We both sat in different cities when our conversation started,
not chasing sparks,
just tired souls
looking for soft places to rest.
No promises hung in the air,
no games, no veiled agendas—
just a quiet click,
like puzzle pieces long lost
now found in the same box.
You asked what I’m passionate about,
and I didn’t hold back.
You didn’t flinch at the messy parts.
You shared your own—
not for pity, not for drama,
just truth,
and I listened like I’d been waiting
to hear you all my life.
We laughed about bad jokes,
Talk over what we each had for dinner,
traded secrets like childhood treasures
buried too deep for most to see.
For once, I didn’t feel like explaining myself
was a chore.
And you—
you didn’t try to fix me.
You just listened,
like you knew the weight of it too.
I don’t know where this is going—
if anywhere.
But for tonight,
your voice is a light in a room
I forgot needed one.
And that’s enough.

Above the horizon
A canopy      
          So dark
Words cannot separate

Even when in
      Negative image

The single full stop
                              Of a moon
             Gives nothing away

where the hell am I
I don't recognize this place
we are led like cows to slaughter
blind to this disgrace
we take their poisons with a grin
while they get filthy rich
they play us like a lab of rats
then kick us to the ditch
our taxes buy their mansions
the market is their bank
they wallow in their sick perversions
their eyes are dark and blank
this is the final scene
where we proceed or wave the towels
do we let these ******* get away
or feed them to the cows

is it curious that we spare our souls
through poetry,
but remain closed books to our "family"?

More Alike Than We Knew

We once burned like wildfire caught,
No hesitation, second thought.
We built a world in gasps and skin,
A sacred place we both fit in.

Before the war, before the grief,
Before the silence stole belief—
We lived like nothing could divide
The way your soul once moved with mine.

But then the war pulled you away,
And I stood still while skies turned gray.
When you came back, you weren’t the same—
And neither was I, if I’m being plain.

I wore a uniform too long,
And braved the frontlines, stayed strong.
But still, the dust stayed in my chest,
Long after I was told to rest.

Then came the bridge, the twisted steel,
The weight of death I couldn’t heal.
The sirens, smoke, the eerie screams—
They still show up inside my dreams.

And COVID took the last of me—
The halls of death, the constant plea.
Masked and moving, heart on fire,
Another loss, another pyre.

You had your ghosts—I had mine too,
But we both thought we had no clue.
We passed like strangers in one space,
Each hiding panic in our face.

I thought you’d shut the door on me.
You thought I needed to be free.
But truth is, love—we both withdrew,
And we were more alike than we ever knew.

I swallowed pain, you turned away.
Both thinking, “They don’t want to stay.”
But every time we didn’t speak,
We built the wall another week.

We made love soft, then not at all.
You blamed the world. I blamed the wall.
But deep beneath the days we lost,
We never stopped. We just paid the cost.

We could have fixed it, if we dared—
To say we broke, to say we cared.
To hold each other past the pride,
And cry for what we kept inside.

But trauma doesn’t knock or ask,
It buries truth behind a mask.
And though we both were bleeding through,
We never said, “I see you too.”

Still, I remember how you burned,
And how my hands to you returned.
And somewhere deep, I know it’s true:
I was more like you…
And you were more like me too.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.