If I can’t love like you
Won’t you love me too?
I don’t really know
how to show

That I care

That I want
To be
That person in your life

That makes you smile

That makes you laugh

That makes you feel

Better

But I can’t do much
But burn your
pretty skin

And break your
pretty heart

And wish I was
like you.

“I used to be disgusted,
Now I just have to refuse
The allure of money and status.
Before, I could be happy just being me,
Saying “No” to anything that I didn’t need.
But now, she’s told me I’ve got to choose,
Between her and the life I want,
Must either be a corporate shill
A shallow, capitalist dilettante,
Or be myself, and lose her good will.
I am so close to saying “’goodbye’”
And testing her just to see,
If she really means what she says,
Or if she has fooled herself
As I did for so long.
Trying to be like big brother,
Upright, moral and honored (by some),
But something in him was lacking
“And as I saw through it,
I knew I did not have the nature
To pretend I was that grand
Or could sink that low
in hidden plots to undo those he envied.

I watched her in the dim light
Of a place where the punished toil
And I was consumed with hatred,
And a wish to set her free.
How can I save her from this charade,
This bourgeois masquerade?

When she notices my clumsy efforts,
she asks me what it is I want and I reply,
‘All I ask is to practice in my own style,
Colorful but honest, riding the edge”;
Her response is inscrutable but
She likes it when I con the corporate ******,
And joins in with a new name and a sly smile,
We drink tequila and don’t pay,
Leave some loudmouth with the bill and
hedge our bets as we kiss in the evening breeze.

“Apparently, a kiss was more powerful
than me acting as an imitation drudge!
And a night in bed together satisfying enough
to draw her into my world.

I would show her little ways of breaking rules,
the cheat with no one noticing,
building up our own little universe,
rebelling against the system in subtle ways.
Oh! Those were golden days and I was happy.

Yet now, years later, she has gone far away,
perhaps for good, though I don’t see why.
When I call and ask, she will never say
what I can do to bring her back.

Granted, my life has turned around,
perhaps to something she dislikes,
but she leaves it for me to guess
whether it’s too flamboyant or just a mess.
Yet I refuse not to try so hard, hanging on the sound
of her cherished voice on the phone,
its flat, restrained notes telling me:
“You are alone”.
And still I love and hope.

Sharon Talbot
February 28, 2025

Thinspo isn’t supposed to enter real life
A girl in my classes made my appetite drop
Every time I saw her, though I never said
Those were my problems, not hers
But maybe they were hers, but I never knew
How to talk to someone like that
Unless it was necessary, but it never was

Shape the way your fingers trace constellations on my skin,
Or the way your laughter lingers in my ribs,
A melody too human for its cold, calculated hands.

It could never script the way our eyes meet,
That silent understanding,
That unspoken language,
Too intricate for fate to weave into its fragile threads.

It tries—oh, how it tries—
To intervene, to twist, to break,
To reclaim us as its own.
Yet we slip through its grasp,
Like sand through clenched fists,
Like stardust escaping gravity.

Destiny waits in the shadows,
Silent, seething,
Cursing the love it did not create.
It watches as we carve our own fate,
As we step outside its lines,
As we make something greater
Than anything it ever dared to dream.

Destiny could never…

Destiny, I once believed, was a force we couldn’t touch,
A guiding hand, invisible, yet steady—
But now, I see it differently.
It’s a person, a jealous shadow,
Watching us, wanting what we have.


It stands, arms crossed, in the corner of our hearts,
Eyes burning with envy—
For the love that flourishes between us,
A love too wild to be mapped,
Too uncontainable for fate’s hand to mold.


Destiny sees what we have built
And wonders, bitterly,
How we crafted something
It never could.
The passion we share
Wears no chains,
And the fire we burn with
Refuses to be dimmed.


Our love flows like a river—
Destiny watches helplessly,
Unable to stop its current,
But aching to know the secret of its course.
It watches as we laugh,
As we dream,
As we share quiet moments,
Whispering futures only we can see.


Destiny could never…

On the other side
The grass is always greener;
Never satisfied

prone to narcolepsy;
a second thought, like -
a can of pepsi.
sold my peace for
a moment’s notice;
for the panic that utters -
‘you better not blow this!’

i sulk, i cry, i moan… it rains -
the clouds pull closer to
the gravity of my pain;
the birds find shelter at
the neighbour’s windowpane -
they leave me to dry in a room -
terrified, and insane.

i can feel the bed
warming up to my shape;
there’s a stain on the pillow
that reeks of sour grapes -
i try to rub it off,
but give in to my human make:
i curse the neighbour’s birds -
through a ****
on the moss-green drapes.

i hope it’s worth it:
all the trials, and the errors.
i long for a night,
devoid of terror -
so i may sing for a while,
with nothing to lose;
‘to be, or not to be’ -
left to me - to choose.