What I wanted
was never given.
Now, what they offer
is apathy—
a void all I feel.

They criticized the desert,
yet all it needed
was a drop of water.
Instead, they offered a mirage.

Now there is no mercy.
It is the rough sand—
for them,
the arid ruin they created.

Now it is a heart of stone
the fearless eye of barren storm—
a total internal reflection!
never bound by laws.

I begin to live my life recklessly.
There’s no time for me to look around.
I worked out and let it be so -
I’m free from all empty bounds.

Now I live as if every day is my last.
I no longer think about yesterday.
Everything that happened to me is the past.
I’ll come up with something next day.

I’ll think about tomorrow later,
When it becomes a little bit relevant.
I don’t spend time on any mirages.
I’m hungry for life and so eloquent.

I live recklessly! And God is my judge.
I englut my life! And I’m happy!
Don’t try to understand or teach me.
I write my life as a fair-copy!

You were a beautiful cat to my gaze,
With eyes that captured and quietly swayed.

I chased every flicker, each playful deceit,
Drawn to your steps, though lost in defeat.

You toyed with my hope, led me astray,
Till breath turned to longing, then sorrow, then gray.

But one day I fled, broke free from the snare,
And saw the soft truth beneath all your flair:

My beautiful cat, with charm so untrue —
I was never your love… only prey to you.

I walk alone,
where the sand forgets me.

Water calls ahead,
"It looks real",
"But so does a mirage".

My throat begs,
but my mind doesn't trust.

So,
I watch from afar.

I am trapped,
Trapped in a delusion,
A mirage of what once was,
Where shadows dance in the corners,
And echoes of laughter fade into silence.

There is no one;
I am left alone,
A solitary figure in a landscape of memories,
The nights look haunted,
Cloaked in a shroud of darkness,
Whispering secrets of the unseen.

Day whispers a cry,
A cry of a dead man within my heart,
A heartbeat that falters,
Lost in the labyrinth of my thoughts,
I am a prisoner,
Who has done no crime,
Yet here I languish,
Bound by invisible chains.

I want to move,
But can’t feel my feet,
I want to talk,
But silence wraps around me,
I want to cry,
But has no reason
I want to laugh,
Laugh louder again!
Again no reason.

I am a ghost lost in my stories,
Where I am dead,
Yet still feel the pain,
The pain of my dreams,
And the people I left behind.

I want to return,
Return back to them,
But I’ve lost the way that takes me to them,
The path obscured by the fog of regret,
I am stuck,
Stuck in this dream,
A wisp of a thought,
A fleeting shadow.

I want someone to wake me up,
To pull me from this slumber,
I want to get out of the character,
Shed this skin that no longer fits,
I want to get out of the cell
Which has no wall,
A prison of my own making,
Where freedom is a whisper,
And hope flickers like a dying flame.

Elusive idealization—
I yearn for it,
beguiled by its seminal scope.

I dig my fingers into its flesh
as my past pulls me back in
with cold, frayed hands,
seeking to drown me
in a chamber of oblivion—
until the end of time.

Or so it seems;
as every mirage has its day,
and reality is no exception—
the construct of constructs
we all imagine at once.

Regardless of the outcome,
I will see you all again
under the ground.

Shimmering oblivion forms, dancing in sunlight—
Ripple thickens the lip of the sand.
Structural emblem searing the desert—
Music-slip, cockhantuu.
Gape-sunrise scolding, turney—
Allow my feet walk ‘pon sun-furnace sand!
Emerald Green, reside in distance.
Behold! The gift of grassland?
Gapefold, turney. Contstad, noble—
Sweet milk oozes from the scorpion's gland!
Oasis of milk— of mother-cry milk!
Breastmilk of this sun-scorched strand.

A distant shimmer, a mirage of water,
Dancing on the edge of a scorched path's border.
Born of heat and refracted light,
Like intimacy’s clash—its endless fight:
A step closer, and it slips farther.

Happiness, too, wears a fleeting guise,
Always just beyond desperate eyes.
Eluding even the fiercest demands.
No matter the cost, no matter the stride,
It lingers just out of reach, then hides.

And so the future drifts and flows,
Day by day, person by person, lows by lows.
No matter how "happily ever after" is sold,
How rainbows shine after storms grow cold,
Or how the tunnel defends its lighted ends,
For some, the chaos never bends.

Fairytales, dreams, hopes retold—
For certain hearts, they never unfold.

-fir.m