you saw the empty glass
just before i left.
the way you came down on me
still rattles in my chest.

you were way too harsh.
your words lodged in me
for years.
because you were
a drinking buddy.
i didn’t need you
to hold a mirror up to me.

“i know by heart,” you said,
“that glass will be followed
by another.
isn’t that right?

so can you promise me
when you get home
you won’t drink?
because tomorrow,
i will know.
you know i will.
and i’ll never trust you again.
if you lie to me.”

i didn’t drink that night.
not because i didn’t want to.
but out of anger.
because you were right.

sometimes, years later,
your voice still follows me.
you’re part of the past,
and it still haunts me.

i could do
with a round of tough love.
another of your harsh truths.
because i keep fighting these battles,
and all i do is lose.

A waving rifle
In a pain struck hand
A lonely boy
He forgot how to stand
A knife of beauty
Cut in his flesh
A trail of blood
New and fresh
A single breath
Taken today
Before he tried
To run away
A single pill
To end it all
A final hope
To jump and fall
A new letter
He didn't know why
A single phrase
"Please don't die"

A lonely girl
In a mistaken world
Another fight
About to unfurl
A single dream
Of another life
A large hope
To be more than a wife
A smile curving
Up on her lips
A plan folding out
In careful strips
A pen she finds
Carefree on the floor
A paper she grabs
Then walks out the door
A little plea
She sends through the air
Then throws it in
Without a care
A hurting boy
Will read this too
And she hopes he knows
"I care about you"

In this world where we all belong,  
Kindness is what makes us strong.  

A simple smile, a helping hand,  
Can spread joy across the land.

When words are gentle and actions are kind,  
Happiness we soon will find.  

With a caring heart, a listening ear,  
We make others feel valued, loved, and near.

It’s so easy to treat each person with respect,  
In love and kindness, we all connect.  

In every moment, big or small,  
Kindness is the greatest gift of all.

I am but a fleeting phrase, a sentence in your tome,
A whisper in your journey, where countless voices roam.
Yet, in my quiet brevity, a universe took flight,
Filling shelves of boundless thought in the corridors of night.

The libraries you have built within my fragile heart,
Each word, a gilded memory, a masterpiece of art.
I penned your name in starlight, on pages bound with dreams,
Ink flowing like a river through love's eternal streams.

Your smile, the prelude to a sonnet soft and true,
Your laughter, the refrain that the poets always knew.
I've scrawled you in the margins of the world I hold inside,
Where metaphors of longing in endless echoes bide.

Each fleeting glance, a chapter; each touch, a verse divine,
Your presence is the epilogue where I would rest my spine.
Though I am but a sentence, your spirit swells my page,
A symphony of essence no volumes could encage.

My quiet voice may falter as your story carries on,
Yet echoes of my cadence remain long after the dawn.
For though the ink may dwindle, and time may turn to dust,
The libraries I have crafted will never know distrust.

I am merely passing through, a footnote to your tale,
Yet your light ignites my parchment, a flame that will not pale.
So leave me in your chapter, or let my lines erase,
For still, you are the atlas of my soul's most sacred space.

Roses are redoubt
Violets are a horn, blue
Sugar is sweat, in a dark pout
And hell is crying, and so are you...

Pain, the magic and the cruel
Forever, is a shoe...
Live by a creed, and you say hi, to a tool
Know a you, for a sweet tooth...

Done, to hunt a misery
Found in a gutter, no man's
Land, has a sick flower of mystery
Told to a child's shadow, a risen chance...

To become a family's cannibal?
Creation, is our view on rage
Though put to such, much is beauty
Tarry with us, to live without music to face...?

Treasure of the ******?
Hell to pay, a quiet dowry
Of dues and tomorrow, a question to hand
You, a seduction's voice, with hunger as its quarry...