondering
if I am only a ship he glances at,
not the ocean itself.


His voice is honey
that melts over stone,
but the stone feels like my chest,
dense, heavy, questioning.
I am fireflies in a jar—
glowing, contained,
beautiful but captured.

Couple videos and whispered nothings
tiptoe along the edges of intimacy,
yet when I ask,
“What are we?”
the echo comes back empty.
The space between us stretches—
a canyon with no bridge,
yet I lean,
hoping for hands to hold the rope.

I am more than the curve of my lips,
more than the warmth of my body.

I am a galaxy spinning,
brimming with colors he will never name,
and still, I orbit him,
halfway in love,
halfway alone.

I want to sink into love,
not float in the in-between,
but the tide keeps returning,
and I am caught
in the half-light of a situationship.
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