I never learned the rules they made —
the apps, the games, the masquerade.
I tried them once, they felt too loud,
like chasing something through a crowd.

I’ve had my nights, I’ve played my part,
but none of it could reach my heart.
I want something that doesn’t fade —
but not the way it’s now portrayed.

I’m not online, I stepped aside.
Not hiding — just not in the tide.
I don’t perform. I don’t compete.
But that’s how people seem to meet.

They match, they text, it moves so fast —
like every moment’s built to pass.
And while I watch it come and go,
I wonder where the slow hearts go.

Where do they cross, where does it start,
when swipes replaced the human part?
I never learned to play the cut —
Which leaves me here. Now what?

Can you hear the stars,
sweet infinite music
the whistled song of the sky as it soars above us,
yes, you with your phone clamped to one ear
are you deaf to the whistled tune of the universe
then you have truly lost connection

I would say,
“Where are you now,
While I am at my lowest?”
But I know you
could say the same.
So, here’s the
Difference.

You chose to go it alone.
I called for your support but
You were confused
And couldn’t tell the
Difference.

I used to be the one you
Could rely upon. But now
You choose no one,
And I see a
Difference.

You had shakes from withdrawal.
But mine are from fear and
Isolation.
Can you see the
Difference?

I wish I could have changed things then.
But you shut me out, cut contact,
Pushed me away.
So, what’s the
Difference?

You knew that I’d been struggling.
Everyone’s known, it’s not a secret.
But I work through my pain while you
Decide to eat it.
See the difference?

This user is loosing interest in everything
like tabs left open, forgotten, buffering.
Notifications blink like dying stars,
but none are worth the effort of looking.

Conversations feel like code
written in languages I unlearned.
but mean none of them.

Even the mirror loads too slowly,
and when it does,
the face looks like someone
mid-update,
stuck.

The days autoplay.
The nights glitch.
And somewhere in the background,
I hear the soft hum
of systems shutting down.

I lit my candles all alone,
on a night that should have been my own.
The tiny flame flickered and died,
I whispered my wishes, but none replied.

He, as always, lay asleep,
while I stood silent, tired, bleak.
I washed the dishes, cleaned the floor,
he “saved his energy” once more.

I asked, I pleaded, time and again,
but silence met me now as then.
I carried weight that no one should,
believing strength meant all I could.

And him? He sighs, he hides away,
a child in mind, a man in sway.
And me? I cook, I clean, I run,
but who sees me when the day is done?

Loneliness lingers, heavy, cold,
a story quiet, left untold.
But maybe soon, when night appears,
I’ll light a flame for me, not tears.

i don't have an alarm, but i tell them it rings
because their alarms ring, and they like to announce it.
they wake up at six.

they think the same things,
they write the same words,
they tell them to me.

I can tell
from the smile draped across
your cheekbones
and your boisterous thought
pinned like a malicious lapel
three odd words—
“bursting with life.”

Painting the corpse on display,
crammed inside a casket,
dressed in birthday suit.

Am I aching?
Am I in distress?
Do you need words
to tell you of these things?
While you hold a living funeral
for such feelings.

In between us,
a wall,
Before: you said you wanted connection, as you laid one brick after another.
Maybe if you went over you’d see
the emptiness you banished me to.

You,
cold as an ethereal summer,
sifting through gaps of a cracked heart
after being battered by promises offered.

Well excuse me,
if I can't get over the hurt
You do not have to be grateful.
You do not have to see beyond yourself.
You can continue, as you have,
to orbit your own sun.

No, I refuse you
patting tears I cannot cry.
Meanwhile, the world goes on.
Meanwhile, my heart, once offered
like an open palm full of seeds,
learns to close, to protect itself from
your drought and wildfire.
You are not the IRS,
neither an accountant,
nor a broker, but a breaker you are
love is not a transaction,
not a ledger to be balanced.

I should have flown with my flock
against the gale of your indifference,
but such curse is youth,
when naiveté is in abundance.

Perhaps the wilderness out there has something safer to offer,
something tamed,
and,
somewhere, the dogwood blossoms
like heaps of uncaring December, covering the ground
in a blanket of white petals.
I want to lie down there,
to press my ear to the earth
and listen to the roots growing,
to the slow, steady drumbeat
of my thumping heart or whatever
is left of it.

I don't need your approval to bloom
so watch me unfurl next season,
my leaves reaching for a kinder light,
my roots deepening into richer soil.

I wish my silence were words for you to read.

Get disconnected,
And find you are detached from life.
Your fight becomes for the trivial,
And what is obvious to others
Eludes your sight.
You are choked up and smothered,
The fire you started, snuffing out all oxygen-
No longer beneficial.
And then you die