This summer, I’ve thought a lot,
About how I’m in a liminal standstill.
The crossroads of life,
Childhood to the left, and adulthood to the right.
Which way do I go?
I don’t have a choice.
The only way to go,
Is forward toward the void.
I must go on,
Listening to the songs that spark my envisioning,
Imagination bleeds into reality.
I must accept,
That there’s never enough time,
But that’s okay.
I’ll water her flowers and try not to complain,
Because she means the world to me.
The singer and the lyricist,
Moved on from their precipice,
Perhaps I can do the same.
I’ll rise, like a daisy,
Even when the world is feeling hazy.
I’ll remember what the Wendigo told me,
And what I learned from Dracula’s kidnapping.
It’s humbling to find,
That I’m at the world’s whim as much as it’s at mine.
Just a change in my paradigm.
I’ll make sure I won’t be like Vain,
Or like Russel, used for his brain.
I’ll overcome my fear and drive,
And leave my other fears behind.
Acne won’t entrap me forever,
There’s always another summer,
Though the heatwaves might be a ******.
I’m all in,
Avoiding artificial interactions.
I’ll try to see what they see,
And overcome this anxiety.
Oh, what thoughts can be stirred from a monochromatic shade of grey,
But I’ll fight through the haze.
I’ve seen,
That the last summer of reprieve,
Is as much of an ending,
As it is a beginning.

the expanse of hallway outside my hotel door
seems to go on forever
the space seems to embody an otherworldly feeling
between our world and some other
indescribable place
is it comforting or claustrophobic?
I used to visit our small town mall
when I was young, it was bustling with life
it had a movie theater
with endearingly tacky Electra-Dye carpets,
an arcade, and a Borders bookstore.
years passed, and the place became a husk.
movie theaters are on the decline,
and the bookstore went bankrupt.
malls are shutting down all over the world
due to the popularity of online shopping
and digital streaming.
movie theater architecture no longer looks like
an odyssey into space,
but a hotel lobby with neutral colors.
humanity left it all behind.
we gave these spaces life with our humanity.
the liminal spaces were alive with the
frenetic energy of living.
they were meant to be inhabited.
I visited our local mall.
there were only a few other people.
it felt like I wasn't supposed to see it that way— devoid of life, devoid of the meaning
humanity described it.
it became a relic of the past.
I wandered the hallways
and saw the movie posters they displayed.
the showings were from seasons before,
and they were peeling off the walls.
it felt like I was left behind too.
liminal zones are really the state in between
the past and the present,
nostalgia and the modern age.
the walls were just walls.
the carpets just carpets.
but my memories gave it meaning.
if birth is the beginning and death is the end
life is the liminal space.

Growing weary on the road,
respite seemingly out of grasp, wild
eyes cast their silver-yellow sullen

warning to the ground below as we crane
our twisted necks up: a meager offering
to the ones who walked the path before

Horned owl, languid head turning, collects
our astonished gasps like cold gleaming
rubies once tossed into a ravine or river —

nearby, the fog rolls in: curious bystander
ever intent on pulling the heavy curtain aside
to devour the last tasty morsels in the thrill

of a bygone moment — reckless and ripe
with the bloodstains of youth, the hunger
departing and returning in an instant

I left my phone in the fridge again.
Texted my dead friend by mistake.
The dream said turn left at the red door
but every door was mauve and melting.
I wore the wrong shoes
to the right breakdown.

God, I’m tired of being
the lesson in someone else’s flashback.
Of saying 'I’m fine'
like it’s a good thing.

Sometimes I bite a fingernail off
and flick it to the ground,
just to prove I was here,
just to pretend my DNA
is not a walking lie.

Sometimes I talk
to the dogs with TikTok accounts
like they’re holding something back.

Sometimes I rehearse my disappearances
in liminal spaces:
parking garages,
abandoned malls,
group chats I left on read.
Now I RSVP to nothing
and they still say
“you’ll be missed.”

I keep meaning to heal,
but the plot keeps thickening—
And my name—
God, my name—
it echoes like a spoiler
in a house that isn’t mine anymore.
A trivia fact
no one got right.

My memories keep getting
auto-corrected to get over it.
I don’t.
I alphabetize the wreckage.
I romanticize the ruin.
The rot is getting readable.

Anyway,
I’m late again.
Time got weird in the hallway.
I swear the mirror
was trying to warn me—
but I was too busy
checking if my under-eye bags
made me look exquisitely exhausted,
or just ordinary and old.

I wanted to scream  
but the hallway  
was practicing silence.  

I wanted to run,  
but the rug said stay  
and the mirror said  
be still  
and beautiful and
unavailable.

The mirror said:
this is what longing looks like
when it runs out of places to go.

So I stood there—
a half-wreck, half-reflection—
trying to decide
if disappearing quietly
still counts as survival.

Somewhere,
my phone is defrosting.
Somewhere,
the red door is waiting.

Somewhere,
my dead friend
is laughing
his ghost-laugh,
mouthing: same.

Gently landed
At my side
A butterfly in golden light
Warming wings
That kiss their dust
From tip to tip

Barely touching
Your hollow limb
At my elbow
Resting there
My soft net sweeps down
I am your gentle prison

I lift you out
It feels like oil
The dust at my  pulps
I circle it there
A moment
It has no smell

I press your chest
To stop you moving
Pierce you with a pin
To keep you there forever
Frame you on my wall

In all this you did nothing
But look with love
Touching me lightly
Leaving nothing but dust