Screaming inside my head,
skin is burning,
hands shaking,
nails scraping—
“This too shall pass.”

Can’t see clearly now,
mental thrashing crescendos:
a symphony of deprecating desperation,
****** hands,
turmoil’s salt-streaked face.

A sharp crack—
“This shall pass.”
Raw throat strains:
“This too shall pass.”
Hushed shudders,
nails gripping painfully tight—
waves return to a dull lapping.

Everything is painfully temporary:
deluded hopes and dreams,
nightmares and sickening screams—
“This too shall pass.”
And it does,
eventually.
It passes again,
and again,
every time.

I woke up and the world was still
painted in yesterday’s shadows.
My name, a whisper I barely answered.
I counted the losses like bruises
each one a secret I wore under my clothes.

You don’t wake up brave.
You wake up empty.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
I made coffee with trembling hands,
opened the window, let in October
and the wild, impatient birds.

No one tells you the sky doesn’t change
just because your heart broke.
No one tells you the sun will rise
with or without your permission.

So, I let the morning flood my room
like forgiveness,
let it paint over all the words I never said.
I am still here,
even when I wish I wasn’t.
I am still here,
and today, that’s the revolution.

i don't think about you anymore.
except when i become
my own lowest point.
you cross my mind then.
briefly,
grazing the edges
of my reality,
impersonating a friend.

but i don't need you anymore.
so, every time you knock,
trying to sell,
wearing your shiny labels
like a badge,
i'll shut the door in your face
and let the night take you back
to the abyss you crawled out from,
veiled in shame.

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.

Frigidity wounded the tender palms,
numbness nestled in beards,
crystals of snow hung from her earrings;
all now photographs that have creased.

The souls stare into the windows once mistaken for walls,
recalling their shadows chained to the stagnant snow,
but the seasons are meant to spiral,
and amidst the mosses osculated by winters,
there bloomed petals adorned by renewal.

Some cling tight to the yarn,
afraid of pointed crystals shredding the weave,
while some recall the cold, garbed in a tender sweater —
the tender sweater spun by bleeding hands,
pricked by needles and lost amongst the threads.

Once one with the pine tree,
trembling in a blizzard,
they now converse of and with past,
clad in fabrics of rejuvenation.

Fighting for sleep,
fighting for peace.

Manic, depressive
episodes, just
to start.

Doing everything I can
just to not
fall apart.

So I can
make it another day—
wake up
with a fresh start.

Tried to reset,
tried to see,

but the future is blurred,
and I can’t believe
I’m back at square one:

the battle
of the elastic
heart.

The knives
hit harder
this time,

but I’m not afraid.
I’m not afraid
to get back up,

and show the world—

I’m not broken.
I’m not folded.
I’m not out
for the count.

i had no idea how heavy
the heart can be
when it clings
to a dream long gone.

i didn’t need reminding
of how selfish i’ve been.
i stayed away
to find clarity, space—
and who i was meant to be.

my roots are still fixed in the dark.

but i know now
what it’s like
reaching through the clouds,
and being crowned by the sun.

with my first chip in hand.
after thirty days,
i’m ready to speak again,
and let love back into my heart.

the process… zoological zoa logos

living words, made of sentient letters,
let us imagine,

leave us time and space,
gravity and velocity,

we adapt ideal ideas, perfect plans,
recipes for peace past comprehension,

co-here co-opera ratiocination, balance

app raise worth… wait, not weight value,
app raise value of attention paid per precept

time tools take parallel Elohim zoas, eh,

Blakes Creator uses compass and calipers,
believed imaginary until one sees through

new lensing concepts