heaving breaths and it
feels like gods choking
me again, my vocal cords
are strained, my voice
a squeak. Invisible
tears stain my cheeks,
still dry. I'm imploding
and becoming super-nova
or maybe a black hole
instead. Screaming a
whisper:

H E L P
M E

You aren’t the first to come and sit beside me
On this couch.
Others have come before you
And have left their imprint.

I do hope that you’re the last to walk in
And stay.
The way you smile
and lean back against the cushion,
You stare at me and smile as if asking, what?

The past imprints are meaningful.
Some are deeper than the last that sat
Where you’re sitting now.
I’ve learned a lot from them.
Sometimes their ghosts still
Walk in and smile.
Before stepping back out.

It’s funny how well I thought I knew myself,
Until I realized I didn’t.
But without them,
I wouldn’t have learned more about myself.
About what I needed to change,
What I needed to let go,
How to hold you
without readying myself to say goodbye afterwards.

When you first walked in,
You reminded me of them.
The ghosts that walked in
and kept me company for a minute.
To be honest, I counted the minutes until you said goodbye.
I don’t count anymore.
I’ve gotten used to sitting here
on the couch with you.

a kind of love
everyone else seems to have—
soft,
gentle,
like being seen
and still being held?

The kind of love
where I mean something
just by existing.
Where someone chooses me,
not despite,
but because of
the mess I am,
the emotions I carry,
the storm I sometimes become.

Where being me
is enough.

Can you hear it?

The silence.

Everything begins there—
in the spaces between our breaths, where our words stumble, break apart,
and dissolve in our blood.

Everything begins in these silences,
when we simmer beneath the skin,
when our dreams bubble, brew, billow, then boil up into storms
that rage just beneath our calm—
when our thoughts crash against the cliffs of our hearts,
swept by the undertow of what we want, of what we hope,
and of all the things we cope with.

When I’m taking pauses while I’m talking to you, the silence isn’t empty.

There is an intimate maelstrom that swirls within me, pressing against my ribcage.

I feel the tides twist, rise, then fall—
I feel the ocean ebb and flow—
I feel its throb that thunders like war drums in my chest.

I feel… every word I hold back, every word I almost say
like a ripple that never crests,
like a wave that never breaks.

But I like silence.

Because, I also see a glimmer in it.
I see the shimmering sway of ideas.
And I feel… softness in their rolling—
softness like the backwash kissing the shore with its foam.

Sometimes… I wish I could just remain there,
nestled in that brittle fold of silence forever.

But sometimes also, the cotton of silence wrapping around me feels so comfortable
that my thoughts become deafening,
and they pull me down, trying to drown me within myself.

So quickly, in a desperate gasp for air—
I feast on noise.

And suddenly, I crave it.
The way the world roars. The way it crackles.
So I melt into its chaos.

I want to feel its pulse, its pound, its music.
I want to drown in the drunken hours.
I want to feel my heart rise with the loudest nights.
I want to cling to laughters that veil all the cracks I try to hide.

I want to stuff the silence—
as if only the noise could save me from myself.

Yet—no matter how hard I try to escape, the silence keeps coming back.

And every now and then,
Life punctuates itself with tiny bubbles of quiet.

…

Like this one.

…

But not all silences feel the same.

There are the ones I share with her…
the wordless seconds lost in her gaze.
The silent glances.
This all feels… different.

These silences make me whole.
Whole, and yet somehow… incomplete.

Incomplete because I often dream of chiseling
from the marble of these silences—
from the air that hangs between us—
all the words, all the promises,
everything I feel for her…

This small yet enormous statue
waiting to emerge from within—
from the rhythm of my heartbeat,
from the waves,
from the storms,
from every crack…

From this silence—
where everything begins.

And there I stand,
fingers trembling, mouth dry,
a chasm yawning between us.

And all I yearn for is to set it free—
This simple

“I love you”.

i'm deafened by the
silence; air palpable
and I can hear my
heart beat fast.

Its like I was
back there again.

you would do well to remember
that I'm not made of stone
thousands of papercuts into
my armor, it splits and I
bleed unto paper.
...
I wish I could bleed out in
your arms, instead.

the feeling of a paused
explosion, breathe in- out.
only the smallest spark; yet
I feel like I've been
electrocuted.

what a beautiful
tragedy
my love for you,
so strong,
it can destroy
my very
core
...
I'm hopeless.

the freedom of
loneliness, breathe
in the silence,
intoxicating.
the feeling of
an empty house,
...
I guess we all want
what we don't have.

(a poem for the women left holding the dustpan)

I remember when my children were small—
eager hands reaching for the broom,
begging to help.
They’d trail behind me,
half-heartedly sweeping,
missing corners,
scattering crumbs.

But they wanted to try.
So I let them.

I’d guide their tiny hands,
show them the rhythm,
and still end up doing it myself.
They’d get tired, bored—
drop the broom mid-sweep
and run off laughing
while I stayed behind
to clean it properly.

That’s what this felt like with you.

You insisted.
“I want this. I can do this.”
So I gave you the broom.
I showed you the way.
I slowed down, waited,
offered my heart like a home.

But the minute the work began,
the minute the dust stirred,
you handed it back—
too heavy, too much,
not fun anymore.

And like a child,
you disappeared into yourself,
while I stood there—
hands full of splinters,
heart full of ache,
sweeping up the pieces
of everything you couldn’t carry.

You wanted the broom.
Until you didn’t.

And now I’m here,
again—
cleaning the mess
you made of me.