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Maria May 16
Veins that branch up to the arches,
sun that rises, comes down, and parches.

It is mighty, it is strong,
it has been here all along.
The arms shield, the legs stand firm.
From tallest human to smallest worm,
it rises above and shields us all,
yet we hardly ever notice it, at all.

It is playful, it is kind,
it helps soothe our hearts and minds.
The fingers tickle, tease, and fright -  
letting in the dappled light.
It sees us laughing as we play,
it entertains us, day after day.

It is noble, it is wise,
it has seen so many lives.
The body will shelter and explore,
we couldn’t really ask for more.
It braves the truths and grows despite,
living through the darkest nights.

I cannot help but admire,
the trees – of their company, I’ll never tire.
Cadmus May 15
⛈️

When she left,
she left like rain,
Soft regret,
a touch of pain.

A fleeting storm
you live right through,
A wound, the light
can filter through.

Then she walked through someone’s door,
She shook the walls,
she split the floor.

What seemed to him like gentle air
Became a firestorm
unaware.
A woman broken is not a woman ended. She leaves as a whisper, but pain reforges her into something untamed. What once loved gently can return with teeth. This is not vengeance… it’s evolution.
Cadmus May 16
It doesn’t scream.
It whispers
soft as ash
settling
where fire used to be.

It lives
in the pause
before you speak your truth,
in the mirror
you half avoid
each morning.

It wears your voice
in rooms where you shrink,
calls itself “just tired,”
“just busy,”
“just fine.”

It is the bruise
you forget to touch,
the silence
you defend
with a smile too wide.

No blood.
No scar.
Just the slow unraveling
of who you were
before you believed
you were not enough.
Shame is a quiet architect of silence, often unspoken, yet deeply rooted. These verses aim to give voice to what hides in the dark and light to the path of healing.
Kalliope May 15
You want to be a family, I admire that- I really do
I think too much has happened, in the past, between me and you.

See I learned what soft love feels like,
That I don't think you can give
I don't look at you with stars in my eyes,
Why couldn't you change when I did?

Once you were my universe, and like women before me I held you down
But I don't want my daughter to be generationally cursed to be a man's clown.

They say we're from a line of strong women, and yes I do believe that's true, but I don't want to be strong for sticking it out, I want the strength to forever leave you.

Maybe this is the fork in the road, where my mother chose to stick it out,
I can't raise a daughter on fake love of that I have no doubt.

Really it's up to me, I can't blame great grandma for this gift,
I always thought narcissists move on to a new supply but this man tirelessly tightens his grip.

I can't ask the moon for answers, no- this has to come deep from within, will I have the courage to keep the **** away? Or will I keep our matronly traditional trend?
I am my mother's daughter, but there's two sides to that coin
Do I follow in her footsteps?
Or have the strength to do what she could never do.
Ali Hassan May 15
A silent knight who rode through flames,
Fought the war he could not tame.
He knew the end before the start,
But duty burned within his heart.

He fought not for the songs or fame,
Nor dreamed of honor, nor sought a name.
He walked the path that fate had made—
A road of fire he could not evade.

His back is bent, his breath is weak,
No strength to rise, no words to speak.
Still on his knees, he won’t let go
His sword still burns with steady glow

With trembling hands, he plants it deep,
A spine of steel his soul will keep.
Though body crushed, he stands upright,
A shattered man, but still a knight.

You see defeat when you stare,
Yet did you sense the fear there?
He’s lost the war—but he feels none.
For in his fall… the fight was won.
Leave when the sky is loud but the sidewalk is quiet.
When the door clicks shut like it’s keeping a secret,
don’t flinch.
Let your hands hang heavy,
the silence has its own grip.

Take only what fits in your chest,
you’ll be shocked what doesn’t.
Use only what won’t puncture your lungs.
(Even breath can betray you.)

Don’t check the mirror.
It lies loudest when you’re quiet.

If you must cry, do it in motion.
Stillness makes grief cocky,
then it hands you a mirror labeled “proof”
and waits.

Let the memory bruise.
Don’t label it.
Names are spells.

Closure’s a mirage
that waves from the distance
and never once turns around.

When the day feels unbearable,
bear it.
Not because you’re strong—
because you’re stubborn
and still here.

By month three,
his name will taste like static.
By month six,
you’ll forget the exact color of his laugh.
And by month twelve—
you’ll mistake the whole thing for a metaphor.

You’ll almost be right.
But even metaphors
break skin.
Memory crusts,
but it never closes.
for when you finally go and don't look back
Jonathan Moya May 15
The empty lot of the abandoned car dealership
is overrun with dandelions, thistles, and sticker weeds.

On the right is a Baptist church standing
sternly against the invasive plants.  

The ministry’s gardener sprays Roundup
on the weaker creepers while his assistant
uses a torch on the deeply rooted ones.  

On the left is a BBQ specializing in Nashville Hot Chicken.  

Congregants fill the abandoned spaces on Sundays,
parking in every white-lined spot.  

On weekdays, the meat, pork, and poultry adherents
occupy the fringes of the cracked tarmac.

Saturdays are the days for the wildflowers to bloom,
the sticker weeds to cling to the cuffs of children’s pants,
and the hindquarters of every sniffing dog.

Church festival days were the time for the lot to be filled
with popcorn, churro, and taco carts-
ring toss, balloon pop, and fish bowl toss booths-
a bounce house, and the heroes of the Bible
obstacle course for the children.

Halloween week was the one time the BBQ joint
had the lot to itself. It erected a tent of horror
filled with demons, bedsheet ghosts, and demented chainsaw-wielding dwarves. The finale featured
the patrons being strapped to an altar and exorcised
by a defrocked priest and ******* clad nuns.

The other scary ride was the tunnel of love and marriage.  Couples were faux-married by a maniacal judge and,
by the end, were divorced by the jurist’s serial killer twin. What happened in between the nondisclosure agreements everyone signed kept it all private and secret.

Since the horror house made a lot of money and the church received a large sponsor donation,    
the deacons ignored the false sins and degradations.
  
Anyway, by Monday, the altar was gone,  
the neon horror tent collapsed and  
the sticker weeds reclaimed their corners,  
waiting for the next act.

Most days, I drive past it all—the sermons,
the spice rub, the ghost  dealership, the exorcisms,  
and I wonder if this patch of cracked asphalt  
knows what it is. Or if it even matters.

But nothing stops the dandelions from
dancing in the breeze and car exhaust air,
singing their minor chord hallelujahs to life.
        
On Sundays the faithful return to their pulpits.
By Fridays, the altar is a karaoke stage,  
with the pastor belting out “Highway to Hell”  
between deep-fried sermons.

And then lunch at the BBQ on the other side.
Call me a failure,
a scissor-less tailor.
But I’m not a terrorist—
I’m a trial-and-errorist!

I fall into fire,
then rise even higher.
I seek inner flash,
not just piles of cash.

Accept that I’m different—
I don’t swim with the current.
I’m not here to conform;
I’m here to transform.

Born to learn,
my brain’s a disk to burn.
Life runs on zero-one—
The sky holds the moon and sun.

Each soul crafts its story,
So I’m not so sorry
for narrating mine—
whether I fail or shine.

Write. Rewrite. Restart.
My life itself is the art.
A personal manifesto in verse — celebrating failure, transformation, and the courage to rewrite one’s life. A poetic ode to resilience in a world that demands conformity.
Vicky Donald May 11
She was born where the walls would tremble and sway,

Where love came in shouting, then drifted away.

Where silence could cut like a whispering blade,

And kindness was rare as the warmth of May.



Her mother drank storms and let them cascade

On young, aching shoulders, alone and afraid.

She never asked thunder to fall from the skies,

But still bore the weight under tear-salted eyes.



She learned that trust is a word carved out in stone-

Left out in the rain, eroded, alone.

She gave hers to hands that vowed to stay,

But they shattered her trust and then walked away.



At thirteen, her world didn’t fully fall down,

But something inside her refused to be found.

She stopped seeking mirrors, stopped seeking sound,

Felt sure that no soul would hear if she drowned.



Bur deep in the dark, she found ink and a page-

A space to release her quietest rage.

She wrote to survive, let sorrow flow,

To dream of a world where kind hands would grow.



word upon word, she built from the pain,

A self, made of fire, of hope, of the rain.

She grew-not just older-but fiercely and right,

A warrior shaped in the absence of light.



Now she’s a mother, a woman, a flame,

Who shields her own from sorrow and shame.

She listens, she holds, she stands strong and true,

Becoming the love, she never once knew.



The past still whispers, but cannot command;

It doesn’t define her, it doesn’t stand.

She writes-not to flee, but to chart the climb,

Each line a reminder: she rose every time.



She tells the girl hidden deep in her mind,

“We made it, we lived, we rose, and we shined.

The monsters are silent-they don’t get the end.

We write the last word, with strength as our pen.”
Cadmus May 12
Don’t be alarmed
if evil blooms
where you sowed
your gentlest good.

Not all earth
welcomes roots
some soils rot
what should have stood.

So plant with love,
but learn the ground,
for even light
can be misunderstood.
A reflection on misplaced effort, toxic environments, and the wisdom of discernment.
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