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AUSTIN 17h
was there ever a moment where
you were taught
lust was love,
when you were skipping rocks
and playing pretend
what voice whispered
it’s your body
they want,
not you
-im coming to realize how as a gay man I felt that I would only receive partnership through sexualizing myself and others in my mind. Early bullying and rejection made be develop a heavy sense of lust, and feeling that I will only be loved when im under someone feeling my skin.
I was never addicted.
I was always starved for affection—
That pleasure I tried to find
Here, in my core,
Was only an attempt to rescue
The girl in her old bed
In that house filled with
Violence,
Neglect.

Where no one ever told her a story
Before she fell asleep,
Where no one ever said
“Good night,
Sleep with God.”

Today,
She’s feeling her way along the walls
Of her cold house,
Trying to find
The path back home.

—It was always about
Feeling loved.
There is a goddess in me—
long asleep.

She woke.
I fed her.
I listened to her voice.
She sang the most beautiful songs to me.

But then I put her back to sleep
and forgot her.

Now she has awakened again,
and she sees—
if it were up to me,
nothing would change.

I believe this goddess
is the lost child within me,
braver than I am,
pushing me toward the choices
I was so afraid to make.

Living
was one of them.
And to these eyes
Touched, weeping —
A soldier fights for dreams
And flees from fear
But a child cries
for their mama’s arms.
Armed, not with fists,
But with love.
A trumpet sounds —
Not for war,
But to announce
The quiet arrival of the heart.

Like a kiss on the forehead
Of the soul.
Gentle,
But behind it —
Seduction, curtain-fall,
A velvet hush
Before the scene shifts.

Isn’t it kin to falling in love?
That dangerous grace
Of reaching for the
Softest place where it hurts most.
A caress, as answer
To barking remarks,
A howl sent to a friend
Who speaks emotion fluently.

The curtain rips.
Revelation bleeds in.

We search deep,
Yet splash in shallow puddles.
Muddy waters cry of devils
And the crawling advance
Of a million ants beneath
A contented sky.

Each day, I gather
What courage I have
To contend with
— And remain content in —
This one, wild life.

lisagrace Jul 17
The woman scrolls her usual scroll, not looking for anything in particular....then she sees it - not perpendicular.
Ethereal,
Quintessential.

Moons and stars and coloured gems all
glinting in the afternoon light.
The woman afixes them to her curtain rail
The girl gasps - her eyes wide.
Rainbows danced across the walls, a shifting, sparkling tide.

She breathes. She is delighted.
It's such a little thing, she knows,
The girl and I -
She is me and I am She.
The girl did not die in the fire

She stepped out, glazed with gold.
She still gasps at rainbows on the wall—
proof that wonder never grows old.
A soft reminder that it's okay to be a child at heart.
Sometimes healing means letting yourself play, notice, and believe—just like before.
i am surrounded by mirrors
i look different in each one
every time i glance at a reflection
i morph into something else entirely.
and a stranger stares back.

in one i'm too short.
too short to hold onto my father's hand
i reach and reach
scream and cry
but i go unnoticed.
and a gaping hole forms in my heart.
a hole i try to fill with substances, people and emotions-
but none of them fit.  

in the second i am too fat,
tummy bulges out, and thighs rub together.
my arms are too flabby.
in the background is my mother,
staring at my body with disdainful eyes.
those eyes burn a hole in my chest,
one i that i think starvation will fill,
instead food became my best friend in that reality,
and my mother, a stranger.

in the third hard eyes glare back at me.
a girl who's been so unloved she becomes silent.
this reflection petrifies me,
for this girl is angry and cruel.
her excellence is used against her.
she has been shunned and left behind,
with nothing but her writing to find.

finally, in the last there's droopy eyes.
and that's all that's there,
droopy eyes, smudges on the glass, and someone else's fingerprints.
which reality is mine?

who do i believe?
the version that cries?
the one that lies?
the one they clap for,
or the one that watches from behind?
i hope u can't relate.
Asuka May 15
My inner child died in silence—
rotting deep inside.

I burned him with my own fire,
a desperate, hopeless blaze.

Music weeps a funeral song,
while my mind crashes in flames.

I am empty now—
a hollow shell,
broken beyond repair.
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