I can feel it — faint, confined.
It's still there, but undefined.
Just suppressed,
and drugged to rest,
by a pill I couldn’t mind.

My brain won’t think, it slips, it stalls.
Like echoing in padded halls.
It’s wrong, it’s still,
it bends my will —
the silent weight that gently falls.

Traces of fear, of thought, of grace,
drift like mist through a flooded place.
I sense, not live,
no flame to give —
just shadows I can’t face.

Like perfume trails that softly cling —
of fear, of love, of everything.
They haunt, they stay,
but fade away —
as if beneath a wing.

They’re trapped inside, they do not spill.
All smothered
by that morning pill.
It crushed the tide,
the storm, the chill —
the scream I couldn’t will.

An outdated rule,
So many written by fools.
Once again,
A familiar attempt to suppress.
When power is weakly held,
Those who could claim it,
Are weakened.
Yet, no hand keeps down the spirit,
No chain nor cell.
What we long for,
We shall have.
In the face of desecration,
Flames must rise,
From the ashes of the Absolutarian.

All my life,
you said what you said.
I did what you said.

I wore full-sleeved clothes.
I stayed quiet.
My cries went into vacuum—
swallowed, silent.

But you always stood strong.
It’s the colour of skin.
The hair you couldn’t tame.
The nose that wasn’t yours.

I always just...
heard what you said
until my ears bled out.

You remind me of the mountains—
the ones I grew up with:
tall, oddly shaped, and proud.
It’s shocking
that my tears made you crumble,
like a lost girl at sea.

Glad to see,
the past haunts you
like it does me.

A sea of silent people with
Zippers instead of lip and teeth
So long it’s been since they’ve unzipped
They calcified like coral reef
And sometimes it is hard to breathe
When your captor is a feeling.
Their words are knives stuck in their sheathes,
At nightfall, they dream of screaming.

Their shoulders slumped, they knew that if
They sang or sighed or gave a speech
Before it was too late, their scythe
Would never have to reap and reap
And reap, but no, they sowed the seed,
If only they’d been believing
But they dug a grave, where they sleep
At nightfall, to dream of screaming.

Their kids don’t cry, instead, they writhe
Inheriting their voiceless grief
No words to soothe the kind of life
That never, ever knows relief
As it was stolen by a thief
And his name is Never Needing.
Their fear, it thrums to its own beat
At nightfall, they dream of screaming.

They waste away, they cannot eat
But now, death itself is freeing.
Their dreams once were the sun and sea—
Tonight, they just dream of screaming.

When I look at you, I see your beauty.
And when I look deeper, I feel your pain.
Will the world, for once, truly see me?
Or will they only glance at me?
Reflection, how do you perceive me?
So Wrongly.
Self, how dishonestly you portray yourself.

You see me smiling-
But do you see the weight beneath my grin?
You see me standing tall-
But can you feel the cracks I've hidden in my skin?
Reflection, you're too kind, too naive,
Believing the face I show the world.

They've taken my words, my truths,
And turned them into weapons sharp as glass.
What I gave in trust, they twisted,
Used it to cut me where I'm most fragile.

So now I hide. I build these walls so high,
Even you, my reflection, can't climb inside.
I keep my pain locked tight behind my smile,
For fear of giving them the keys to destroy me again.

I wonder, reflection-
Are you a facade too?
Do I hide from you as much as the world,
Turning away from what's true?

Can I trust you?
Can you see past the armor I've forged,
Or are you just another wall I've built,
Keeping me from myself?

I'm afraid to look too closely-
What if you're just another lie?
What if I've buried the real me so deep,
That even my own eyes can't find me?

Until next time, reflection...
If I'm ever ready to face you again.

Suppression and revelation,
two entwined masters of destiny?

They take off my clothes

and smell my mouth and my heart --


whether I love you.