---

I will Paint you a Husk from my Depths.  
No matter how Loud,  
how Far I Rend my Voice,  
the Emptiness Hears.  
Nothing Comes.  

---

Suspended in a Sallow Amber,  
I Cry and Thrash until I Croak—  
Raw Throat, Drowning in Red-Agony Wails.  

My Cries Obscur,  
Drowned by Humanity's Squalling Chorus.  

---

Zenith's Reach  

I kept Traveling up the Hell-Scorched  
Steeple, Birthed from Nightmare's Chasm.  
Over,  
and Over,  
OVER.  

Finally, Enduring my Ever-Gale,  
I made it to Zenith's Edge.  

My Heart Raptured,  
Pleading—My Maker in Revel.  

You Ignored my Rasping Dirge.  
My Lord, I am Torn across the Floor.  

You Went,  
and  

Shut the Door.  


God are you in pain just as I
Your existence,
Were you Forced to be Alive?
So Long that it Contrasts Us Whole.
You Our ever Weeping-God.
Whose Tears Attest Time

Martyr Of Sorrow


---

Our True Selves  

Time's Ethereal Claws ever Sunder—  
a Forever Phantom that Lingers  
without Invitation, Intrusive by Nature,  
to where it’s Unfathomable to Grasp Entire.  

Your Specter—  
I See it Clearly,  
the Figure Donned Behind the Mask.  

I Recognize You Now,  
my Being Forever Writhing:  
a Hand with Veiled Motives  
that Brought Ageless Wounds.  

I can Gaze upon Your True Self Now—  
You, my Own Harbinger of Decimation.  

---

Wailing Storm  

How do I Convey my Unfiltered,  
Volatile Emotions?  

I Endure—  
the Hellish Squalls,  
Neverending Gale in my Mind—  
into my Voice?  

You who Seared Deep Splinters,  
Woven within my Being,  
No matter how Much the Reassurance Weighs.  
My Mind:  
Paradoxical Entropy,  
Forever Believing the Opposite  

Birthing my Absconful End,  
I Wish for only a Moment’s Rest.  

Yet the World Abjures me,  
Scattering Myself  
into the Wailing Storm,  

whose Innocence Pilfered  
by Humanity's Unfaithful Nature.  

Birthed Abundant as a Bounty,  
Waned too Early, Wrought by Men,  
Felt as a Wrinkle in Humanity—  

Awaiting to be Struck by Iron's Ire,  
Inflicting me with Unshakable Doom.  

---

Our Plight  

I cannot Unsee it.  
Perhaps All of Us are the True Monsters Beneath,  
the Ones we Strive to Warn About.  

Humanity’s Failed Doctrine is a Facade.  
We All are Strifed,  
Masking our Hidden Selves.  

I cannot Resist but Agree:  
Hell is Empty—  
the Devil was Steeped Inside Us All Along.  

Yet Each Day,  
the Dreadful Phantom Keeps Consuming,  
an Insatiable Debt,  
Bending me Terribly to Pay without Consent,  
Whirling my Viscous Cycle—  

Nevermore,  
yet into Endless Torment.  

---

The Wind  

I am but a Sufferer,  
Shackled in the Maw of Past Echoes,  
Striving to be as the Unborn,  
Ever-Trapped by my Dogma,  
in an Unbounded Loop—  

where Help can Never Help.  

Past Actions Howl  
like Autumn’s Haunting Wind.  

Obsessed with Wind’s Tithing,  
the Way it Whistles and Breathes—  
a Hollow, Beautiful Tone.  

Envious of Winds, Aureate and Free,  
Stretching Far, Endlessly Heard.  

Eternally Wishing for Thoughts  
to Stretch into Oblivion,  

as Our Forgotten Do,  
that Dream Solace Beneath our Feet.  

---

Equinotic Slumber  

Still You Reach from Far Beyond,  
a Scorchful Hand in the Scar of Earth,  
Sundering Deep-Etched Echoes,  
where my Festering Thoughts Rot Unheard.  

I will Forever Bask in Neverending Equinox,  
where my Nightmares Pool in the Desolate Ebon—  
to a Stilled, Stagnant State.  

My Screams ever Dissipate,  
Flickering Out  
into the Place where Nightmares Sleep.

"She left the city as a girl
And returned a woman
In the same shoes
On the same night.
A face in the darkness;
The reaper glimpsed
At journey's end.
He straddles the bridge
Between tonight and tomorrow--
He's a revolver with
One bullet missing
From the chamber;
He's the Wheel of Fortune
With its terms unwritten;
He's an unsigned DNR notice.
He's the end of the line."

...Now, here, I stand,
miles ahead,
on disconnecting tracks,
a once-raging fire,
slowly fading,
to a silver smoke...

Wondering,
...where did you go?

Have your own wolfish eyes,
peered into glassy irises
that even, in the silences,

reminded you,
of mine?

What existed, in me
that you let me, survive?

Mister, oh, please, let,
me in on your secret...
and tell me, now, do you regret ...

how you kept me... alive...?

On a busy afternoon i sat on the floor,
and i felt someone looking at me.
Through the glass frame peering into room,
Was an old, brown wood tree.

The tree was old, yet rather slim,
And i wondered how it spent it's day.
Was it by feeling the raindrops fall?
Or by watching the children play?

The tree had rusty green leaves,
Dwelling on its branches all along.
When the wind blew and the leaves moved,
They'd whistle it a beautiful song.

The tree was still and i could move,
Yet to me, it felt more alive.
As i could move, still feel stuck.
And it was still, at peace and thrived.

I often envy the brown wood tree,
As it enjoys the sunset of june.
Thinking that, i get up and realize that I'm late,
To continue with my busy afternoon.

sad, and heart-wrenching. you don't know how else to describe it.
you're approaching graduation, and slowly starting to see your campus, your home away from home (that eventually became home), through the eyes of an alumna.
Slowly, yet instantly, your lasts begin to accumulate.
Last coffee & pastry from the arts cafe.
Last paper printed from the library.
Last haphazard multiple choice question selection.
You picked "c" again because it has always felt safe.
And don't even get started on the last moments in your dorm.
Your last classes.
Last walks around the lakes.
The best and worst thing about lasts is oftentimes, you are not aware (fully at least)
of the true finality of these experiences.
But that's what commencement is for... right?
Not directly, but sort of. Because commencement means 'beginning', not 'end'. We talk about all that we have done to get to this faithful graduation day, and it is good that the end is about beginning, but even the beginning ends.
So that space between the beginning of the end and the end of the end is quite strange.

You realize you will no longer attend school here, or maybe even anywhere, starting in just a few days.
Yet you're walking through the student center listening to a song you listened to when you walked around campus for the very first time.

Except everything seemed faster then.

Now, it all seems slow, perhaps even            frozen
           in                                 time.
Years ago, you didn't know the ins and outs of how this place was laid out; how it functioned.
You didn't see fuzzy memories at certain tables and buildings, and in certain nondescript corners.
You couldn't hear the ghostly 'Hello!'s echoing, familiar voices greeting you that now haunt the sidewalks
instead of traveling along them.
You are no longer in the moment when you started to call
this place home.
Except it's your last day of classes, and you've been here
quite a while, but it is, in fact, still home.
But something is fading, unclear in this
space
          between
                          spaces
The­ faces aren't familiar anymore,
and years ago, that would be something you
jokingly wished for, perhaps just to be left alone so you didn't have to pause your music.
But now, you long for that closeness in some way.
You'd find comfort in that sort of chaos.
And maybe you already started your post-grad job
before graduation because you needed to distract yourself
from the fact that it is all
so liminal.
a place between places, spaces between spaces,
a life lived between lives.
Where you're able to recognize that though your worst times were hosted there,
your best times also were.
and maybe it all wasn't truly just a well thought-out blur, because you found so much safety here, and learned to create that for yourself.
Without this place, it would've been tough to deal with what had been dealt.
This place lifted you up, showed you what you could do, and you created a life and love for yourself that you're starting to see now that you're through.
It hurts, yes, I know: to say goodbye to this chapter.
but it remains part of you, now and thereafter.
side note from the future: don't rush into things, just listen to yourself, because you are all you have
and the rest is what you have felt.

I am not a poet.

My words were never made for the masses,
Made to pry emotions from your heart.
Rhyme can sometimes leave me at a loss,
And my inkwell is more often empty than not.

I am not a poet.

I can write only what I know and feel,
Each poem I give a little piece of me.
Every line is just a wisp away from existence.
Each poem might just be the last I write.

I am not a poet.

Yet why do you feel like my muse?
Your eyes remind me of a thousand places,
Like sea glass glinting green in the hush of tide.
Your voice has its command over my pulse.

I am not a poet.

But poetry you are.
How else do I describe this feeling,
If not with flowery words and rhyme.
And yet no words can hold it right.

I am not a poet.

I would be lost if I were.
For if I give a piece of me,
It will always be here in this poem,
With You.

The clock’s slow hands release their grip,
A whispered breath begins to slip,
Through corridors of fading light,
Where shadows stretch to meet the night.

The week’s tight chains dissolve in air,
Like molten glass that melts with care,
Each task undone, a thread unspun,
The loom of time undone, begun.

A tide that lifts the anchored soul,
Unfurls the sails toward the whole,
Where moments drip like honeyed rain,
And silence hums a sweet refrain.

The pulse of hours quickens now,
As freedom’s seed takes root somehow,
Beneath the skin, a quiet fire,
A spark of vast, unspoken choir.

No longer bound by duty’s weight,
The mind escapes its narrow gate,
To wander fields where dreams convene,
In Friday’s glow, serene, unseen.

Don’t you want to be — lonely?
Everyone’s doing it... now.
Humans in shells.
When love... no longer sells.

It’s the new craze —
Go on,
Try on these new chains.
It’s the new craze —
Dawn...
of a strange age.

Try some loneliness —
a quiet kind of pain.
Try some loneliness —
your own company...
in vain.

Don’t you want to be — lonely?
Everyone’s doing it now.
We can gather —
to be alone...
together.

It’s the new craze —
Setup in new chains.
It’s the new craze —
Dawn of a strange age.

Try some loneliness —
It’s colder
than it seems.
Try some loneliness —
It echoes
through your dreams.

Come on...
Be lonely.
Or you’ll be left behind.

Come on...
Be lonely.
Or you’ll be left behind.

Come on...
Be lonely.
Or you’ll be
left
behind.

You are the sparrow, or the one who oversees.
You are the sea worm — the one that bottom-feeds.
You are the urchin which waves could never crash.
You are the person whose feelings will never last.

You are the yeti, whose hand is very grand.
You are the teddy, soft as white sand.
You are all things, and no things, all at once.
You are the heartbeat whose race cannot be won.

A lonely buoy sways in the waves of indecision,
bobbing up and down, and up and down
pacing back and forth, and back and forth,
from side to side and again under the amber road, moonlit.

The tides are calm but large, but the buoy doesn't sink.
It's prepared, designed, taught what to do
in moments like these: to swim back,
back to shore, back to safety, turn a back
to the great, lethal liquid land beyond our own.

But this time, that glow of golden light,
that hails from the incandescent majesty of the gloomy night-sky,
goes far into and over the horizon, glistening in the void sea,
glimmering on the bouy like golden lunacy,
capturing it, alluring it, cradling it gently,
shining on it like glitter and exposing it to a totally novel colour,
totally radiating and tranquilising — or so it would be
if not for the distant, real winds.

The such similar shade of orange, shared
by the sky-light and the streetlamps,
depict a tale of unfulfilled greatness and mimicry
(though I don't mean to insinuate that the lunacy is itself not enlightened)

Perhaps this is the way: to mimic
a mere fraction of the power of the giants
whose great shoulders we stand upon without gratitude,
unaware of how unfulfilled and untouched
and unkept our passions meet end.

The buoy battles with risk and reward, screaming and cursing
silently,
crashing out on the waves of both sides,
ripping and parting its poor soul;
the dark void at the horizon that divides the path
from the moon,
invites it, coaxes it, charms and enchants it to take a chance:
the leap of faith.

But the buoy sways on in the wind.