If I could make every single word scar
I absolutely would
Nothing is stopping me from doing so
I absolutely could
Well if the noise is overwhelming me
I absolutely should

As I look up to the kindly skies and stars,
I wonder why we were born with fire in our souls —
A fire of anger, a fire of desperation.
And it seems to burn through every part of our lives.

But then,
I remembered how love calmed that blaze.
It kissed the flames that raged inside,
And hope came —
like a sea breeze, like waves —
soothing the scorched corners of my soul.

And suddenly, it all made sense:
That fire, that love,
That pain and peace —
They are what make us human.

They are what make us feel.
What make us alive.

when emotion arises
his brow wrinkles
creating a dozen furrows
across his forehead
as waterworks
in a gravitational pull
fall to the left
onto the
eastern side
of his face
down his neck tendons,
half-way over his left clavicle
down into his heart

he’s so that there

his tears they flow

and they flow

and they flow

and they flow



~ pekaplan, 2025

Am I too young to miss the past
Am I too old to enjoy the rain
Too young to notice the change
Too old to be immature

Or maybe too young to think when to blink
in fear I’ll miss the bliss if I stop to think

Or maybe age isn’t real
Just there to control when we do what
When we should be embarrassed to cry,
or when to start to live our lives,
and with a blink of an eye
you’re caught barely alive,
wore out from existence of time

When things happen
that shake us to our core
                time stops
             we age—
         we grow stagnant

cardinals become caged mid-flap
in a world of stillness,
though the heat of summer climbs
the stove dials,

and though we try to push
                                         pull
                                       tug
                                         pry
                            the hands
                 of the clock,
  we are frozen as arctic glaciers
       in the moment of our undoing.

The words claw themselves
through miles of skin
and bone.
It is a path carved
of blood and tissue,
a journey made
in the silences
between sentences.

Gagging, coughing
up my thoughts
until I am a mess
of misspoken words
and unfiltered thoughts.
It is a sickness,
and the journey’s end
is a death sentence.

There’s no reason I should feel like this.

That’s the worst part.
My life isn’t falling apart.
It’s fine.
It’s good.
My girlfriend tells me she loves me and I believe her.
My friends invite me out and I say yes.
Sometimes, I even laugh.
And then, in the middle of the night or a Wednesday afternoon,
my body decides it’s time to collapse in on itself.

No warning.
Just a quiet shutting down,
like the lights in a store
right before closing.

I’ll be walking through a parking lot
and suddenly my chest forgets how to keep rhythm.
My heart races like it's being chased
but there’s nothing behind me—
just a car, a tree, a sky that doesn’t care.

Try explaining that to someone.
Try saying,
“No, I’m not sad.
I’m just... not here at the moment.”
Or,
“Yes, I love you.
I just also kind of want to disappear right now.”

Some nights, I lie in bed like it’s a battlefield.
It’s 1:03 a.m.
The ceiling fan spins like it’s counting down to something.
I try to breathe like the apps taught me.
In through the nose.
Hold.
Out through the mouth.
Hold.
But panic doesn’t care about wellness trends.
It grabs my ribs like a thief looking for something valuable
and finds only noise.

The worst part is the stillness after.
When my body finally unclenches
and I’m left staring into the blank of 1:58 a.m.
fully aware I’ll be useless tomorrow.
But more afraid of the idea
that this is just... how it is.

I’m not suicidal.
Not in the way people imagine.
I don’t want to die.
I just want to stop existing
for like a day.
Maybe three.
Just enough to sleep without dreaming,
to pause the timeline,
to not have to explain why I haven’t texted back
or why I skipped another thing I should’ve shown up for.

Motivation?
It’s not that I don’t want to do things.
It’s that I can’t.
Not metaphorically—literally.
Some days I sit at the edge of my bed
for an hour
trying to convince my legs
that standing isn’t a threat.
Trying to convince my brain
that brushing my teeth isn’t Everest.

People say,
“You just have to push through.”
As if I haven’t been pushing
every single ******* day
against a door that swings shut
every time I blink.

And yet—
Here I am.
Breathing.
Shaking.
Still here.

Not heroic.
Not inspirational.
Just... here.
And maybe that’s not a triumph,
but it’s what I must cling on to
as my only saving grace.