They called Kierkegaard insane,
poor man, poor fool..
ink turned against him
by a city that feared
his furious clarity.

That label is given still:
“mad,” they say,
when a voice rises
against the hidden thing,
the shadow crouched in the soul,
the beast that feeds on silence.

It is not flesh that is cursed,
but the fortress
built stone by stone
from secrets unspoken,
where the child’s cry was buried
and the monster kept the key.

Yes, let it be cursed again..
that ancient predator
that left spirits trapped,
that tried to leave others
shattered in its claws.

If eternity should open,
even the darkness of God
would rise against it,
tumbling the beast
through endless years,
stripped of its power,
stripped of its stolen faces.

Call it madness,
call it folly.
The words remain jagged,
for truth has teeth,
and silence has killed enough.

At least the monster was named
when others smiled politely
and called it “past.”

At least there was no collusion.

And if the witness is written off,
so be it.
Better condemned
for fighting the beast
than praised for leaving it
enthroned.

It’s tender,

being the closest of friends..
but oh, isn’t it such a dangerous thing?
To hold you with care,
in the space we made,
while promising

I won’t touch a single thing.

But sweet love... to be this close
to someone like you..
need I say

what your voice can bring?

Warmth, truth,
supportive hands that tend--
it’s a dream come true
for those who bleed.

But when a deep need is quietly met,
can the heart resist
going full send?

And still—when a need
is met without hands,
without lips,

without sleep lost
   in shared breath...

how long before restraint slips?

This depth.. untouched,
unspoken, unseen..
it burns through the walls
between you and me.

Yes, even with agreements
so lovingly made...
there’s always the risk
in a love so brave;


  that we will  both

             come

      undone.

I wore your sores
I rode your pain
I stood by your side-
Even in vain

I’d be here for you
Regardless of anything
Even when you took-
All of me for yours

I held your breath
When it was too heavy
I grew up in your shadow-
Of damage

Nothing you do can take the hurt
You had me learn
You had me live
You had me feel

I was born to fail
Since nothing I do
Was good for your appeal

The Battleground Beneath Her Skin
(A Physiology of Light and War)

Before it reaches her;
even before her breath draws it in,
I break myself down..

  not as surrender,
  but as choice.

Each particle stripped bare,
each atom exhaled
made clean by the reckoning
of my own dark,
infused with the stubborn
weight of light
earned, not borrowed.

Within the responsibility of what
  leaves me,
I enter the quiet union—
the kneeling choice
to align with the hand of God,
to let even my smallest fragments
carry His capacity to heal.
Every airborne particle,
accountable,
deliberate,
refined enough
to cross the distance,
to enter her

without deception.

Beneath her skin,
a war unfolds.

It is not loud,
not made of swords,
but of smaller things..
things unseen by eyes,
but never missed by the marrow,
the blood,

the quiet trembling of cells
that have known both wound

  and wonder.

Light and dark..
not in theory,
but in matter
thread themselves through every atom,
every strand of her being.
Not metaphor,
but measurable:

the way shadows lean into the soft chambers of her lungs,

the way light, when chosen,
can rewrite the blueprints etched into the bloodstream.

This is the battleground..
her body,
her breath,
her most involuntary places.
Where no poetry of
seductive manipulation..
no whispered counterfeit
can cover what is real.
Only substance speaks here.
Only intent.

Only what survives the fire of accountability
earns the right to stay.

The particles come;
stripped down,
atomized,
refined.. not by accident,
but by the slow, steady grind
of volition.
They enter her;
through breath,
through pores..

through the quiet, relentless openness
that even fear cannot close completely.

And inside--
the war begins.

..   ..   ..   ..

Mitochondria spark—
tiny engines deciding

what stays,
what burns away.

Capillaries widen,
rivers branching through her like
tributaries
willing to carry
what is real,

what is earned,

what is Light.

The counterfeit falters here.
Pretty words mean nothing
to oxygen.
False portraits
dissolve beneath the chemistry of truth.
The cells remember;

  they choose.

And as the Light infuses
the quietest corners of her..
her thighs, her hips,
the soft stretch of her waist;
there is no seduction,
no trickery.

Only the hard-won intimacy
of substance made pure.

Not by the blending of oils,
not by the friction of skin,
but by the deeper,
unseen alchemy
of what enters,
what lingers,
what refuses to bow
to darkness.

The battleground is hers now.
And though the shadows  will not
yield easily,
they cannot claim her;
not where light
has been chosen,
earned,
metabolized.

The war is not over,
but benea.th her skin,
within her blood,

Light has begun
to rise.

(for the one who stands at the edge, where the fabric begins to fall)

She had once been known—
but only through a portrait
painted in the shades of misunderstanding.

A silhouette mistaken for substance.
A voice mimicked before it ever found
its own breath.

She knows this.
And so the chains that bind her now
are not forged of cruelty,
but memory—
a memory that clings to who she was
before she could ever choose to become.

And still, she dreams of the sunlight.
Of fabric falling, not ripped—
but released.
Softly.
Willingly.
In the warmth of a gaze that promises
no weight will be added
to the skin that already bore so much.

She does not want to be reclaimed.
She wants to be re-seen.

Not as the story once told,
but as the story now unfolding.
A woman not returning,
but arriving.

And if the beholder must grieve
the version of her he once adored,
so be it—

for only in that grief
can he welcome the miracle
of what is finally, freely,
and beautifully real;

and  hope upon hope--

     not one of his own chains
     in sight

I yelled back when I was younger,
screamed while I cried,
maybe I didn't understand,
but I knew it wasn't right.

I fought back when she wouldn't,
she’d go to bed and hide.
His power over little kids
was his only source of pride.

Not me, though, I never gave in.
I talked right back at every whim.
Sometimes I’d even instigate,
if it saved my sister a violent fate.

Shut up now, sit down.
Be a good girl and make us proud.
Your grades are falling? How can that be?
Put your sister in the tub,
It’s my house, and I’m the King.
You never listen, that’s why you can’t go out.
You have friends? With your attitude? That I doubt.

Nothing got past me when I was a child,
Mouth of a martyr who oddly went quiet.
And I’m not really sure when that happened to me.
The defiance has died,
Now I sit at their feet.

"He’s not a bad man, he’s misunderstood.
His life was hard, he’s finding his way.
It wouldn’t be very supportive if I didn’t stay! I know it looks bad but it's really okay."

I went from loud-mouthed, defiant, and strong,
To caring about eggshells disturbed by my wrongs.