I don’t want crumbs
I want gold
wheat
honey
the finest and rarest in this world
I am not cheap
My mental health has cost me dearly
My tears
are priceless
I’d like to see you pay for them all
I cried for everyone
But I cried most for myself
for letting me cry for those who didn’t deserve it
for giving space
and letting them destroy my peace
I owe nothing to anyone anymore
Yet everyone owes me
Starting with the one who writes to you now
I owe myself
a great deal of love

If you can’t hold on others secrets with you, better stop listening to them.

They didn’t quite know how to express it, but deep inside, they, too, were afraid of losing someone they love. Pride often stood in the way, a shield built from past pain and lessons learned the hard way. They had always promised themselves never to repeat the mistakes of their past, never to be as vulnerable as before.

There was a longing in them, a quiet desire to know what it felt like to be cared for deeply, to be love like a child for once. But in trying to protect themselves, they may have gone too far. The very walls they built to keep heartbreak out had begun to suffocate those who tried to get close.

They didn’t regret building those walls; they were necessary, a form of survival. But a part of them did wonder, had they shut out the very experience they longed for? The chance to be loved for who they truly were? Perhaps. And yet, even with that bittersweet truth, they carried on, not with bitterness, but with acceptance. For now, that was enough.

N O I R

Human beings,
Akin closest to the creatures of the void,
As we consume.
Dictates of wrath falling from our hands,
Onto tablets of conversational truth.

I am conscious,
I think and do,
Still I consume too.

Leeching off the fuel writing gives me,
I run, an engine breaking through rocky walls,
Testing the boundaries of inspirational energy.
Aching with the feeling of being restrained,
Tortured by carrying,
Some few echoes of truth.

What’s the worst that I could lose?
Just myself, and that I choose,
Again, again, I set the stage,
Then hand the script to someone’s rage

They smiled, I bent, I let them take,
Till I was hollow for their sake
I stitched my wounds with quiet grace,
And wore the pain like silk and lace

What harm could saying “yes” have done?
Just one more time, then I’ll be gone
But patterns loop like haunted tracks,
And every step just pulls me back

A softer voice, a trembling hand,
I thought that they would understand
But wolves, they come in human clothes,
And kindness is the path they chose

I saw the signs, I knew the script,
Yet still I let my edges slip
And in the name of “keeping peace,”
I fed the beast and called it “lease”

My heart was built to house a storm,
To twist itself in every form
And though I tried to say goodbye,
I let them in, I don’t know why

The bruises weren’t the kind you see,
They grew like roots inside of me
But I have learned: I am the gate,
Not every guest deserves my fate

So if you knock with hungry hands,
Expect to meet someone who stands
No more of me will be poured out to fill
The hollow space of someone’s will