Rules can be a taking of love for one,
Ideas created by he on spread
Few have realized it can be such fun
Different is not a word we should dread
For no love is wrong even two the same
Happiness looking disparate on all
There is but only a true way to aim
One is short as the other is some tall
A time be amused with who has to choose
when stood at the turn of a hot and warm
How it is simply unfair just to lose
And to this scheme we are not to conform
Us being here should have meant to be free
Content on this world, we shouldn't have to plea
~
Lee Of 2022

They don’t know the numbers,
Loser
*****
Lia
Lazy
Lezzy
Lia

I prefer to sit in the back
Make my instructions clear
and I’ll get on track
I’m easy to joke with
Please just go on and laugh

It doesn't ask.
It never knocks.
It just shows up-
mid-sentence,
mid-step,
mid-me.

My body remembers
things I don't want to.
Fluorescent lights,
locked doors,
her voice like venom,
his hands,
the smoke thick enough
to erase a home.

I'm split between moments.
One version of me
is pouring coffee.
The other is back
in a room I begged to leave,
screaming behind my eyes
while my face stays still.

And people say
"but you're safe now."
Like my nervous system
understands logic.
Like my skin
doesn't still flinch at kindness,
like safety is a thing
I've ever known for sure.

I carry too many names.
******. Liar. *****. Crazy.
He. She. It.
I carry too many versions of myself
that other people made
without asking.

And I'm so ******* angry.
At her.
At them.
At the system that locked me up
when all I needed
was to be held without harm.
At the fact that I'm still here
trying to make something soft
out of what they left jagged.

Sometimes I wish
I could go back-
whisper to the kid
who hid under blankets
trying to disappear.
Tell him: you were right.
Tell them: it wasn't your fault.
Tell me
I'd get out.

And I did.
But sometimes,
parts of me still don't know that.
They shake,
they shut down,
they show up uninvited.

And I breathe,
even when it burns.
And I stay,
even when I want to run.
And I write,
because it's the one place
I get to be the one
telling the story.

The words I say feel fake
as they pour out my mouth,
a river of assurance
hiding a false facade

My days are filled
with hoping my mask never falls,
but it's glass anyway
that attempts to conceal my face

My cheeks rosey red
as I grind my teeth together,
a pit of worry in my stomache
turns my mind over

I smile at the girl
with hair like purple rain.

I admire the hoop in her nose.
The way it circles squarely,

unbroken by a confused identity.
She turns away and doesn't smile

back. I think my smile is a scowl,
carrying the many W's of wishes

buried in an unmarked body.
Unmarked by a woman.

Pounding, the parade of drums that pound in my chest.
Shrinking, both my lungs and my body that deflate.
Pouring, sweat pouring out of each pour in my skin, dripping down into a puddle of tears.
My ears feel as if they're waiting to pop, my mind departs from my body as it ascends to the atmosphere above.
Lost, I feel lost as my reflection stares back at me.
The name I was given feels foreign on my tongue as I repeat it over and over hoping it will come back.
As my name crawls away like a scared child I lose recognition of who I was.

Who am I
What am I

As I continue to stare into my soulless eyes, my name is there in the back of my head.
This name is not the one that crawled away from me, but it's a name I'm crawling too.
My hunched over figure perks up like a flower after a downpour
I hold my hand and grasp onto the name that found me.

I know who I am
I know what I am

The light flickers in the night sky
Chains tighten around my heart, tugging as it tries to escape the black hole that consumes me
Fire burns in my eyes as they’re being set ablaze by the sight they can’t yet see
Heat rises to my cheeks like an active volcano erupting from being idol for too long
I am a dying star waiting to burst into shards of colour that can pierce your soul
I am a nebula bound to catch your eye, you are light years away, I am out of your reach inside the glass doors that hold me captive
Hiding away in the small room where one keeps their clothes, the colours of the stars leak through the cracks underneath the doors trying to reach you

i used to think
you just felt butterflies
for boys --
the funny,
immature,
class clowns.

but now,
i know:
the butterflies don't care
who makes them flutter.
it might be a boy.
it could also be
a girl with a
soft smile
and freckles.

and maybe
girls make them flutter
more than boys.
or maybe...
someone else does.
maybe no one does.

and that's okay.

. (or: the slow mercy of being forgotten) .

I keep the lights dim now—
not out of mood,
but because shadows are gentler
when you no longer belong to the future.

The watch still doesn’t tick.
I wear it anyway.
Not to remember time,
but to remind myself I once commanded it.

His coat is still here,
draped over the back of the chair
like an exhale that forgot to finish.

Some nights I sleep beside it.
It doesn’t smell like him anymore.

I replay our first conversation like a hymn
missing half its words.
I remember what I said.
I don’t remember if I meant it.

The bed is quieter than it should be.
Not empty—just echoing
with choices I let make themselves.

I heard he’s moved on.
Young lover, new city,
same crooked smile
twisting someone else’s orbit.

And good.
Let him become legend
in someone else's story.
I already built a temple
he burned into blueprint.

I tried to write him a letter once.
It became a list.
Then a poem.
Then silence.

I left it unfinished.
Some things are meant to haunt,
not conclude.

There’s a thunderstorm tonight.
I sit by the window with a glass of nothing
and watch the sky argue with itself.

For a second,
the lightning looks like him.

And for the briefest flicker—
just long enough to ache—

I believe I was loved.

{fin}