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She brews a storm up
and men give her looks,
appreciating
her beauty.
A tasty delight
of buttery
smooth.

A contradiction
is her innocence
teenage thrills
but not kills,
not interested
in settling down.

She's not ready
to leave her child-hood,
a waiver biscuit
but not for you.

She dreams of the one
but let her be someone
and not around your belt
skin burns with welts
of beauty exploited.

D E B
Her name is Debbie.
She's a human being.
He couldn’t even finish a bowl of sorbet—he said it was “too sweet” for him.

Little did he know—he was too sweet for the cruel world he was born into.
I have a friend who just radiates so much positivity and I wonder what the world would be like if everyone was like this.
vik Jul 17
i like my eyes when they are with your
mouth, chewing. it is so quite
everyday a thing and yet
(i swear
god forgets himself
watching you eat toast)

you bite and there is
crumbs and your lip
licks the corner of itself and i
am
absolutely unmade.

i like your fingers
(left hand holding
nothing at all)
i like the way they twitch between bites
like maybe you're about to gesture or pray
or remember a thing
you'll never say.

i like your noise
soft-throat clear
the way silence curls around your chewing
like it wants to taste too.

and (suddenly) i am
all nerves and
nerves more.

you drink from the chipped mug
the one we don’t throw out
and i am the coffee and the
handle and
whatever it is that
makes mornings want to be touched.

and possibly i like the thrill
of how nothing happens,

and yet you look up
and i am completely kissed.
inspired by *******'s "i like my body when it is with your"
Kairos Jul 2
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.
Malia Jun 28
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.”
Soul Jun 28
Snatched; Kicked,
out of the doors;
You run away
along the paths
in the midst of
the storms.—
Your visible ribs,
sunken abdomen,
soaked by the
tears of the
skies.
Does hunger
always rule your
life?
Have you ever felt anyone’s situation? It might be a person or an animal. What have you done then? Did you look into it with a kind heart or betrayed him?
alex Jun 25
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.
When the world prefers plastic flowers,
a kid smiles with his paper flower.
Bardo Jun 13
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.
Reminds me of being a child watching the cartoons and then the News would come on, the serious people in the suits with the big words.  The child would switch off.
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