In the dim light of a room, shadows cling tight,
A girl faces her fate, Stage III breast cancer in sight.
With courage so soft, and grace in her eyes,
She endures each day as her life slowly dies.

Her beauty, unspoken, her spirit so bright,
Yet no one dared to love, no tender delight.
Men admired her grace, but their fear held them back,
Unable to see the love in her heart’s quiet track.

Then from nowhere, a stranger came near,
A man whose gaze was both kind and sincere.
He loved her fiercely, despite her cruel fate,
His love untouched by the shadows of hate.

Now, as the days drift away like sand in the breeze,
She sings a prayer, her heart begging please.
“God, grant me more time to cherish his grace,
To hold him close, to see his sweet face.”

“Let not my end come before I’ve seen,
More moments with him, where our love can convene.
For in his arms, I’ve found what’s true,
A love so deep, so pure, so new.”

With each note, her plea rises high,
A song of love, a soul’s desperate cry.
“Give me a few more days,” she pleads in pain,
“To be with him, to hold him again.”

Her voice falters, a whisper in the night,
A prayer of love, a final fight.
In the silence that follows, tears fall free,
For the love she cherishes and the life she longs to see.

In this unforgiving
barren land,
I grow–
from roots that grip
the parched and arid earth.

Spared
by a relentless sun,
I am allowed to rise.

Yet this pardon
I must question.
I've asked for no such mercy,
defying heat, enduring wind
not merely surviving
but blooming.

I fear a coming catch,
a price unspoken,
a toll unseen,
against which I must guard.

A shield of distrust
surfaces,
sharp, defensive spikes
among the flowers
that dare show color here.

And I remain
resilient,
wary and wondering
why.

I didn't mean to start
the violence.

Something inside
me broke, and

I came alive.

Releasing the anger
within,

Knowing no matter
what I do, I can't win.

Can't please the detractors;
scars have barely faded,
and look at what they've created:
a walking disaster.

Basking in the fire,
the walls keep closing in on me,
and the flames keep climbing higher
and higher.

The anger rising,
a tide of fire,
the monster inside,
tired of the lies
and neverending disaster.

The slithering snake slid swift and slow
Past my ear and into my mind,
Shrank to a seed as sharp as crystal snow
And grew to close my ears, and eyes blind .

Woe became to me a pleasant friend
And smeared shame upon my body,
After a bath of stone and cement
And common eyes beguiled at my misery.

I walked on salt, after the sores from broken glass
Knowing the gift of agony is matched in cursing ecstasy,
Why worry in ceremony about superseding onus?
Why smile in agony about the coming bliss here indefinitely?

Light came and bathed me with honey
And flowered beneath my feet a fine feather,
Light watered my eyes to like an open curtain
And the common eye repulsed my treasure.

Like a lonely rose
froze to stone,
heart hardened to marble
below a coat of snow;
barbed bones grow
labored and slow
but red petals
still radiate, aglow-
posed not quite open,
although not quite closed.

Warmer wind blows,
rain drops
clapping, lachrymose;
spring-lit spirit sprints
towards summer solstice, awoke;
green leaves,
emerald embers stoked,
emitting dandelion smoke.

Trophy bouquet meadows
of romanceless nosegay
and posy mosaic laying apropos;
seeds evoked and thrown
from my own torso.

Emotions
forwards flown
to almost certain vertigo
then swiftly sunk in undertow
from only breeze's uneven strokes;

No thing hallowed,
corpse bloated, decomposed;
worms hunger and burrow,
tomorrow sowing unknown woes-
soul harrowed as if I chose.