I was a gifted child. Until I wasn't. I was the golden girl. Until I couldn't burn anymore.
My parents expected me to build wings of gold and fly further than anyone could ever try. I don't blame them, having a child to raise is like sculpting a clay ***, you can shape it the way you like, paint it the color you fancy. To raise a child is to play God. To raise a child is to be God.
But to be a child is to fall, to make mistakes, to fail. The thing about being too bright at an early age means you burn out by the time you're 16 and suddenly the world around you becomes more gray and terribly, terribly lonely. The fire is never warm enough, nothing is ever enough. And one day you find yourself begging to a godless sky, begging for a new spark.

of course, looking on
the bright side can
ruin your eyes  ..

Nobody knows when
love will roll in and
waltz with your crippled
soul.
Nobody knows when
the chickens will come
home, or when the dog
will have its day.

I heard of a place where
silence blossoms into
flowers of wisdom, but
when I ask for directions,
nobody knows.

I taste the sadness of
the sky in every poisoned
drop of rain.
I was born to swallow it.
To be consumed by the
gray expanse.
I ask for the antidote,
the cure.
Nobody Knows.

What happened to the
street signs, the picket fences,
all the love and empty spaces?
People play games, and only
traces of humanity remain.
How do I pull the cord on
this parachute?
Nobody Knows.

I bought a pair of shoes off of a drug dealer
I don't know what he laced them with
But I've been tripping all day.

This sound,
like a friendly wind,
walking through
my lost memories
from irreversibility,
from the cold reality
of indifference
returning to fulfilling promises
as an answer to my invocation

A unique, sweet sound
is calling me now,
after twenty-five years.
I bought that ticket,
sitting in my narrow seat,
holding in my hand
a piece of uncertainty
that deforms
every time I get on board.

I used to take so many trains:
traces, luggage, running passengers,
waiting, wasting minutes.
They brought me,
step by step,
station by station,
to this voice,
to this tone of being,
in tune with silver threads.

The windows are yet closed.
I carry in my cells
the code of Alef,
a crystalline illusion.

The lens caves in
and swells outward,
seeing the elusive past
still living in me,
playing under a different sun,
through elusive existences.

We came as twenty-one souls.
Twenty I found.
One was lost—
the one closest
to my breathing truth.

The final deal:
Am I losing
or will I rest
in deeper words?

Yes.
I did it for you,
changing alternative worlds,
pulsing around me,
invitations not accepted.

I open the gate
to a new home:
to warmth,
to creativity,
made by sweet recognition
of blooming Fall to come
waiting patiently
for your move
for your not-yet-published story.

“perhaps the sun is a teacup, spilled by a girl in a skyhouse who laughs in polka dots–”

You wrote like someone
who had been listening
long before speaking,
each poem a hush,
each repost a gentle offering.

This space once held you,
your words, your calm curation,
a gentle steadiness
in a shifting field of voices.

take this small goodbye
not as an end,
but as a door left open,
just in case
you return with your light.

Until then,
may strength find you
in soft moments,
and peace arrive
never needing to be earned.

Liverpool can be a lonely place
On a Saturday night
And it's only
Thursday morning.

All seems different,
like a blurry landscape
with vanishing maps.
The distance from the past
keeps growing.
I slice through space and time,
on the chosen path,
along a trajectory of circumstances.
Against the denial of access,
against the gate closing,
just to hold together what was apart.