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Laokos 2d
In the shadow of water
I know your true face.
not in the shadow
but in the feeling of
being in it.

…do you understand?

there’s a coolness
that wraps around me
just right,
like when evening comes
and the southern sun
finally relents its strength of illumination
to the unknowing of night.

through the shade of a wave
opaque enough to dilute
the intensity of the light
but not enough
to stop it from reaching me,
I recognize you.  

who are you
that you should linger
in my inner sight
like a sunspot
staining my vision wherever I look,
changing colors
behind my closed eyes?

a stranger?

perhaps I’ve known you
in other lives.
maybe we were lovers.
maybe we were almost lovers.
maybe this is our dance.
we circle each other
like leaves in an eddy,
a brief swirl of proximity
before we’re shot back out
to the flow of the river
like children on a slide,
laughing in our innocence—
in our ignorance.

then comes the
inevitable separation,
the distance,
the peculiar ambiguity
we wear like a skin—
like a camouflage.

but I still see you,
from time to time,
behind the eyes of a stranger

and

I still feel you
whenever I am in
the shadow of water.
Shadow,
Show me who I am.

Who I can be,
But who, I will not.

Teach me the
Fullness of a circle.

Square my interests
True and level.

But Shadow,
Keep behind me.

Do not devour
The desires I crave.

Release from me
Those sirens who call.

Stand with me,
In the glory of the day,

Be always by my side Shadow,
And I shall call you Brother.
Feeling the torn wings and shattered dreams.
Tear-stained pendulum swinging, as my eyes stare down the light in the hallway with a ten-yard stare.
Climbing into my soul, I cling to the shadow of my angel, trying hard to hold onto a ray of hope, like a dream catcher chasing away bad things.
Falling, I realize that in this descent, I am discovering myself on my way to the ground.
Falling endlessly and quietly, without a single sound,
I ask myself how much farther down I must go.
My soul whispers back softly, “Until you’re found.”

-Rhia Clay
alex May 12
Does it hurt when she treats you like a shadow of the millions,
because she’s the light.
Does it hurt, when you realise you only believed you had a chance
while you were just playing into her elaborate dance.

Even if it does,
you keep living
in all the things you never said
hoping that somewhere, somehow
it wasn’t just all in your head.

I know that it stings to know
she knows exactly how to reach you,
she just never does.
But for some reason, the thought of her
still makes my tormented heart stir.

So why the sadness that you’re over
when you never even really began?
Why do I mourn the life we could of had,
when it was never more than a daydream,
now a source of pain.

It hurts me that you didn’t stay,
I feel it everyday,
But I guess what I really want to know is,
Does it hurt you like it hurts me?
MetaVerse Apr 30

The shadow of the aloe plant
Is as still as the sunlight
That crawls along the wall.

As cast into light,
a shadow appears–
a quiet figure, stitched our heels,
moving as we move,
never speaking,
never sleeping.

It doesn’t beg to be seen–
yet it is always there.

It holds what we bury–
fear, denial, and grief;
the voices of fallacy,
the weight of dreams deferred.
In its void,
It collects the pieces
of what we choose to ignore.
The past echoes there.
The burden breathes there.
The purpose waits there.
Still.
Watching.
Black, like every other.

Peace, legacy, desire, love,
life, time, power, freedom–
the purpose we carry,
even in the dark.

Some move through life unaware of its presence.
At times, the shadow devours us as it follows,
becoming the void itself,
the same void we long to escape.

Like the birds that flow within the sky.
Like the wind that goes where it must.
Like art that forgets its maker.
Like the planets, moving by their own will.
Like a name, whispered into time itself.
Like any form it follows, stone, trees, dust.

It does not leave us,
It becomes whole.
Nicole Apr 14
Sometimes I stare at them
Hue's of rainbow, but
At a glance
Darkness
Obscure
Wraith
Oh, my days have gone back,
To the time I wore a sack.
Dusty, saggy—it was disgusting;
The threads holding it weren't so trusting.

The period long gone,
The chirpings I forgot—
All return, all anew,
Yet old, yet to be taught.

The sack still fits, though I've grown
In flesh and thought, yet not alone.
Its seams recall what I forget,
A stitched regret I haven’t met.

I tread the path I swore to shun,
A shadow walks where once I’d run.
It whispers truths I left behind—
Not cruel, just quietly unkind.

Do I resist? Or let it pass—
This mirror made of fractured glass?
For every step I try to flee,
The past keeps stitching into me.
I reopen the rusty rack—
My lost days have gone back.
Beneath the twilight’s soft embrace,
I wander through dreams of you—
A universe of fire and grace,
Where every star sings a love true.

Your eyes, like distant galaxies aglow,
Illuminate the corridors of my heart,
In every whispered breeze they bestow
A promise that we’ll never be apart.

Your voice, a river of tender notes,
Carries the secrets of the ancient skies,
Where love in every fleeting moment floats,
And time in your eternal presence lies.

In the garden of our shared desire,
Roses bloom with fervent, crimson fire,
Their petals drenched in passion’s refrain,
A symphony of longing, free of pain.

So let our souls entwine in endless flight,
A dance of shadows, light, and fervent grace,
For in this sacred, ever-blazing night,
Our love becomes the cosmos we embrace.
Lance Remir Apr 1
When we crossed paths again
The only intimacy that was shared
Were our shadows overlapping
And even then
Yours was the first to leave
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