You remind me of me,
Of my mother,
And our dark basement.

She was always angry at me,
For all that I did,
For all that I did not,
For all that she did,
And all that she did not.

She would catch me
And take out all her anger.
I was afraid of her,
A little child,
Frightened to death.

If I saw her furious
At anything, at anyone,
I would hide in that basement:
The place that haunted me,
Dark, where no one would go,
Where all the devils lived.
They still live there,
In my nightmares.

So yes, when you get angry,
Like my mother, you don’t strike me,
But you lash me with your words.

I don’t have that basement anymore.
But I escape.
I go silent. I leave.
I run into my unconscious,
A perfect replica of that basement,
Full of all the devils,
And their many new offspring
That the world cannot see
Except me.
I stay there
Until your storm has passed.

I am scared there. I am afraid.
I wish my mother had known it...
She never did.

And I wish you could help me
Break that basement.
But instead,
You are only narrowing it,
Pushing me deeper
Into its shadows.

I was born already cracked,
a chalice of want spilling over.
Lust learned my name before I could speak it,
sin wore my face like a second skin.
I stood anyway, a statue made of nerve and lie, asking the air if consequence ever forgets.

Each breath is a dare to something holy,
each morning, another betrayal of night.
Is this karma, or just a looped confession?
Life keeps happening even when I stop meaning it.

Still alive, still gnawing at the
bone of tomorrow.
Would it matter if I died in this light?
The room would blink, but only once.
No regret, yet I’d crawl for
a second chance if
God left the door even slightly ajar.

Je t’enterre!
Je t’enterre!
Je t’enterre!

You were a cruel mirage,
a velvet chain I mistook for freedom.
I unshackle myself, only to realize
the cage was always me.

Alight  -  A lantern in the darkness,
Already it dims, making me blind.
The darkness, mirroring suppositions.
Monsters and spiders I make that
May or may not be there. My
Cry  -  Fright, a benign touch
Malign in the light of my fear.
I want out, but this darkness
Is an oppressive darkness. It
Has limbs, and teeth, and eyes  -
Darkness, 'tis a living darkness,
Breathing in  -  I'm like a leaf
Made the lung of the universe.

An Exegesis on the Humiliation of the Word

The world is ruled by darkness.
What appears as harmless is theater,
what pretends neutral is already bent.
The macrocosm corrodes;
and in the microcosm, its reflection gleams..
even in places meant to be sanctuaries of truth.

A poetry site,
born as refuge for broken voices,
becomes another stage of control.
Here too the phrase resounds:

  neutralize the threat.

But neutralization is not annihilation.
It is paralysis.
It is psy-ops.

It is the removal of anxiety..
not a side-effect, but the aim itself.
Darkness builds its stage for this alone:
that the  "angel of light"
may drown his own reckoning
beneath a world of deception-built self comfort,
so he need never feel
the truth he already knows.
Comfort is his curtain,
numbness his crown..

  the removal of his own anxiety;
      his game.

This is why the world is his theater--
Darkness does not destroy at first..
it sedates, comforts, smothers.

Hence..
The whole world is his fully gaslit stronghold,
    ..for now.


Fade back into the moment--

The young poet arrives,
bringing her unspoken pain,
her hope for words to heal.
Instead, her very wounds are seized as footholds.
Hearts. Reposts. Endless affirmation.
Not to strengthen her voice,
but to redirect it.

She is seduced into belonging,
and her trauma becomes currency.
Unresolved, her ache entwines with lust--
a sacrifice prepared  for false altars.
The angel of light  has done his work:
offering inclusion without transformation,
belonging without responsibility,
“light” without source.
The poet is neutralized.
Her searching silenced,
her voice absorbed into fog.

Those who carry this fog
cling to cowardice.
Unable to face the judgment within,
they align themselves to the herd.
They replicate themselves,
so their refusal of Light
is never revealed--
perfectly exemplifying their "Great Example"


The microcosm mirrors the macrocosm.
What nations suffer,
individuals now endure--
   Comfort without clarity.
   Belonging without truth.
   Safety without healing.

Yet the living Word endures.
Every attempt to humiliate it
only makes its fire burn clearer.
Carriers of darkness can swarm,
******, and smother..

but they cannot create.

The true word cannot be erased.
Unfiltered, unedited,
spoken from a reconciled temple,

it pierces fog.

It reveals.
It heals.

And so we speak..
not for ourselves alone,
but for those who come searching,
hoping that poetry
might still be a place
where pain can meet truth,

where silence breaks,
where Light is not withheld
  but revealed.

When I was small
I needed nightlights
in the farmhouse by the swamp.

Shadows gathered in corners
like animals without names.

Before the move
I stood in the field at night,
no outline of trees,

the sky clouded,
air held still by heat,
depthless black before me.

Later, streetlamps
cut alleys into squares,
windows spilling yellow

from kitchens and bedrooms,
a neon sign dripping red
onto wet asphalt,

engines keeping the day alive.
Not dark.
Thin. Unfinished.

What I knew as a boy-
dark was company.
It held me,

steady as the breath
in my ribs.
Older now,

I long for that silence.
I have grown
so unafraid
of the dark.

The heart weeps softly, showing its bruised hue.
Shadows of despair whisper, I'm following you.
Icy winds and grey clouds all around.
Not the faintest beam of light is found.

Does your night teem with sparkling stars?
Or behind the fantasies, veils deep scars?
Does your heart dwell in a city of dreams?
Or breaks into bloodcurdling screams?

To a great extent, your lips laugh.
But your heart merely does its half.
It longs for joy in a world of strife.
How peculiar is the riddle of life!

When shadows speak and the heart bleeds,
A hand of solace is all what it needs.
So, to let them pay heed to a heart's cry,
This hand will write till the ink runs dry.

At times, every breath I take
Seems to leave me breathless.

Every step forward
Leads to backward.

Running towards the light,
But still not reaching it,
Leaves me despaired.

I feel like losing control of my body,
Like being a puppet
With no strings attached.

At such moments,
I see my hopes,
The responsibility,
The love I carry —
That light to my never-ending darkness.

And then my breaths
Don’t leave me breathless,
And I go on.

Embedded in a sea of flowers
A gentle lustre, white and pure,
Illuminates the darkness bearing
Down upon this land of yore.

O Moon, repel the evil eye
That haunts our dreams and waking hours
Bereave the darkness of its powers
And bare to us the cloud-veiled sky.

O Maiden fair with crimson hair,
Thine gentle eyes upon us lay,
Behind the lace, perceive our plight
And guide us soundly into the light.

For in the shadows, ever closer,
The enemy is closing in, lurking, waiting,
Ever closer, and soon – too soon – it will begin.

And thus, we beg you, Lunar Maiden,
Bestow upon us weary souls
Your light, lest enmity devours
This gentle lustre, white and pure,
Embedded in a sea of flowers.

Spiders everywhere
Drowning in terror
Safety was never my birthright
Monkey mind corned into a frenzy
No space for my human to live in peace
Autonomy revoked
Voice muzzled
There's no more, me
can't wash away this dirtiness
Can't wait to numb my heart again
Aren't these thoughts mine?
Why do they hate me so?

Borrowed.
This is why we go to church.
To bleach out this brain stain
My DNA whispers demons
Collected through this body's amalgamation
They hide in the darkest nooks of the corridor of time
Waiting to encroach one more time
Oh, pure innocence.
I lament.

i’ve been on happy pills
for half a year.
more often than not,
i feel like a buried seed,
twisted and tangled
in a graveyard of dreams,
yearning for the light
the darkness has taken from me.

like a river
carving through rock,
i do what’s expected:
show up,
go to the shops,
hydrate,
light candles,
wash my hair,
bake,
then exercise,
get up on a stage
where i pour
my feelings out.

i’m in recovery.

i don’t drink.
i’m pretty sure
i’ve tried everything.

yet, i feel like a canvas
stripped of colour,
a paintbrush,
bristles frayed,
dragging the last stroke
of a story
that i fear will end
before i reach
the last page.