Ensnared in your touch, I feel so free.
A spider's web, where I'm caught with glee.
Like Cleopatra's asp, your love is my fate,
A whispered chant that echoes, "Come, don't hesitate."

Your touch ignites a burning fire,
Melting desire, soothing my heart's fears
In your eyes, my soul finds a home,
A place to rest, where love is known.

My heart beats fast, as if outside my chest,
We're closer than a leaf that's fallen to rest.
Like life's insurance, I want to secure our love,
Whatever brings us together, beggar can't be choosy

Hook or crook, Can we seal this moment, lock it tight?
Seconds, minutes, hours

Adam put my hand in his hair and asked me if he looked nice tonight.

You look like you’ve been traveling on the wind a long time;
Your eyes, a whirlpool of brown and green,
Lent to you by the earth.
Dark when the sky turns, clears when the water escapes through the river.
And as the tidal waves calm; storm passes, your eyes lighten.
I feel your heartbeat slow
And your eyelids no longer feel the need to keep watch;
red roots no longer take your peace for nutrients.

You look like you’ve been taking pebbles and cactus flowers along the way to rest.
You’ve been guided by the other particles on their way to becoming,
To travel faster in your chosen direction.
And to catch a ride on the wind when it’s lazy; tamed by the hot sun.

You look like you were first formed someplace in outer space
You look like the great beyond, all that’s happened along with being narrowly avoided,
and a vintage kitchen toaster
all collided with the force of fate.
And their death - the dust -
Was solidified by the hot American sun, and made your body.
And when you stood, everything else realized it also could.
You brought the sky down to kiss the solid ground.
You said it was easy, anyone could do it.

I reach my cupped hand in the water searching for salt.
Just a speck will do.
Placid- you stand in my hand, you look up with wind behind you now.
You’ve been searching along time for a place to be that’s only yours.
You tilt your neck back and sigh.
And river beds form for you in the crevices of my hand.
You trace the ivy up my arm,
Up to my shoulder
We can watch people, places and things rise and fall,
In sync with the movement of your chest.
I straighten my hand
Come stand beside me now.

So yes, you look nice tonight,
When I see you
All I can see is the heart-stopping feeling of staring into the eyes of everything that was, is, and could be.
Your love is not the only thing you’ve done, not even the greatest-
But it’s the best thing that
i
have ever seen.

She kissed
With such fervor
As though she didn't
Just wanted to be love
But to be heard, to be felt
She kissed so much
Like she wanted
To tell her life story
Of her pain, her loneliness
All through her lips
As though words weren't enough
And I listened to her
That her story was safe
That every emotion is here
Locked between our lips

a woman's passion is a fiction of the sun
a radiance that forms and lingers
it's time burning like a rag in a guttering flame
it flickers, it spits a storm, a moment's certainty
a lifetime's doubt
it is the whisper of the wind in barren trees
a crucible for gravity's fervor
a silence dreaming its imploded sounds

Something Beautiful After

I didn’t expect to want again. Touch had become a memory, a ghost I nodded to in passing—familiar, but too far.

Then you walked in like a secret I didn’t know I was still allowed to want. Not loud. Not demanding. Just sure.

Your hands didn’t ask questions—they knew answers. Like they’d waited their whole life
to map this skin I’d buried under silence.

You kissed me like it wasn’t a reward, but a right—like you’d earned it just by seeing me
and staying.
Staying when I trembled.
Staying when I burned.

This isn’t a rebound.
This is a rise.

There’s something holy in how you undress me—not just my body, but the layers I kept hidden even from myself.

With you, it isn’t just passion—it’s permission.

To want.
To ache.
To feel everything again.
Lips like an offering.
Fingers like truth.
Breathless doesn’t mean broken anymore.

You don’t heal me—you remind me I’m already healing. That I’m not ruined, I’m ripe.

And now—now I know the difference between being needed and being wanted.
And God, you want me. Like fire wants air. Like night wants skin. Like I want you—with everything I was once afraid to give.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.

That’s exactly how I feel
******* see-through
My feelings don’t matter
My opinion doesn’t matter
There’s no respect
No loyalty
Is there even genuine love
I’m starting to become numb
And a numb me isn’t a good me
That’s the wrong me to expose
That’s the wrong me to be with be
It’s pointless
A numb me is a who gives a **** me
A numb me is a disappear act
Here today, gone tomorrow, literally
A numb me is **** your feelings
**** respect
And why should I respect something that you don’t
I can’t fault the next *****, you opened the door
A ***** not gone respect **** you don’t respect
That ***** don’t owe me ****
But you owe me everything
Oh, why you say?
Because I gave everything
Even when I didn’t have it to give to myself
This feeling in my stomach has been here for a god three weeks
And it’s only getting worse
A ******* hopeless romantic
Dummy

We all know what love is
We all felt it, saw it, expressed it
Love is ancient and everlasting
We have seen movies, drawings, and shows
Read books, poetry, and letters
All conveying and depicting the emotion
We have loved our families and friends
Loved even strangers who shared a passion
Causes and ideologies that we admired
Compassionate and care towards life
Loving even parts of our own selves
We can recognize all of love's forms
From its beauty to its bitterness
From birth to present
We continued to love
Yet the moment you entered my life
It was at that point of time
Did I truly understand
What love is

The wisdom I have gained
Can fill many lovers' cups
With experience and lessons
With loss and sorrow
Pour my knowledge into them
How to love and how to talk
To listen and to feel
To never lose or yield
To hold what is precious
The wisdom I have now
Flows like a faucet
Where every lover shall
Never know the thirst
For one's touch
For one's kiss
To share a glass with another
To drink each other's love
Yet for all that insight
My own cup
Can never be filled again