Sticks and stones break bones.

Words and feelings shatter my heart.

It’s like a poet with a whip like tongue.

You lash me with your words and I stagger back.

Begging for the ground to swallow me whole.

Words hurt.

Words are hidden behind sweet tones and kind voices.

But underneath they are *****, derogatory, and filthy.

Don’t call a woman a w—re just because you think it’s funny.

Don’t call a man a f-gg-t just because he has a different clothing style and doesn’t dress masculine.

Words cut deeper than sticks and stones could ever.

Words.     Hurt

How can you possibly be so angry
At someone you love so dearly?
Or rather, how could your life get shattered
By someone you trusted completely?

I scratch my scars
peel them off.
Turn them into scraps.

They never stop bleeding
because I don’t want them to.
This poetry is made of pain,
a style nib dipped in blood.

Verses made of hatred.
of
   pain;
           of
   blood

Some people need a sunset
and a coffee
to find their words.

What I need
is to fill my body with my own aches
until
        there
                 is
and                nothing
      I                            left
        can
               dip
                      my
                            words
                                       in
                                     ­       it.

That text.
That one little text.
The one I swore I’d never send,
not after all the nights I spent
convincing myself you weren’t worth
the breaking and the bending.

But muscle memory is a stubborn thing—
your name moves like a whisper through my mind,
slipping past reason, settling in my hands,
until my thumbs betray me,
typing out a message
you’ll never care to read.

I know you won’t respond.
I know you won’t care.
I know you’ll smirk to your friends,
say I never really let go,
that I always come undone.

And maybe I do.
Maybe it’s cruel
how you let me believe
we were something more
than something to throw away.
Not even to be recycled,
just discarded—
a past you barely remember.

Yet still, I pause.
Because to not ask,
to not reach,
to not remind you I exist—
feels like cruelty too.

It’s a cruel, cruel world.
And I always thought you
were the light in it.
But the truth is,
I was the light.
I was the warmth.
I was the one who gave
until there was nothing left to take.

So I take back my hands.
I take back my name
from your lips,
my worth from your shadow.
And I let my thumbs rest—
because pressing send
would only be cruel
to me.

Beneath the weight of starless nights,
He carved his path through fractured light
A scholar' s heart, though hunger gnawed,
In lecture halls, his dreams he thawed.

No coin to claim a bed's embrace,  
Yet courage etched his weary face.  
Cold floors, stale bread, and borrowed showers,
But hope persisted through the hours.

“Define your goal,”his voice now rings,  
“Let every step to purpose cling.”
Through storms of doubt, he held the flame,
And grit became his middle name.

No grant nor state would stake his claim,
Yet social media fanned his aim.
Strangers became his steadfast kin,
Their faith a balm for wounds within.

Now standing tall, degree in hand,  
He maps the way for others’ land.
“Your trials are seeds” he softly shares,  
“For blossoms thrive through unkind airs.”  

Resilience wrote his story’s creed
Not born of luck, but planted seed.
A testament to hearts that fight,  
And turn the darkest voids to light.

You call at all hours deep into the night,
I wake just to answer, though weary and worn,
Yet never a moment is mine in your sight.

I offer you wisdom, I soften your plight,
I listen to burdens I’ve no need to mourn—
You call at all hours deep into the night.

You argue, insisting your troubles hold might,
Proclaiming my struggles are easy, forlorn,
Yet never a moment is mine in your sight.

No bills to be paid, no rent set in sight,
While I toil and labor from dusk until dawn—
You call at all hours deep into the night.

My world feels so heavy, yet silent, polite,
While yours spins in dramas that vanish by morn,
Yet never a moment is mine in your sight.

Were we not bound by blood, I’d let go of this fight,
For love should be given, not endlessly torn
You call at all hours deep into the night,
Yet never a moment is mine in your sight.