𝐀 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐨𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧;
𝐀𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞,
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦.
𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐮𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭...
𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 ?
𝐒𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐢𝐬 𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐨𝐨;
𝐀𝐬 𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐬, 𝐬𝐨 𝐚 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬.
𝐌𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐲, 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐲, 𝐨𝐡 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐲...
𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐮𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐭;
𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐝𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐲𝐞𝐭,
𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐰𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞!
𝐇𝐚𝐬 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡?
𝐎𝐫, 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐈 𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐭 ?!?
𝐓𝐡𝐲 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞.

- 𝗔. 𝗥𝗼𝘀𝗲

Dust and Tattoos

I.
I thought I’d carry myself whole,
from Budapest’s bright embrace
to the dusty arms of home—
lessons etched as tattoos,
whippings turned wisdom,
the shine of surrender
making me anew.

But dusty roads have a way
of stealing your breath,
of burying who you were becoming.
Smoky windows blur the light inside,
and the life I learned to live
is suffocated beneath the weight.
Dust settles in my lungs,
on my skin,
and I am buried within myself.

II.
Oh sweet home, oh sorrowful walls,
your cracks hold my history,
your air is thick with stone-throwers.
A mother who never looks my way,
a sister carved from favoritism’s stone,
a brother who screams his poison,
a family that taught me how to ache.
No corner safe. No love unbarbed.
Each breath is a wound
and every wound is a lesson in survival.

I survive.
Not live.
Survive.

III.
Then, there is Kay.
Kay, with his better house in town,
Kay, with his borrowed peace.
Five years marked in love and betrayal,
a love that wears masks,
a peace that feels fragile,
a solace that cracks
when I’m not near his arms.

I detach to protect myself.
Switch my soul off.
Learn to find my peace in distance.
Even with him, I know:
the dusty town still calls me back,
its fingers curling at my ankles.
The cycle repeats.

IV.
But this time, there is hope.
This time, I whisper to myself:
maybe one day, the cycle will break.
Maybe one day, I’ll stand in a house
where no one has thrown stones,
where the walls hold only my voice,
where survival isn’t the rhythm of my days.

One day,
I’ll rise brighter than before,
tattooed lessons shining on healed skin.
One day, I’ll step off these roads
and never look back.

V.
But for now,
the roads are dusty.
For now,
I go where the dust consumes.
For now,
I survive.

Country roads, you know what to do.
Lead me home—
but one day,
lead me away.

The chilly breeze whispers against my skin,
As darkness descends, silence envelops within.
Ocean waves surrender to the moon's gentle pull,
Their soothing melody, my heart's lonely lull.

I wander, lost, from the world's prying eyes,
From scars that linger, like an open wound's sigh.
Yet, in this darkness, a glimmer of hope resides,
A beacon calling, guiding me to peaceful tides.

Halfway to solace, I pause, take a breath,
And let the night's tranquility envelop my depth.
One more step forward, into the unknown night,
Toward the promise of peace, where stars shine bright.

I brought you to the secret garden
Where I acquire inner peace
Where I am finally myself
And can escape from everything

I trusted you enough
To reveal that I am weak
That I made myself a garden
To distract me from my feelings

But after walking through my meadows
And now realizing I was free
You became overtaken in darkness
And began chopping down my trees

You destroyed everything I made
Until there was nothing left for me
You corrupted all my plants
And transformed them into weeds

I still marvel at the hopelessness
That you brought up onto me
And I regret in having trust
That you would offer some relief

To accept that I'm only human
And can sometimes fail at things
But I suppose it is a stretch
To assume you're not a freak

I mean after everything between us
I do not expect an apology
Cause in the grand scheme of things
We allowed our forests of solace to freeze

Together.

I want you to understand me
truly me
What makes me
me
What makes my muscle sore
What shakes me to my core
There is so much more to me than you will ever understand
You weren't delt this hand
no matter what I tell you
You cannot understand my struggle unless you have lived it
You cannot be the person I talk too unless you have felt Like life is not worth living
I know I have friends thats a fact I do not doubt
I don't want a friend.
I want a person that I can live life with forever.
And they will never leave me through love and sorrow.
They will want me around, not as a love but to love
The person who time stops when we're around each other.
But you can't be my oxygen and neither can I
I have to breathe the air that lies in the sky

long after these thousand days of
passing years, the eyes will feel a
sparking, I will remember you,
my dear old friends, reviewing
the where, the when, which will
flush, outing the whys
from my
memories

more than the poetic liturgy composed,
but what felled me to my knees,
yearning,
for the soup of love and passion,
pain+no gain, euphorias rising at the
trenching lows of depths
newly explored, hope returning after a
long time abandonment, the
excruciating ecstasy
of creating, the killing tedium of
months of no inspiration but the
glint of a possible tomorrow

but you knot all this,
so come to tell you,
long after the poem
encased in yellowing
emerald unwrapping
aging megabytes, more
than any old poem itself,
I wil remember what you
wrote in return, with insight
all we are, we are an interaction
a petrified yet living petri dish of
creatures re/anew,
r e n e w e d, and I am
young again

and the tears of yore no more,
fresh flowering droplets of
a longer than believable age,
factuals of the sweet,
you will move once
more, remaking me
your lover devotee

       and I wil stumble;
       the woman enquirer
       am I ok, whimsy
       respond never,
       never ever better
       my darling

and I lift a tissue
to erase the evidence
of my happy melancholic
existence, and start another
conversation with you, but no!

one of us long gone, name
erased, poems left behind,
orphaned children, them
and me left alone while
I will be remembered,
by remembering you,
our second of union

as it
reverberates, our amour
reunion is a wetting,
giving forth a burst,
a fluid sac,
again

Simple
Cold
...Spartan

Moments pass
impressions don’t

the Impression
of that Tree Wet and Dead
I so dread

I dread dark, cold and wet
Yet the Night’s solace stays unmatched