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Kalliope May 15
Sleep isn't restful when I dream of you
I wake up and I'm panicked
But I'll just lay here 'till noon
Never were impressed by my party tricks
But performing's all I ever knew
Even in dreams,
I lose what I love
Ellie Hoovs May 7
She waltzed in wearing lavender -

not the bruised blue hue of dried buds,

but the soft, delicate shade that makes you forget

poison can be pastel

and alive.

The cerulean seas of her eyes

surveyed me with a crocodilian smirk

an undertow ready to clench and drag

for its own amusement

She smiled like silk,

shiny, delicate, costly

as she handed me a cedar latched spice box.

Inside

red cords, scissors

pressed flowers so fragile they'd shatter

with a whisper

and a single letter sprinkled

with cayenne

sealed with red lipstick

too heavy to open.

"Time doesn't belong to you," She whispered

like it was a flirtation

like my hours were hers

to unwrap

to discard

She kissed my questioning forehead

soft, sealing, dismissive,

answered nothing

just reached for my hands

with perfectly manicured cold fingers

I gasped awake

my mouth full of cinnamon

dry and hot

a goodbye I didn't choose caught in my throat

that I prayed I'd never have to speak.

She's reappeared now and again

in the corners of mirrors,

fond of the elevator's reflective surround

and the hammered copper coffee jar

that stays open like a lifeline.

always twirling her ashen ringlets

waiting? warning?

When I glimpse her, I open the lace covered windows

and let the sun reclaim the shadows -

until even her perfume forgets my name.
Kyla Apr 23
can they see the ghosts in the gaps between each blink
in the space in which they’ve claimed their own ?
My stomach does that thing—
you know, when the ghost
rests a hand there.
Not a hit.
Just a hush,
and fingernails.

Like it never left.
Like I’m the one
who forgot to feed it.

It’s always at dawn.
Or mid-laugh.
Or in line at the dollar store—
buying nail polish I’ll chew off by Tuesday
and an eyelash curler,
just in case he sees me
from across a decade.

Then you paraglide in—
a salesman who knew I’d be home.
And the floor remembers
what I worked so hard to forget.

And I gasp—like I tripped.
But I didn’t.
I remembered.

I remembered
the ghost
you left me to raise alone.

Like:
“Hi. Just passing through.
Don’t stress on my behalf.”

I nod.
And I don’t.
I keep chewing the same nail.
My eyelashes are curled.
My stomach still does that thing.

You know the one.
Asher Apr 21
whenever i see you,
my heart forgets its rhythm,
fluttering like a ghost startled by light.
we never met,
you left before i even touched the earth,
before time could give me a chance
to stand beside you.

still, i know.
if we shared hallways,
if we passed notes in class
instead of fates in silence,
i would’ve been drawn to you.
your twisted mind,
those crooked thoughts,
they call to me.

you were tall,
and your voice,
it haunts soft, like a lullaby for broken things.
maybe if you had seen me
really seen me
maybe then
you would’ve stayed.
maybe then
you would’ve chosen different.
I have been spiraling down                                                                    ­                                 
Clawing at the muddy ground                                                           ­                                                              
 I pull myself up just to sink         
                                                                              ­                              
Always hanging on the brink                                                                       ­                                                    
  If I'd call for help, who'd hear                                                                     ­                                                  
  I'm all alone & my minds unclear                                                                     ­                                                    
 I scream in silence, so it seems                                                                    ­                                              
Haunted every night by dreams                                                                      ­                                                
   What is real & what is not                                                                        ­  
My pulse races, nerves are taut                                                             ­                                          
                                                                                                              
White knuckling through this life                                                             ­                                                                 ­                      
  Filled with pain, the future's blight                                                           ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­                                      
I am a human stain bleeding out                                                              ­                                              
                                                                ­                                                 
 No tunnel light, just doubt                                                                     ­                                                     
I 'm dead inside & life is hell                                                                      ­                                                 
This is the hand I have been dealt
….
….
The door drew fate.
A face amidst the darkness?
My anxiety inflates.


A passing day draws in darkness,
each day an eye sees me.
My senses urge, trying to decree;
For It finally began,
It now watches, it can now see.



I have fled my place,
But will it ever follow?
I closed the lights,
lifted them in darkness,
My feelings ever hollow.


I may be crazy,
But this is forever true.

It was never like this,
It was my fault.
I had defeated my own nightmare no less,
But my actions caused it to bless.
A cage in a basement I made,
It turned that to its charade.

Now I shall find something to confront,
It shall never leave my front.
An existence that shouldn’t exist.
I shall annihilate that, fist with fist.

An old shadow, with yellow flaming eyes.
I looked in past at time, I try,
Four preceding angelic numbers of time,
Guided times hand to defeat;
It was something, my greatest feat.
The nightmare that I caged.

𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘥
𝘵𝘰 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵.

For I shall now figure this cursed time,
Else I will meet an inevitable demise.
My very own.
My frame is decaying, even faster when I stand.
A house, and I’m haunted, on hope’s burial land.
My windows, hollowed eyes that do nothing but stare,
At a world that shunned one with a life meant to bare.

These floorboards that shriek, are like my mournful cries,
As serpent-like phantoms shed skin and pass by.
Warm words that were etched in the walls are now cold,
Just echoes of a story that will never be told.

The clocks restless ticking, its echoes, they scream.
If only to remind me that I’ve shattered, like dreams.
My will to live was buried long ago under a promise.
These cobwebs were spun, only to trap any solace.

-“Oh, cursed soul,” a ghost haunts as I weep,
“Do you feel my icy grip as you’re failing to sleep?

I’ve watched as you wander these fated terrains.
I have hollowed your heart; I will empty your veins.”

- “Forget now, the warmth that ignited your soul.
What you thought you could hold; I have made to turn cold.”

- These words no one hears, they disturb my fraught mind.
As my black stricken eyes pierce the void till I’m blind.

- “Awaken, child unwanted!” he pleads through the dust.
“Once I’m fed from your essence, you will finally rust.”

- Those words make a promise, my hopeless future forms.
Reassurance that the curse set for me has been born.

There’s a cold empty room, where my hopes should reside.
Shattered mirrors hold proof, that my dreams have since died.
A vibrant tapestry now sways, ripped in the wind,
Whispering of lost motives to a life that wants to end.

The doors are creaking open, letting in all I fear.
My tormented nightmares are all that is clear.
In every shadowed corner my demons reside.
If only to remind me, I’m imprisoned here inside.
Maryann I Mar 30
They call her names,
send their curses through a screen.
She blocks them,
but the words slip through the cracks,
curl beneath her skin.

She scrubs her face,
but the insults don’t wash away.
She sleeps,
but the whispers slither through her dreams.

Years pass.
The usernames are gone.
The accounts are deleted.
The laughter has moved on.

But the words—
the words still stay.
This poem plays with the idea that words, once spoken (or typed), never truly go away.
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