I used to look up to success.
Glossy and distant,
like yachts pulling into sunlit harbors.
While my brothers and I posed,
thinking cool was something you wore.
A picture snapped becomes a prophecy
one we’re sold before we understand
we're being trained to consume.

We watched the boats drift in
like kings returning from invisible wars.
And my brother,
bold, naïve, beautiful,
pointed and said,
“I’ll have one of those.”
When asked how he’d pay,
he simply explained:
“I’ll get it from that wall, just like you do.”

God, the way children believe -
no fear in their hunger,
no shame in their dreams.

Maybe I’m just older now,
my lenses fogged from wear.
But all I see is people
wrapped in things
not selves, not stories,
but trinkets, masks, trophies.
Like they forgot that real wealth
was once built on time,
on tending soil,
on tears held back
while saying goodbye.

Maybe I’m not better.
Just tired of pretending.

Fifteen years I spent hiding,
living so cautiously
I might as well
not have lived at all.

I thought if I became invisible enough,
it wouldn’t hurt when no one looked.
But now I see it:

No one's looking.
Not really.
They’re caught in the hum -
faces lit by screens,
minds dragged along
by headlines, algorithms,
urgencies that mean nothing
when the world goes quiet.

And I don’t want to be them.
I never was.

So what was I hiding from?
Not them.

Maybe just from the part of me
that believed I had to earn belonging,
to twist myself into shapes
too small to hold a soul.

I always tell myself I'm a people-pleaser,
a labrador in a crowd,
always wagging, always watching.
But maybe I just wanted connection.
Maybe I was trying to make sure
everyone on the bus had a seat.

And maybe
that’s not so bad.

I no longer look up to success.
I look for faces in the street
at how someone treats the waiter,
the ******* crying on the curb,
the man with cardboard for shoes.

We are all human.
All breakable.
All still learning
how to love
without masks.

And I want to shout it,
before greed drowns our voices,
before we forget
how to hold one another
without asking what they own.

Eleven-years-old should be bold and boyful
Joyful, jelly beans and snow on Christmas
Robert Frost’s birches, swinging on branches
Latching to hopes that have yet to become.

Seventeen should be dreaming, dress-up as grown-up
Growing and grinning and racing the time—
Sprint to the finish, and then look behind
Hours to minutes and seconds to breaths.

But his face had roundness that gave way to edges,
Glittering, forged from the weight of the press
How much can you take away from the boy?
You take and you take until there’s nothing left.

He howled at night, at the stars and the sky
He’d have pulled down the moon, if only he could
And he should, he ought to have clawed down the heavens
For the hole gaping wide, for a god who deserts.

And still, though he trembled, sweat slicking his skin
When he saw you watching, he gave you a grin.
It was tender, titanium, tenacious and thin
And tremulous, breaking apart in the wind.

His fingers pressed into the dirt and the dice
Then he gazed at you, O Fate, like a vise
His heart made of gold but his eyes made of ice
And he told you, O Fate:
“𝑵𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏.”

Oh, my sweet
summer child,
with your golden smile
and that glimmer in your eyes.

I admire you,
maybe even envy
your blinding sun,
that hurts my tired eyes.

Your sun-kissed
picture frame face
exudes such joviality
but at a pace

With undulating curls
that unfurl around
your shimmering face,
yet still hold place.

How does it feel
to be God’s favorite?
I wonder,
how you smile with such grace.

Flowers of all kinds,
I saw hyacinth, lilies, and roses alike,
Bought and sold near the riverside

Some in faith; others in love,
In the same faith; thrown away;
Castrated in city haul

Plastic flowers were sold near the florist shop
I saw the fresh flowers get withered
Never ending but fake,
I saw beauty being littered

Wandering this busy city
Near the station, as I stand—
I saw a little child laugh,
With nothing but a paper rose in hand.

I knew a witch once, of course she was a good witch, a white witch or so she said
Although I noticed if you ever ****** her off, she wouldn't be long turning into a Black witch
Suddenly she was going to use her power and put a spell on me and I'd be sorry
"Yeah, yeah, yeah", I thought, "there's always the scary mask, isn't there"
No matter where you go in this world
You go to a solicitor/ a Lawyer and they pull out all the legal jargon to bamboozle you with
You go to the Tax Office and it's all Taxspeak, they speak in a strange language all their own
They look human at first but then, then they pull on the scary mask
You go to church and it's all so called Godspeak from out of the Bible
They dress in fancy robes and speak down to you from a pulpit
And of course, the church is very big and well, you! you're very small
And the world likes people made small...the smaller the better
Yea! there's always the scary mask
But what about the human behind the mask
Where's the human that was... that was once a child.

I've drawn a big square
Then another
In each corner
Inside the big one
                   I have a house

  Just the same as the one
    I drew when I was five
       With a little stick dog
                                  A tree
         And a winding path

       All out of perspective 

Little's changed
                 I still can't draw
A dog now barks
The tree is deciduous
                 And the path’s still winding