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Shawn Oen Apr 26
Autumn Blaze

We dug the hole one quiet fall,
The leaves around us red and small.
A sapling slight, with roots still bare,
We gave it space, we gave it care.

Autumn Blaze, its name be true,
A fire that someday might break through.
We watched it lean, then helped its stand,
As winds moved strongly across our land.

Now look—it towers, bold and wide,
Its branches stretching toward the sky.
While others stall or wither in place,
Ours climbed with calm and patient grace.

It wasn’t just the sun and rain,
But hands that worked through joy and strain.
Like marriage, like a love once bright,
It rose because we did it right.

But love’s not just what’s built and grown—
It’s what you keep, and nurture, and own.
And somewhere in the in-between,
We lost the roots once so serene.

The tree still thrives, tall as a prayer,
While silence lingers in the air.
And I can’t help but see the cost—
Of something strong that still was lost.

We could have trimmed, we could have healed,
We could’ve fought, we could’ve kneeled.
Like tending bark or guarding flame,
Love asks for more than just a name.

So now that tree, it holds my gaze—
A monument to better days.
To what can grow and still be gone—
A blaze that burned, and then moved on.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved
Shawn Oen Jul 9
The Hug That Never Happened

They sat in silence, inches apart,
Two aching chests, one broken heart.
A single word could bridge the gap,
But pride stood tall, a cruel mishap.

The morning light through curtains poured,
Like grace that neither one implored.
A touch, a glance, a soft “I’m sorry”—
Could’ve rewritten all the story.

She brushed her teeth, stared at the stream,
He watched the wall, lost in a dream.
Each waiting for the other’s cue,
To do what both just meant to do.

A hug—just that. No grand parade.
No speeches long, no debts repaid.
Just arms around and tempers softened,
The kind of peace they’d both forgotten.

But silence grew where love had been,
A slow erosion, paper-thin.
And lawyers came with suits and sighs,
To box their lives and split the ties.

No scandal flared, no great affair,
Just missed connections, vacant stares.
The final line, a quiet shrug—
All for the lack of just one hug.

Now a year has passed, and so has he—
The boy who once sat on their knee.
He builds his walls with heavy care,
Afraid of love that won’t be there.

He flinches when voices start to rise,
He searches truth behind goodbyes.
He wonders why the warmest homes
Can turn to halls where no one roams.

His laughter, once so quick to bloom,
Now echoes softer in his room.
He says he’s fine, but in his eyes—
You see the cost of grown-up lies.

And they—the two who chose to part,
Now carry shards inside their heart.
Two separate lives that once were whole,
Now ghosted by a half-lived soul.

They fake their smiles, they learn to cope,
They grip at joy, they reach for hope.
But every quiet night reveals
A wound that time just never heals.

They’ll build new paths, they’ll find their way,
But something pure got lost that day.
For all the things they rose above—
They’ll never quite outrun that love.

Two people who will always ache,
For what they lost, and didn’t take.
And all because, when push had come,
They chose the cold and not the hug.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved
What's the point of healing if those who inspired change won't feel it?

I'm just supposed to be better for someone else?

Like moving a mountain to pave a path,
Connecting two cities at last
Just to keep walking on without even looking back?

But that's the way it goes
I suppose
And that is in fact the way that it goes
But you get to be better for yourself
Look at the useless life you’ve led,
Sleep the dying sleep—like the dead.
Restless nights on a thorn-infested bed,
What did you give the world, and what did you get?

What fate was sought, and what fate was set?
Harken the lies—how far it treads.
For this is hell, and from hell you’ve crept,
A shadow’s dance where sorrow’s kept.
A reckoning whispered in shadows—where past and future bleed into an endless night. A silent torment where the soul’s debts are counted in pain and regret.
Perchance God created this world
For you to bless its ground.
Perchance God, with the love He holds,
Believed that you must be bound.

So He stole all your love
And hid it far from view,
And now you walk the earth
Without feeling in truth.

Perchance He’s in endless doubt—
That one day, you’ll forget
What He did, and what He does—
Oh, it fills Him with regret.

So He fled within the stars,
And to work was He set—
To amend and put to right
Eons of secrets.

For from your love He shall create
Everything that ever flew—
Every red, wine-rich fruit.

And in His need to express His self-hate,
From all the silent tears you abate,
God channeled all His sorrow through—
Creating that beautiful, tender morning dew.
A soft imagining: that even divinity may carry regret—and that the world’s beauty may bloom from sorrow stolen in silence.
Lexi 3d
There were times where we felt right.

Most times, we were wrong.

This island was supposed to be a safe space—
Instead we didn’t feel we belonged.

Throughout our time together,

There’s been many sleepless nights.

There’s been many sad mornings,

And what seemed like endless fights.

Throughout our time together,

Sometimes we weren’t very nice.

Sometimes we hurt each other,

Sometimes we were cold as ice.

There are things I’m not proud of.

Things I used you to blame.
I wish you would understand me more—
Sometimes I feel it’s always the same.

Sometimes when I look at old pictures of you

And I stare into your eyes,

I worry you look brighter—

Is your happiness compromised?

Will I see that man again—

The one with eyes so sure?

Or what about the girl in my reflection—

Can we still heal her?

It makes me think about that night—

The one where flames burst.
I wonder, had they not,
Would we have reversed the curse?

I know now things have changed,

And the love between us grows.

But still, I sometimes worry
Deep roots may decompose.

As we continue to grow

Into these new chapters,

I want to show change.

I want us to be better.

I want us to stop the blame.

Can we mend the past

And move forward?

Can we rebuild as a team?

I want you in my life for good—

Not just now,

Not just for a dream.
alex 4d
Sleepless summer nights,
salty golden curls,
green swim shorts,
charming, star-speckled smiles.
Soft-spoken words,
guileless promises,
chilled beach air,
lapping waves,
crickets chirping,
cans cracking,
laughter echoing through darkness—
bonfires illuminating faces.
Lost in the labyrinth of bare love,
mistakes made,
heartbreak— inevitable.
Sunburnt hearts.
I trespassed through many lives,
some of them mine,
yours most of all.

Being young
does not excuse,
only shows how long
I've known better.

I thought breaking
was just another way
to change shape.
I mistook leaving
for becoming.

You stayed.
You learned to sleep
on a wet pillow.
I know.
I brought the storm
and called it weather.

You wake.
You endure.
You build a life
where I am a name,
a story you no longer tell.

You rise
like someone who had to.
I vanish,
like someone who chose to.

I see it.
Even now.

And I wonder
what it cost you
to stay kind
to the memory
of me.
beneath the frog’s soft belly
i found you —
not grand, not loud,
but cracked open
like a peach too ripe with truth.

the city spun on,
drunk on ruin bars and ghosts,
but we stayed low,
where quiet grows —
thick like moss —
and hearts speak
without permission.

i didn’t say it back:
i love you.
as though feeling was a crime.
but i regret it now.
baby, i’d serve
a thousand sentences
for something so divine.

your heart
didn’t pour —
it flooded.
and now mine —
is finally open,
mouth full of your name.

i’ll let the fog burn
bright above us,
and we’ll watch
from our underworld
of whispering soil —
wine-warm,
thinly worn,
relentlessly soft.
this one is about a love i couldn’t name at the time — but everything in budapest knew.
July 18, 2025
Boma Jul 17
What did I do that was so wrong?
I just loved you
And you made me regret it...
Yet you still found a way to make it my fault
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