I said my favorite food was
something fancy until after college.
Then I found the voice to say it was pizza.

But I never did find a way to say
Me, Myself, and I don't really agree
with life.

Instead I said.
Sure, pineapple belongs on pizza.

Poetry was an accident in my life.
I wasn’t looking
for this way to express myself.

I admit I like it.
I don’t write every day—
only when I’m truly inspired.
I should write more often;
it’s good for me.

It’s just hard…
Sometimes living passively
feels more pleasurable
than actually doing something with life.

When I write,
I want to be honest.
I want people to feel uncomfortable
when they read my words—
because reading all this
is too much.

Because standing so close
to someone else’s vulnerability
feels strange.

I want to be sincere
in every, every
single word,
because I feel I’m too big
for anyone to hold.
I can’t even hold myself.

And I want, in the future,
to read my own words
and feel uncomfortable
with myself—
because by then,
I’ll be someone new.

There are strange mystery’s,
All around us in many ways,
Why certain events happen,
And different actors, come,
Into our world, as others fade,
The timing is often perfect,
To help us air out our thoughts,
Questions without answers,
Can lead to confusion, for days.

No one is right, all of the time,
Being wealthy, does not make,
A person more wiser, in their mind,
The words that one person speaks,
Can lead another, to a lost find,
Everyone is on a personal path,
Accept, honest simple things too,
Listen follow positive signs.

This life, just a slice of our journey,
For our soul, which learns, in many ways,
Meet, inter act, with many different cultures,
Sharing, understanding, creates, positive times,
No trust, when money, more important, than people today,
From, wanna be the dictators, buying positions, to fabricated news,
Good ratings, are more important than truth is, for their bottom line.




                                      The Original: Tom Maxwell  © 08/04/2025 AD

There’s a hollow kind of happiness
caught in the curve of an imperfect smile—
where soft lies rest gently on the tip
of a weary tongue.

To be truly happy is to risk the world
watching, waiting for your fall—
constantly crumbling on your knees,
like a prayer too faithful not to be heard.

Vows taste bittersweet, like knowing,
deep and quiet, that you’ll fail before you begin.
And still—you hold the hurt in your hands,
the same hurt that shaped you,
while denying how deeply it still aches.

But pain denied
denies you healing.

As you are still searching for yourself—
like an arrow already loosed, still chasing
its aim long after the bow has let go.

And maybe you won't land where you
thought—but you’ll find something solid
beneath your feet. And not every wound closes
clean, but even scars can trace a path for you
to follow.

i peel myself back,
looking for skin.
for bone.
for something warm-blooded
and nameable.

but there’s only
mood swings - ADHD?
echolalia - autism.
hobbies that turn to hunger -
special interests.
talking too much - ADHD.
talking too little - trauma. Or is that autism?
flinching at softness - trauma.
stimming - trauma. Or ADHD?
people-pleasing - trauma.
Shutting down - trauma.
Or were those also autism?

what isn’t accounted for?

when i laugh,
is it because i’m happy
or because it’s the safest sound to make?

when i sit in silence,
is it peace
or practiced disconnection?

was i ever whole,
or was i built
out of reaction,
adaptation,
survival?

do i still count
as a person?

i truly cannot tell.
but if i don’t -
that’s okay.

because this is who i am now.
a map of every exit i had to take.
a body full of reroutes.
a nervous system that remembers everything.

even if nothing here
was born purely,
even if it all came from need -

what’s left
is, well, what I have left.

~ hologram

you hologramed
into my bedroom last night,
not the version they see,
but the one I met
in the quiet
between performances.

the no-performance you.
the one who didn’t need
an audience
to be real.

my brain short-circuited
at the sight.
grief glitching into desire.
fury looping into longing.
because I’ve been angry.
at the gods,
at myself,
but mostly
at you.
at the cowardice.
yours.
my own.

not just the cowardice
to surrender,
but to escape.

you called it clean.
you called it kind.
but your silence bled so loud
I tasted the iron
on my own tongue.

you said,
we both know what this is.
we do.
not in the beginning.
but somewhere along
the slow descent,
when we crossed a line
we pretended not to see.

you never named it.
neither did I.
not in my writing,
not in whispers,
not even in the bathwater
where my thoughts go to drown.

because naming it
would mean letting it live.
and if it lives,
what am I supposed to do
with some thing
that can’t?

but not naming it
doesn’t make it vanish.
it just carves itself
into my ribs
without consent.

and still,
I hate myself.
for feeling it.
for feeding it.
and I hate you
so much more
for knowing
and choosing
not to.

and if you ever want to
shatter what’s left,
just say
you’ll always wonder.
because I do.
and I wander
with it.