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}

. (or: the night I vanished while still in the room) .

He stopped coming home late—
not out of guilt, but because
there was nothing left to hide.

I watched him re-enter
like a man returning to a house he built
on land that was only technically¹ mine.

My scent had faded from the sheets.
His cologne now lingered longer than my voice.

He called me darling
in the same tone I used to use
when I meant goodbye.

I touched his back one night,
the way I used to trace stars across it,
and he flinched—
not like it hurt,
but like it meant nothing.

The watch on my wrist had stopped ticking.
I hadn’t noticed in days.

Over dinner,
he quoted my own stories back to me,
trimmed for elegance,
rearranged for effect.

“I don’t remember it like that,” I said.
“You weren’t meant to,” he replied,
not cruelly—just… correctly.

The eclipse doesn’t apologize for the sun.

In the mirror,
I saw only one of us
reflected clearly.

And it wasn’t me.

I asked him what he wanted.
He said,
“Everything you’ve ever had.”

And smiled like he already did.

I laughed.
He didn’t laugh back.

I told him I loved him.

He said,
“I know.
That’s why this had to happen.”

And somewhere in that moment,
between my mouth opening
and his walking away,
I became myth—
the kind they misremember
on purpose.

all you are - your body, your soul
it's handmade.
can allay all my pain deep inside that's tearing my throat.
frostbitten hands, chapped lips and the seam has come apart on the wound but,
you're a dragon woven of diamonds,
a lioness shrouded in a thousand soffits,
and only a look from you can heal all my disease.

it might seem like we're so far apart
but inside you are really adored in my heart.

the flame inside me is so blazing,
I'm a volcano that woke up a hundred years later from sleep.
but do not pull your hands, I know, if you touch - you will burn your fingers.

and I wanna keep you as inviolable as you've always been.

i finally told them
and the silence --
it felt heavier
than any slur could.
i didn't mean to break them,
i just wanted
to be whole.

it's all fun and games, but it's always the same
same bed and same room, same ceiling I'm staring at again.
till it's middle of the night
and the hole that's inside
growls hungrily through the quiet night.

and I'm trying to stop it, trying to fill it
buying cheap things that i see on the ads.
but somehow serotonin is there for a sec
so it disappears faster than i can feel it inside my head.

and oh, feeling lonely?
watch some lesbian movies
try not to think much and better stop as they kiss
cause it's always the same, the same look, and same ***
and then someone's dies and their love fades away.

makes you feel better, right? hits right in the spot!
didn't you want it? well, that's all we got.
take it or leave it, you have no choice
comprehend your existence, tomorrow might not come.

cause some men just decided we had enough peaceful time
nuclear war sounds great, bring your weapons to frontline.
sell your siblings, your father, they might not come back later
but you're serving for good, isn't that what they said?

**** more man, **** the kids. we will say you were drunk
but your future still bright, keep on with it's shine
obscure someone's whim behind its lights.
these days persons life doesn't cost that much.

write more stuff, create art, sell yourself, life's online
it's thriving, it's giving, saturated to tops
it seems overflowing, while you're doomscrolling
while you're bedrotting, unplugging your mind.

oh, i think of all of this
a million thoughts in my head
and i am still staring
at the ceiling while lying in bed.

. (or: when I heard my voice come from his mouth) .

At first, it was flattery—
the way he wore his collar the same way I do,
the way he started lighting my brand of cigarettes,
the way his laugh hit the same register
I used to throw like a knife across rooms.

I caught him reading my journal once—
not with guilt, but reverence.
“I like the way your thoughts bleed,”
he said, closing the leather cover like scripture.

He stopped asking me questions.
He already knew the answers.

My shirts disappeared one by one.
Then my habits.
Then my silences.

I watched him pour bourbon
with the same three-count I perfected in 1994.
Watched him cross his legs just so,
quote my warnings back to me
as if they were lessons he taught himself.

He ****** me like a rehearsal.
And I let him—God help me—
because some part of me believed
that to be repeated is to be remembered.

But memory is a shallow grave.

One night,
he answered the phone with my cadence.

“This is he,” he said—
voice dry as an autumn branch.
And for a second,
even I believed him.

I didn’t confront him.
I just started talking less.

He filled the air like a flood.
My presence became parentheses.

In bed,
he started calling me old man—
not as a kink,
but as a countdown.

I smiled.
But it tasted like rust.

The boy I devoured
was digesting me back.

And prophecy, that silent ******,
licked its lips
and kept watching.

I don't think, I really want this...

But surely, I
still have the eyes, to perceive
that she's the kind of,
fever dream
that makes grown men, and women,
lament, and weep

for the way, her jeans
gather round, her knees, and thighs--
for the way, her eyes...
pay homage, to the ancient skies...

would you take...a ride?
And, hey...would I...?
I don't think I might...

but she asserts her swerve,
with a certain sway,
and her curves,
would serve,
as hors d'oeuvres,
for days.
Her fruity lips...
with a sparkle glaze

they trickle...dark...as marmalade.
But if harvested, late...
what's their carnal taste?

...Is she the mark, on the grave,
by which, I think...I know myself?

No...I don't think I really want this...

not a shiver, runs through me.
But, sue me...for looking,
when she's so ******* juicy...
does it consume me?
Does it titillate me?
...I don't feel me, hyperventilating?

What if she turned, to face me?
To lay me, lace me
between her thighs...
internalized; eternal lies,
to sate me,
with her flavor, to bait me
acerbic, and savory...
Her skin, burning, like a lamp wire,

and her fingertips, debasing me.
What if I, was her vampire,
and she,
the one slaying me?
A slaking queen...
aching to break, her thirst...
so, what if I staked her, first...?
Would she mortify,
like ash?
Or would she forge, a lighted path,
and make me wish,
she had, forced...my hand?

No...I don't think I really want this...

not a shiver, runs through me.
But, sue me...for looking,
when she's so ******* juicy.