I stand at the edge of memory's clearing,
watching my childhood home consumed
by flame, by the cruel erosion of time,
each beam of laughter crackling,
each wall of safety collapsing inward
like a prayer spoken backwards.

The wildfire sweeps through everything:
Saturday mornings thick with pancake steam,
the way sunlight used to pool
in the corner where I built my kingdoms
from cardboard boxes and infinite dreams.

I am paralyzed, a child again,
hands pressed against invisible glass,
screaming at the inferno
that devours the sanctuary I called home.

Smoke fills my lungs with the bitter taste
of all I cannot save:
the creaking floorboard that announced my midnight wanderings,
the kitchen table scarred with homework tears
and birthday cake celebrations.

But listen
in the crackling of loss,
in the hiss of vanishing,
something else stirs.

From the white-hot core of grief,
wings unfurl like broken prayers
learning to fly again.
I am the ember that refused to die,
the stubborn spark,
to the hungry flames of forgetting.

What rises from these ashes
is not the home I lost
it is me, transformed,
carrying the warmth of every moment
that mattered enough to burn eternal,
my heart a furnace where love
learned to make itself immortal.

The phoenix knows this truth:
some things must be consumed
before they can become holy,
before they can learn to soar
on wings made of everything
we thought we'd lost forever.

I am both the fire and the rising,
both the child who watched it burn
and the child who learned to fly.

When red apple roses rise from my head,
Know that the earth has embraced me, now dead.
I'll rest where roots wrap my bones in the ground,
And bloom through my silence, no longer bound.

Their petals still whisper the things I once said;
In death, I will part with the cage of my heart.
So grieve in my garden, but know it’s my home,
For beauty will grow where my love ever roams.

magnolia’s cream-mottled cheek
   marking yet another bygone era
   plunked into the abyss as sorrow
   burrows into us, roots that become

our prisons / our refuge, the delirious
journey into what we've come
     to recognize as our shadow selves'
   last fragments of a fallen season

that last slanted sunset reflected off the lake
hinting with its brilliance at what we simply
could not admit to ourselves. The expanding
distance between us we hide in and seek thereafter

In
Summer ,  
Before the fall
Into resolve
Time has healed.

Chin up
Shoulders back
Powerful stride

YOU!
Have been found

I raised a black flag high with pride,
A banner bold I could not hide.
It screamed of strength, of “I won’t fall,”
Of standing firm, of having it all.

It waved through storms I would not flee,
A symbol carved with “only me.”
I bore it like a soldier’s crown
But oh, how silently I drowned.

Each triumph inked in darkest thread,
Each vow I kept while dreams bled red.
I thought this flag would make me whole,
But bit by bit, it cost my soul.

Then came a moment, still and bare,
No crowd to please, no need to dare.
I dropped my fists. My knees grew weak.
And for the first time, I let peace speak.

A white flag trembled in my hand
So soft, so plain, I couldn’t stand
To think this could be strength at all…
But it was strength to stop the fall.

I raised it slow, unsure, ashamed
Expecting loss, expecting blame
But as it rose, I saw it shift
This white was black, the truest gift.

Not stained in rage or empty gain,
But marked with mercy, healed by pain.
It bore no name, it screamed no “I”
Yet in its silence, I could fly.

And then I knew—how blind I’d been,
The black I held was never kin.
It led me through a thousand fights
But never taught me wrong from right.

This white flag wasn’t giving in
It was the start of truth within.
And every thread once dyed in shame
Now stitched a soul that chose to change.

So here I stand, no flags held high,
Just open hands beneath the sky.
Not conquered no, but born anew,
Freed from chains I once thought true.

That white I feared to lift in shame
Became a fierce and quiet flame.
The black I chased a mere disguise,
This white revealed my truest rise.

Its threads now stained with all I’ve braved,
A banner raised, not lost but saved.
This is the black I now embrace
Born pure, reborn through time and grace.

Music from another time
Begins to fill my ears,
And my mind gets flooded
With memories of then.

Memories of happiness,
Warm like a sunny day in April;
Memories of love,
Ever-consuming and euphoric;
Memories of agony,
Hollow lies and hollow heart;
Memories of confusion,
Fog flooding my mind at all times.

But there is one memory that stands out more than the others:
The memory of my death.
How I slowly lost my spark,
And was too aware of the cold.
How I slowly lost all meaning,
And just wished for an end that felt real.
How I slowly lost myself,
And I wasn’t sure if I was worth knowing anymore.
How I slowly died,
And I didn't even realize until I built myself up again.

I didn't die with a last breath.
I could feel my lungs inhale and exhale the air.
I didn't die knowing I was dying.
I thought I was getting better.
I didn't die, in my head —
I kept moving, too fast to notice.
But I died in my memories.
And realized only now.

But I was born again.
I'm not writing from my grave,
I'm writing from my pedestal.
Like a statue rising from cold stone,
I carved myself into someone new.
Painful, like sculpting pieces of myself out
From the block of marble I'm working on.
Slow, because I only have my own hands
And no other tools to work.
Strong, like the quartz
I chose to use and cherish.
Elegant, like the lines and curves
That I'm chiselling.

I died.
And when I tried living again,
I got killed.
But I already died twice.
This time, I'll grow wings
And be the strong phoenix,
Returning from the ashes.

i try to see
the bright side
every day,

but deep down,
i’m scared—

my nerves
frayed,
worn thin
like overused threads.

i spent years
simply surviving,

keeping my head low,
waiting
for the right timing

to make it out
unscathed.

but cuts
and scrapes
still touch the surface,

and the light
inside my heart
flickers—
on repeat.

i know
what it’s like
to feel something,

but life
isn’t fair,

and the pain
i bear
makes me question:

will i remain
broken forever?

or will i
break free
from this cycle—

free from
the fear—

and like a phoenix,
take flight,
rise from the ashes,

and finally
fix my broken heart?

Ode to the Stream that sits stagnant
somewhere over Northgate Green:

I have sat by it and observed
Rippled currents falling down
Into murky shallows, an un-natural
Green, like mountain-dew
Breathing frothy spots of bubbles
That circle a rhubarb vape
And a sprite can and a
Heineken can and a
Little hopping Wren darting
Between curled roots.

I remember too,
The drips of
Rain water
Worming
Down the dingy
Alleyways of
My childhood,
Dripping down
Nettles and
Seeping into
Cracked brick and
Sodden dirt
And part of - now a -
Sordid cigarette packet.

And from some
Geography class,
I remember how
This water was
Reborn, once
In massive clouds,
Grumbling masses,
Sky's mother who
Shadows the

Bursting
Writhing
Violent
Rivers
And
Vast Fjords
And
Reaching Peaks
And
Breaching Skys
And
Once
Birthed
As torrent
Rainfall
Tearing
Massive wounds
Into tectonic
Plates

The
Blood of matter
And organism
And that which
Carries our ****
In every form

But that's not all. As, I recall:
The lifting motion of staring
Into 'etched lines of water'
From rain, tracing bulbous
Recollections on opaque glass
And knowing they don't
Know where they are going
And I bask in the significance of
This insignificance.

I asked my better halves
how they desire to lie,
once their hearts stop beating,
and breath bids a last goodbye.

Whether they want the stars to
sculpt their constellation, or
the wind to whisper their
cacophonic tales.
Whether they want the earth
to devour their cadaver, or
the skies to weep and
wash away their existence.

The guitarist stated he'll despise grief
as his memories are being relived,
of who he was and who he remains,
as his guitar sleeps in the arms of its heir.

And maybe, the perished strings of an old guitar
don't have to be mourned over,
but applauded for the melodies
that once kindled a ripple of delight.

My dearest across the border
wishes to be nestled beside a mosque
to be enwreathed by The Divine
and lullabied by the Azaan.

And maybe, the eternal slumber is a charade,
and the past still echoes
within the mute boughs or
streets alive with familiar voices.

My junior casts an absurd wish —
to be submerged in cocoa's caress
and be tossed to the lesbian zombies,
who hunger, not for flesh, but for a passion, so savage and insatiable.

And hence, I believe, the hilarity will haunt forever,
but so will my adoration for her,
and perhaps, the craved fervour will
find its form in me.

Then, another writer wove it in her own syllables —
she urges to sink beneath the dismissed waves,
flicker among starlight, like undying thoughts.
She wants her bones to dissolve, ink for Gods,
and her heart to rest beneath a willow.

She wishes to slip into silence,
like laughter scattered over dreamy vinyl,
breath scattered over moonlit stars,
and a page torn mid-sentence.

And lastly, if you enquire of me,
I wish my corpse to be a legacy beyond self
and be gifted to time and science.

But if coerced to be cremated,
I wish to reincarnate as a litchi tree.
With my arms extended in a welcoming warmth,
I will embrace the excluded,
my shadow will shelter the weary,
and my fruits will sate the starving.

All of which I was never offered
in the frigidity of my bloodline,
but was abundantly endowed with,
in the refuge of my closest mates.