I don’t think justice is sweet-
not real justice anyway.

It’s not like a birthday cake,
baked with love, shared with joy.

I think revenge is sold to us as sweet-
the beautiful, perfectly decorated cake we bought from the shop’s window
But one bite in and you realize:
There is no sweetness only salt
And curdled milk

I think justice is communal
For the greater good

For true justice
we must change the way we think.
Not just for me, but for we
For the whole community

So how can justice be people locked in cages
Making slave wages
How is that good for community.
Parents ripped from their children
Mothers’ children stolen
locked away

Not learning how to do better
Be better
Stripped of the lessons from the mother
Taught they are less than human
Treated like zoo animals
Rounded up like rats
Unearthing the secrets of what curdles the milk

How can justice be sweet when this is the reality
Selling out my fellow humans for my right to
THE AMERICAN DREAM
But is it really a dream worth dreaming-
If it’s just for me and not for we

If this is justice
why is it so hard to sleep.
The spoiled cake sold in the bakery window
We’ve already taken more than a couple bite
Will we spit it out?
Or will we binge until we reek-
of salt and curdled milk?

There was a traveler
not of roads, not of waves
but of whispers in the smoke
the breath of a dying god!

~
They called it Chronos.

~
He asked the stars
"Where does the road go when no one's walking?"

The stars flickered, drunk on riddles.

He asked the river
"Do you flow, or does time carry you?"
The river only laughed & twisting in its silver sleep.

~
So he sought the Graybeards
those who walked the edge of the end.

"Is time real?" he asked.

They studied their hands, maps of forgotten days.

"It must be," they sighed.
"It carved its name into us."

~
But the wind whispered between his ribs
"What if time is just a trick?"

~
So the traveler sat beneath a skeletal tree
watching the last leaf cling to the void.

"If no one counts my days do I still decay?"
"If no one dreams of yesterday did it ever breathe?"

~
&
as the leaf surrendered to the abyss
he saw it

~~
- Time was no river
No master
No prison.

~
- It was a phantom, a shadow
&
a god in retreat.

~
A joke
A whisper
A long
slow hallucination
&
we
we are its dream
we are its dream.

...and words still come to my fingertips as i undress you in spirit.

almost-friend, hold me tight and love me true / stare me down, see me as i am: disquieted, patinaed and accustomed to pockets / loose change, a worn copper penny; incoherent, the thrill and lurching sensation of gravity / blooming in my core as i die in my dreams; afraid, for all that word means / of the figs that lie waiting on the branches ahead / ample and pregnant with sweet-rot possibility;

we will labor, singing of light and covalence / until dusk is shorn of its gloomy nightgown / staving off the cold with what tea, what liquid light / the yielding sun could gift our wide eyes: / just ask, darling almost-friend / and i will provide, because…

you are a fawn, limber and knobby-kneed / and i am but a stranger waxing melancholy in stolen glances from afar / as you come into focus in my wood / drinking from my fountains and eating from my briars / leaving me to wonder, “how could i not love such a soul, astute and gentle as it is?” / and so i offer you food and drink because i have nothing else / you could be in want of;

but such things are not for me to behold / and i fear that you will molt your coat as seasons change / the down behind your ears yielding to antlers sprouting like milk teeth from gums / tendering tender for tenacious, grace for gruesome / that you will forget the hands that have proffered to you / sustenance and healing in your darkest hours / for to see others consume satisfies my hunger / to see others delight, my vicarious feast;

in my mind’s eye, you are unclothed and angelic / even with the ophidian basin of your back pressed flat against the tiles of a scalding shower / even with tears ravaging your honest face / here, the masquerade, the spectacle and circumstance, ends / because your rapture will betray your guilt / and we will summit new zeniths hand-in-hand / be baptized, enthralled in the fresh, algid, restless oceans we called forth from the far reaches of our globe / with nothing more than the labyrinth-etched palms of our hands / charting the great floods of yesterday / inking them into the annuls of a friendship (nothing more) for the ages;

celebrate holier mysteries in the anamnesis of that day / we rested upon sand fine as powder, crusted on our knees and elbows / as the ark of our covenant neaped and sprang with cyclical certainty / almost-friend, smile me but one more drowsy floodgate grin / rest your raven-crowned head upon my bare chest / laying in that tender way for eternity / and never again will i ask that wretched question of you: "are you with me?"

no, darling almost-friend: forget me not / because fair weather or poor, my love will remain / echoing truer far and far more sweet / than the oblivious whisper of a forest brook / or the stentorian thundering of an ocean reclaiming what once belonged to it / to know that i am cared for even a fraction of how i care for you is an honor/ and as but a stranger gazing from afar, i promise you this: i will far sooner take myself for granted than you / even should no tea remain to keep us warm, i will hold you till the storm passes / and forever will your name be engraved herein.

A daze descends, my bearings lost,
Trapped in the dark, a heavy cost.
I call out, a muffled echo’s sound,
Dampened and lost, no solace found.

A flicker of light, a guiding gleam,
Through the looking glass, a surreal scene.
I see myself, yet not the same,
My love departs, a fading flame.

Not with me, but one unknown,
A shattered glass, a world overthrown.
I chase my heart, a desperate quest,
A mirrored maze, a twisted test.

Within the room, illusions hide,
My love, a phantom, a fragile guide.
Many pretend, a false disguise,
Yet only one, beneath my eyes.

Unknown the truth, I cannot see,
My true love lost, eternally.
I called out, a silent plea,
No echo, no response, just me.

The rabbit hole, an endless chase,
A deeper dive, a hopeless race.
Her image lingers, a fading light,
I reach out, yet grasp the night.

I trust her heart, a foolish leap,
My mind confused, my spirit deep.
Duped once before, my trust now torn,
I understand, foreverlorn.

Lost in the dark, a prisoner’s plight,
Trapped in my mind, a haunting night.
On the other side, a dream untold,
Lost in the labyrinth, forever bold.

you shook my world
turned it upside down
but you forgot to hold me
now i'm buried on the ground

how do i pick up these pieces
pieces of broken hopes and dreams
the hope of a life with you
the dream of a life still with you

i was strong
until you came
i forgot what strength means
because you became my weakness

एक ख्वाब हैं, जो मुझे रोज़ सताता हैं ,
जितना भी याद करूँ , सर से निकल जाता हैं।
दिखता हैं सब धुंदला , उस ख्वाब के साये मैं ,
इससे ख्वाब कहूं , या कहूँ मेख़ाब मैं।
अब मेख़ाब से मेरा वो याराना नहीं ,
छोड़ी है वो गालिया , अब वहां जाना नहीं।
वो ख्वाब जो कभी अपना सा लगता था ,
अब पराया सा हैं, पर कभी दिल मैं बसता था।

Ant Farm of Forever Encased in Ember

By: Yitkbel


Written: Sunday, February 16, 2025


Ant Farm of Forever

I.

It's getting early and it's getting late,
Far from midnight and closer to day.
You're wide awake, always the same,
Your soul drenched in love and fear,
Or dread as they say.

1.

You're daydreaming with your heart again,
Of all the ifs and whens.
And all the dearest whom, and where too.
They were faster travelers than you;
I guess they had to go.
But where to?
You ask, and it's no use.
You're standing in the vastness
Of an empty field.
There's no one to answer you.
Are they traceless,
Except for the traces of memories,
And all the pains of love
Clinging by threads of regret to you?
"Could I trace my way back to them,
Or would these traces leave me too? "
I wish I knew,
I too, am standing in the vastness
Of an empty field.

2.

Have we wandered off too far,
And crossed the threshold?
I can still feel the cold,
But this is a sight to behold.
This is a place devoid of time,
But definitely not life:

See, the barley runs up to the sky,
Waltzing between the old oaks,
Rushing to reach the light.
The pink and blue light,
Swirling about,
Curtaining the shadows,
Behind the clouds.

Have we been left behind?
You know we can fly,
When we're not reality-bind,
Could we reach them in time?
Would I
Would I
Be always left behind?
The child in me cried.
As our feet begin to hover,
And leave the land behind.

3.

It didn't take long to reach the divide,
And when you pushed what felt like
A curtain of cotton aside.
I saw the lines.
These must be the shadows
From your dream of dreams,
And dream of life.
You searched and searched
For a familiar face,
And familiar eyes.
But this place is too vast,
This place to wide.
They are innumerable,
And only one of each,
Of you and I.

So we remain,
Strangers in this strange tide.
Wondering why.
What is the purpose
Of this winding line,
When someone, somewhere,
After some time-
If you can say that
In place it isn't defined-
Handed down a gift
To every him and her,
An ant farm of forever,
Encased in ember.
Did you see the glint in the center?
Illuminating some ant inside.
Whose eyes is it reflecting off
I wonder?
It's rather familiar, I gather,
Is it yours? Is it mine? Is it his?
Is it hers?
Is it…
Don't you remember?
This is all of your time enclosed in ember!
Where your soul may freely wander!

II.

Those swarms of forgotten fireflies
Under that bike stand lights,
Those violet skies pulsating with
A unshakable fear of the unknown
In your naive mind,
Those galactic rides that you never questioned,
Whether they existed beyond the orange city lights,
Those callous hands and wizened eyes,
You were so afraid to be hopeful of seeing
Again
Beyond time, are
There,
At the end of the winding line,
And here,
In your hands,
In this Ant Farm of Forever,
Encased in Ember,
For you to freely wander-
All the choices you have made,
All the love you have loved,
That refuse to fade,
All the senseless days,
You wondered why you must face,
When you thought they will never stay,
Anyway.
Yet, here they are,
Basking in the sun rays.
Glistening with unobscured light.
Just like those same old,
Timeless times.
When the most earthly beings
When the most earthly things,
Were perfectly divine.