we got drunk on pálinka,
that tasted like cheap nail polish
as the day drifted into sleep,
watching mismatched friends
in their twenties
dancing in a garden,
barefoot, and dizzy,
writing silly poems
in each other's hoodies.

i kept thinking about that
horse we brought to life
the whole bus ride home.
wondering
if i really had been on the bus,
or taken a long walk.

i recognised our house,
but the way upstairs was tricky.
thinking it was mine,
i crashed into my housemate's door -
maybe not accidentally.
the more the blur fades,
the more it becomes clear,
i just thought he was cute.

so i folded myself into sleep
before the truth arrived
and made it all too real.

I am partying hard,
every day and every night
at the Festival of Poetry
- the festival of my life.

My bracelets are
flickering in the moon.
I am singing and kissing flowers,
they are making me bloom.

I am drinking the sweetest wines,
that have ever been made.
I am ecstatically dancing
with naked silhouettes.

I am partying hard,
every day and every night
at the Festival of Poetry
- the festival of my life.

Spilling the ink of joy
until my very last breath.
There won't be any hangovers,
any post mortem regrets.

From lots of laughter, splashing and playing, and sharing memories
to it
coming to an end.

what better day than today--

I can't sleep and I can't
stand the daisy bushes at dusk with their
orange glaring eyes glaring
at my fingers turned robot joints back when
they used to--

feel differently
and I

swear I
haven't changed so much and to
prove it I'm trying to dig the eternity out of
algae green and deep walnut irises stranger
and stranger with spoon shovels made of
shallow questions and polite interest without
getting so bored or
wishing I was--

what better day than today to die

I've tied the limbs of my
spirits and monsters alike into knots and
dizzied them in labyrinths of my own muddied judgment
paved with crushed clocks and compass needles and
they are all so far gone, I am
untethered--

even far from my dear music and poetry--

my soul is already split like colored mosaic glass, each of
a thousand fragments not just belonging but
borne out of some piece of art that will long outlive me, so
anyone that minded could
easily piece me back together in death

how I wish that death were the end,
the end, and not a passing over into
some other unknown rumored to outlast everything,
what more terrifying than that and if
I believed there were a true end I might have sought it
much sooner--

what is left for me to do but
papier-mache my body with my old poetry like a
sarcophagus absorbing the things I
trusted to hold me so much closer

my stomach,
it twists and it turns.
Should I go or should I stay?
These thoughts surround my head,
Scared of what lies ahead.
What could go wrong?
I'm not sure that I belong.
Oh silly me, just be free!
For this is your only chance to feel alive again.

The party goes on

above me, I'm having fun --


with Nino, the cat.

On your birthday you

pretend that everyone is --


doing the right thing.

i tidied the corners,
stories simmered in the chilli,
scattered petals on the grass —
rose-red, next to a single lily.

i’d chosen the music with care,
but laughter co-wrote the score,
each chorus pulling us closer
to something warmer than before.

we bathed in rain, clouds, and sun,
each one carrying a moment,
where secrets come undone,
and quiet truths are spoken.

the fairy lights lit up,
as the world flipped slowly —
a circle of soft goodbyes
turning intimate into holy.

as the solstice faded,
and it struck twelve once more,
a day like this feels sacred,
as the season shifts the shore.

this night won't conclude us,
though the dusk will surely dim.
we are only at the beginning,
on the edge where stories swim.

we encourage them
to carry on
as though the party
isn't over and everyone
that matters hasn't
already gone