Today I did take a trip down Ashen Row,
Stepping 'cross stones both cobbled and cold,
Each pebble and brick laced with poverty's woe,
Observing nothing but starving children and dying old,

They stood with eyes hollow,
Hands that shook, knees bent,
Mother's clung to babes in sorrow,
Radiant once, now ravaged, spent

Sobbing beneath their weighted sin,
Too weak to fight, too strong to sleep,
While sunlight cowered behind silver skin,
And the wind could only scream and weep,


Bawling through streets-unheard, passed by,
While we moved in polished deftness,
Preferring the chatter of the spry and sly,
Master of our chosen deafness,

We saw the world in colours two:
Those of our gods, gold and might
A hungry child remained untrue
A whispering ghost beyond gilded sight,

Too small to matter, now ghosts. Denied.
No trembling limbs, nor fleeting breath,
Only shadows stretched, and rain replied,
With air, and stone, and death,

Now crime blooms where hope fled,
And Avarice wears high its sulfur crown,
We traded Saints for Lords of Greed instead,
And cast the cries of hunger down,

Yet on the road of stone and chill,
Danced a Fool, with iron will,
In colours too wild - too many to name,
He spun beneath painted acclaim,

His eyes sparkled, as though they knew,
What stars confess to chosen few,
He danced a wild and holy rite,
His shoes sang sorrow through the night,

The wind grew still to watch him spin,
The skies drew back, and smiled within,
And stone - from its cold unyielding throne,
Would hum unknowingly beneath his tone,

Each day I passed, each day I heard,
A hidden grief in every word,
His body spoke with frantic grace,
A mourning song, a laughing face,

Which god he served, I could not tell,
What vow he made, no tongue could spell,
But once- so fleeting, fierce, and bright -
The sun broke through, and dark turned light,

He could not end hunger's ache,
Nor mend the homes the rich forsake,
But when he danced, it seemed - it seemed -
The weary world itself then dreamed,

And for that grace alone, for a Fool's soft art,
I hold him sacred in my heart,

For he made stone sing - in ancient tone -
As if it crowned a long lost throne,
Whispering dreams forgotten, known.

i don't want it back at all
but i miss you
the way we laid together in the grass, holding onto the earth and holding onto each other
i miss the way we ran with our toes in the sand, our hands intertwined and our cares free to roam the beach and blow in the wind
i've nearly forgotten how perfectly your hair falls, flowing down your back like tears on my face
i miss how you made me feel like i was on top of the world
i miss how you would pick up when i fell
i miss knowing who you were
i miss wrapping every word that left your mouth around my pinky finger like an oath
i miss whispering my wishes to you in the dead of night, knowing only you could hear me
i miss you like a dreamer
i miss you like a prisoner
i miss your smile
i miss your frown
i miss your promises
i miss your lies
i miss the summers we made out of those cold december days
i miss you

It rings again—that liquid shudder,
a drowned plea in the throat of night.
I know this tune. I’ve danced on its edges,
laughter sharpening the blade.

Through the peephole: a silhouette,
blurred by tears that won’t come.
My hand on the latch hesitates, then yields.

There, grinning with the face I buried last winter,
my loneliness offers white roses,
their stems weeping light
for the wedding that never was.

And yet—

You once rang like joy.
I memorized footsteps too light to stay.
Your heartbeat, a hammer;
mine, the ruins it shaped.
Your eyes—where my salt found its shore—
still pooling, still fresh.

The moon turns its black eye away.
I cry thunder; silence swallows the sound.

No one knocks. No one asks
why every ring becomes a funeral bell,
why every visitor wears my own ghost,
arms brimming with lilies—

while my hands beg for roses,
red as the wound you named,
red as the voice that echoes
when no one rings at all.