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AUSTIN Sep 16
it wasn’t stage
but it was enough,
at least it should’ve been
to me,
im sorry i threw to the
side so easily
outside, the cold air
unwraps my skin.
i’m listening to a friend
tell us a story
that feels rehearsed,
meant to impress
but all i can think about
how sweet my drink is
and the length of that girl’s dress
across the street.

then i see him —
half-familiar, waving.
i don’t remember his name,
but he does me,
goes on about
jobs he’s changed
and the old team.
i’m the only one left.

he asks if life
is treating me well.
i nod.

he asks if i’m happy.

i look down,
searching for the answer
between cigarette ash
and concrete.

“if you need to think about it,”
he says,
“you’re not.”

his words stay with me
for the rest of the night,
then the week,
then the month.
this one is about a night in oxford that stayed with me.
for the longest time
i thought i needed to
return to the child
i was.

i spent half my life
unlearning trauma,
only to lose sight
on the woman
i wanted to become.
Before the profit of the prophet,
He tried to fit into a prophecy,
Living like furniture wrapped in plastic,
Always waiting, never too honest.

As a kid, barefoot on the stone,
Toes split rocks he called his own.
Didn’t matter, he never kept score,
Tears skipped like pebbles, lost on the shore.

Teenage nights taught him to choke,
Lungs full of secrets, lungs full of smoke.
Coughs hidden deep in a pedestrian bush,
Dreams of riches, but so broke on a hush.

Exhaust from his mouth, he claimed the street,
Pretending that silence was something complete.
But silence was clothing, handed down rough,
Trauma sewn tightly, never enough.

Now he walks past mannequins, frozen in glass,
Faces like lessons too heavy to pass.
Breathing was something he learned to fake—
Lungs filled with pressure he couldn’t escape.

So he asks in the dark, was he living at all?
Or just holding the smoke longer than them all.
the rippling end
of shining waves
like rain
Another version of one I wrote a while ago.
Limes Carma Sep 12
I’m driving and your playlist is on,
The one that always makes me think of you.
Usually I’d sing along,
But tonight I’m too broken to.
Six years gone and I still feel
Like I’m cheating if I try to move on.

I've been going through the motions,
Trying to convince myself that I'll be fine.
But when someone new starts getting close,
I pull back every single time.
Their voice sounds wrong, their laugh's too loud,
Nothing feels the way it should.
Maybe I should just give up,

Stop pretending someone else could fit.
Not that I’m waiting for you—
I just can’t imagine settling for ****.
Every time I meet someone new,
I hold them up against what we had.
And nothing ever comes close,
So maybe being alone isn’t that bad
redberry Sep 11
I can't seem to get you out
Every memory, touch, place
glazes onto me

I see you in them all
And I can't seem to get you
out of my skin

You're glued on
I'm rubbing friction
hoping you'll shred apart

but just like adhesive glue
with time
you solidify onto me

I look into your eyes
to plea
but all I see
is pure adoration

I melt
I'm hypnotized
Those big round eyes
engulf me

I thought I saw love
in those brown eyes

I realized too late
that it was a reflection of mine
and I can't seem to get me out
{ “Awareness : He began to decipher the instant that he was living, deciphering as he lived it, prophesying himself in the act of deciphering the last page of the parchments, as if he were looking into a speaking mirror.” -
Gabriel Garcia Marques }

_____


Mirrors of Mercury

Who is Shams and who Rumi                                                          
is­ like asking who is fork and who
knife when apart they sing not
a single song to nourish blood
with versal love

mercurial reflect                                    
                     ­                                                                 ­                
Who is mirror and who reflection                                            
Is that me ? I ask you                                                              ­        
watching your slender bones                                                
move in soiled leather boots                                                            ­  
wild slow eyes reflecting YES !                                              
when maiden across the room                                              
gives wicked laughs of NO !  

mercurial translate                                                        ­
                                                                ­                                      
Who is this dissident beret
alongside the chair ?                            
Is it self ahead on a future road .....                                                  
will someone stroke my back                                                        
give ear, lip or cheek                                                            ­                      
urging body to be young in                                                  
takkies and snazzy jacket ?  

mercurial question goals

Aah ! Poetic Mirrors !
inking reciting assessing                                                        ­      
give respite from a million
images of Self  as I circle an
unveiled Flow of Fate                                              
fully awake to naked                                                            ­          
poet

mercurial observe
catalytic soul


Copyright © Ghairo Daniels | 2017
I was always afraid of loneliness—
and more than that, the dark.
It made everything feel heavier.
I cried quietly when no one was around.

I chased the light,
but it never chased me back.
It passed over me like I didn’t matter.
So the dark stayed—
not by choice, but by nowhere else to go.

At first, it scared me,
but then I saw what the light never showed.
The dark didn’t demand my smile.
It let me fall apart without questions,
gave me space to breathe.

Now I sit with it quietly,
and the shadows finally feel like home.
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