Everything ends,
Debt collected by the light that gave it life.
Not everyone lives past the grave,
Often forgotten, memory slipping away.
I know for certain I will fade,
For that is how it must be.
Do away with my name and virtue,
Let only the raw words stay.
Yet still, when I do die,
I want a cannonade on evil,
And stars falling from the sky.

This putrescent bouquet,
Molts petals from its beauty
Dullen colors once vibrant,
Now sullen and drained of vibrancy,
Caught in the umbral,
Everything ends and as I -
Grasp the last thorny stem,
I lay upon the marble slate moribund.

Take grasp of my cadaverous hand,
Hold me in trepidation, but don’t falter
Bite your flesh until the wine spills,
Little rivers pooling like ruby lipstick
Now kiss me, parasitic, I feed
And once renewed,
I’ll return to you,
A flower in blossom once again.

Not yet plant or earth but soon.
Not yet runes or sin immune

In this room, and as my tomb,
My voice, only speaks as blooms:

Maybe then the creatures and eaters
Can make a home out of this unbeliever

For maybe I perceived or perhaps I was the deceiver
But I hope that in death,
I could be their redeemer
So when the weavers weave their homes
All along my bones,
My tryst with the reaper
Are where the feasts were.

This bone-tired body is a battlefield
where I keep returning
to bury the same soldier,
over and over.

His face shifts like seasons—
familiar and foreign,
the line between my lines,
fading into fable,
floating into folklore.

He’s died here a hundred times,
and I survived every one.
But I keep coming back,
thinking I might unearth
something softer.

My hands tremble from holding too much—
soliloquies, symptoms, scapegoats,
saltshakers, semicolons, starry-eyed sighs.
My knees buckle under the weight
of a history I can’t rewrite.

No matter how many poems erupt
from my shell-shock,
how many mornings I crawl from trenches,
listening to the sound of birdsong—
I always return, ***** in hand.

He stares up from the dirt,
his mouth unmoving but full of accusations.
"You never let me go,"
he whispers without sound,
"and I’ll keep rising until you do.
Don’t you get it?
You buried yourself here too."

How many deaths does it take
to make a ghost let go?
I’m running out of shovels,
but never out of wishes.

Some wounds are wars,
and some wars never surrender.
If I stop digging, will the war finally end—
or will it bloom
in the silence I leave behind?

Emily, Emily, called back,
But not set free,
By those who worship
and study thee!

Summers see the young ones
Gather on your lonely grave.
Kissing with immortal tongues,
To desire they are slaves;

But you forgive them blithely,
tell them to proceed,
In your name and memory,
The one thing you knew not was greed.

-Sharon Talbot

Treading upon the fragile shards of time;
moments cascade into oblivion, as the echoes
of my bones resonate with the agony of existence.
I seldom boast of my worth, yet my lips dared to speak
with courage. I sought my place among the stars, wandering
the glassy avenues where the imprint of your steps lingers
upon the meticulously laid path.

My mind, burdened by the weight of stony tears,
contemplates the thoughtless utterances that birthed
yet another futile verse. At times, I find myself gasping beneath
the suffocating pillow of my own uncertainties, surviving on
the fragile threads of hope, faith, and fleeting joy that last but
a week; still, I feel like an intruder in my own sanctuary.

Dreams drown in the merciless shadows;
the dawn's light offers them a glimmer of hope – a sanctuary
for the spirit among the awakened. I drift in a half-sleep,
daydreaming amidst a throng of fellow dreamers, our youthful
skins too tender to fade, a heart yearning to be filled with cherished
memories.

These sins bind humanity in shackles,
desperately seeking an escape from the labyrinth of their minds.
Oh, is existence truly madness? Yet, in spite of the suffering,
we pray to live another day. And so this fragment of life is
my grace, a testament to the fact that I have yet to meet the grave.

Today
I visited a cemetery
For a geocache
But I found
Something else
I visited the Italian section
Hoping to find some of my culture
But I found
A small grave
Sticking out of the ground
Labeled
”Alice”
It had her parents names
And nothing but her date of birth
And death
She was seven months old.
Her poor parents
She never got to speak
To walk
To wonder
To make friends
To go to school
To get a job
I wonder
If her parents still think about her
If they're even still alive

Poor baby Alice…