It’s been known that
“Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to repeat it.”

Yet society seems to want to forget this very quote
Are we willingly ignorant, or have we forgotten
That a land composed of bloodshed
Will end in ruin?

Do we not know that the Sandy Hook Elementary School children
Would’ve been able to vote this year?
Do we not know that giving guns more freedom than humans
Will only result in more tiny graves?

Are we aware that the law people are using
To excuse sending away human who only want to
Live
Is the same law that allowed internment camps to be legal?

Do we not know that these arguments
wouldn't be able to make exist
If not for Mother Earth?
But we still want to sink our drills into her
Like wicked parasites.

We shame women who are too terrified
To tell the horrors they have lived through
Yet turn a blind eye when they say that
An abuser becomes the leader.

German soldiers in World War II
Thought they were saving their economy and
Protecting their nation
But history only remembers them as the villains
Why do we refuse to see that we already know how this plays out?

“A country that runs on the blood of its own children is
doomed to crumble from the inside out,” we scream.

We scream and we scream and we scream,
begging for people to hear our cries.

Hear us when we cry out that nothing will come of this
except enough bloodshed to bathe an army and
more corpses than there are living.

Hear us when we say society is evolving backwards so we already know the end.

Hear us when we cry our warnings, mourning what will become of our nation.

Hear us when we can say nothing more, buried six feet under, hear us as we plead from ever-growing caskets as you stomp on our graves.

Hear us when we say, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

[ ] Everyone notices I’m angry
[ ] But no one notices that the anger is all of my suppressed sadness
[ ] For once just trying to be heard

[ ] They see the fire, but not the ashes it’s built on
[ ] They flinch at the spark, but never ask what lit it
[ ] People always blame the wildfires for blazing
[ ] But without the sun there would be no fire
[ ] Yet still no one ever blames the sun

[ ] Maybe that’s why I give so much
[ ] If I shine warm enough, maybe they won’t fear my flame
[ ] Maybe if I love loud enough, someone will see past the smoke
[ ] Maybe if I pour enough light into others
[ ] They will feel warm enough to stay

[ ] I am the caretaker
[ ] The noticer
[ ] The lover
[ ] The giver
[ ] Because it temporarily heals the part of me that needed that back
[ ] But as always
[ ] My efforts are one sided
[ ] And I’m left in a never-ending loop

[ ] I’m desperate for someone to understand me the same way
[ ] I see people’s pain
[ ] I feel their emotion changes
[ ] I sense their struggles
[ ] I listen to their worries
[ ] All because I know what it’s like to deal with it alone
[ ] I’m empathetic because I know how hard it is to live in my own shadows
[ ] And still be blamed for not shining as bright

[ ] I care with such a passion
[ ] Make myself such a prominent guiding figure in people’s lives
[ ] Because maybe if they see how much I care
[ ] If they stay long enough in my warmth
[ ] They will see that my fire doesn’t actually burn so bright
[ ] Maybe they will notice
[ ] Notice all the things I never say
[ ] Notice all of the pain carved into my soul
[ ] Into my skin

[ ] I’ve lit a thousand candles for others
[ ] But no one ever stopped to ask
[ ] Who lit me
[ ] They only see the flame when it lashes out
[ ] Not the wax that’s melted in silence

[ ] I am not dangerous
[ ] I’m not the blaze you want to blame
[ ] Just a candle burning low
[ ] Holding tight to a fragile flame
[ ] Afraid to burn out alone

[ ] Sometimes I wish I could just stop trying
[ ] Stop pretending this weight isn’t crushing me

[ ] But I keep going because I don’t know how to be any other way

[ ] And maybe if they looked a little closer
[ ] They’d see I was never trying to burn anything down
[ ] I was trying to survive the arson I was born into
[ ] Trying to stitch warmth into a body that’s always been cold
[ ] Trying to glow in a world that only praises the sun
[ ] And punishes anything that flickers

[ ] But no one mourns a candle when it goes out
[ ] They only curse the dark it leaves behind

The fire I smothered now rages, fed by fury I tried to forget. Smoke claws at the sky like a coal train screaming under pressure all fury, no mercy.

You say I pulled away.
You're right.
But before I left,
I withered beneath the weight of your storm.

I didn’t mean to become the silence
you dreaded waking up to.
But every slammed door,
every name spat like venom,
taught me how to become invisible.

You think I planned it —
as if my tattoos were eulogies for us,
my piercings an escape route.
No.
They were armor.
Each needle a promise to myself
that I still existed
underneath the noise.

I loved you.
God, I did.
When we laughed,
it felt like we’d invented language.
When we touched,
I thought the world forgave us.

But I was bleeding
while trying to bandage your rage.
And in the quiet after your anger,
I started to disappear.

I wasn’t waiting to leave —
I was hoping you’d notice I was drowning.
But you were too busy
trying to prove you were already underwater.

And I know my hands weren’t clean.
I bit back,
with sarcasm, with silence,
with withdrawal.
We hurt each other
because we didn’t know
how not to.

You were my home.
But I couldn’t survive the fires
you kept lighting inside the walls.

So I left.
And I still ache —
because I wanted us to grow,
not burn.

I read a book about men and anger —
and it clawed into my chest like guilt with teeth.
Not just the loud eruptions,
but the quiet fires I never noticed burning,
the way I smoldered
while pretending I wasn’t heat.

Was I the villain in our ruin?
Is that why I wake up with her face aching behind my eyes?
Why I weeped this morning
from dreaming of her warmth beside me?

Yes, I shouted.
Yes, I shut down.
Yes, I swallowed rage until it poisoned everything we tried to build.
But didn't she light matches too?

She pulled away —
a distance I could feel, even when her skin was close.
Was it all a plan?
was she really “just waiting" to be rid of me?

I wanted forever.
Now all I have is this loop —
the smoking remnants of what was,
what might have been,
what may never come again.

I walk to breathe.
I walk to scream in silence.
I walk to stop myself from picking up the bottle.
From spiraling back into shame’s embrace.

What does it mean when two broken people call each other home?
Was it love? Survival?
Or history?
A scar we made sacred
as she paid the price.