Emerald jealous eyes, over the dominion of the clock;
Unshackled by the chains of authority, for who can
Predict the beginning of time or the path it shall traverse?
Time, the ultimate liberator of existence, flows like water,
Shapeless yet potent, wielding an influence that touches
Every soul.

Time, the most cunning of thieves, robs any idea
Of having more time. It slips through fingers
Like sand, giving short nights; relentless demands
Of an overbearing master, giving us longer days.

When one self-medicates,
Sometimes they grab the nostrum
Rather than the cataplasm.
Trying to clean the well, they mistake belladonna for myristica.
Perhaps it was the region or the season,
Maybe the water table atop which they were building.
Were it a town,
Perhaps its citizen lacked hygiene
Or had no care to maintain things.
Maybe they sparsely talked things over
And thought little of one another.
Of the many circumstances,
It could've been the building materials
Or the architects.
The dictates we lay out
For ourselves and those around us
Rarely are truly followed
In the case of relations between each other,
And typically less so
In the case of the larger world.

In the teardropped dew of golden hour
as dusk-sun dips below the edge,
an angel of bronze upon a stone bower
keeps watch as nighttime’s fingers stretch.

Across the spans of painted sky,
one by one bright sparks appear:
constellations form as portraits high,
a hunter, two bears, points on the sphere.

These starry creatures connect the dots,
parade across the firmament
and crown the angel deep in thought,
twelve stars, a wreathed encirclement.

The hunter wheels around the dome
of charcoal sky. His thrice-jeweled belt
shines out to mark him as he still roams
in pursuit of where scorpions dwelt.

Above him run two starry bears,
one’s tail-tip pointing to the north.
Though he lays his trapper‘s snares
the scorpion always hurries forth.

The angel watches the hunt go on
as it’s been since this our rock was made.
She hums her part in creation’s song
that set it all turning on time’s old lathe.

There in the shade by moonlight cast,
this angel smiles at the pageantry
of starry figures marching past
to mark her maker’s majesty.

He tires with certainty,
Locks himself away.
Turns into a ghost,
Disappearing for days.
A cup that is empty
Waits for time to heal all.
Surrounded by noise and
Feeling so small.
A buffer is the night with
A new given chance.
For him to recover
Then rejoin the dance.

For much of my life, I found myself overextended, giving in to requests and demands that left me drained and resentful. My energy was siphoned away by others, leaving me little time or space to tend to my own needs. In the pursuit of approval, or perhaps the avoidance of confrontation, I became a servant to the expectations of those around me. Yet, I realized that this servitude was not born out of obligation, but from my own inability to say “no” — a simple word, yet one that carries profound weight.

Learning to say “no” is, at its core, an act of self-preservation. It is not a rejection of others, but a reclamation of my time and energy. It is a statement of my boundaries, a way of asserting that my needs, desires, and well-being are just as valid as those of the people who ask for my help. The first step was recognizing that I am not responsible for meeting every expectation placed upon me. In fact, every time I said “yes” out of guilt or fear, I was betraying my own priorities, eroding my own autonomy.

The key to refusing others lies not in bluntness, but in clarity and conviction. To decline with grace, I needed to acknowledge that I am entitled to protect my time. By doing so, I discovered that I can offer more to the world when I am not constantly exhausted or overwhelmed. In reclaiming my ability to say “no,” I opened up a reservoir of energy that could be redirected toward the things and people that matter most to me. It was not selfishness, but rather a conscious decision to steward my own resources wisely.

I also learned that guilt has no rightful place in this equation. The discomfort that arises from setting boundaries is temporary, and it pales in comparison to the long-term depletion caused by over-commitment. Others may not always understand, but their approval is not what defines my worth. There is immense power in standing firm, in recognizing that I cannot be everything to everyone. Saying “no” is an act of integrity; to myself, and in turn, to those who truly depend on me.

By understanding the limits of my own capacity and cultivating the courage to enforce those limits, I now live with greater intention. Every “no” is a door that I close so that I may focus on the doors that truly lead to the life I want to create.

–

If you could hear the music once more,
Would you take my hand to the dance floor?
Would we recall each step we knew,
Or falter on the path we never grew?

Would I grasp at the chance,
To share with you this last dance?

I shouldn’t.
I couldn’t.
I won’t.

For this last dance belongs to a heart worthy of my embrace.

— Sincerely, Boris

The mountains keep their secrets well—
in their silence, they bear the grief of stone,
the centuries pressed into stillness,
each stratum a tale of what once was
and what shall ever be.
One looks upon them and thinks,
they have never known what it is to fall.
But does one not hear them groan
beneath the weight of themselves,
the way they shift in the night
like old men turning in their slumber?

Each crack in the rock does whisper
of pressures unseen, tectonics
of ancient sorrows long since stilled.
In this, they are alike to us:
holding fast to the unspoken,
wearing their jagged edges
as though they have no need of gentleness.
But hark—does one hear it?

The way the wind grazes their faces,
how even the stone does yield to that
which is so soft it has no name.

We come to them burdened,
bearing the weight of days
like a sack of heavy stones,
each one a moment believed
to be the end of something vital.

We hold them close, believing
they are all we have—
these small griefs that anchor us
to the ground we tread upon.

But the mountains know
what we have not yet learned—
that every stone shall one day
become dust,
every peak worn smooth
by the selfsame wind
that now does caress the face.
We are not less for this,
nor are we more.

We are but the shape
life has taken to know itself,
to feel, in this brief span,
the vastness of what it means
to be.

Consider this:
the stars, too, shall perish,
and yet their light does wander
the corridors of space,
filling the night long after
they have burned themselves out.
We are no different.
What we are now, in this moment
of small sorrow, shall pass.

It is not the end,
but a whisper in the vastness

of what we are yet to become.
So let the mountains speak to us.

Let them tell how even they
must break and bow to time,
how their strength lies not in
holding firm, but in the slow
unfolding of their edges
to the universe's touch.

We are not small,
nor are we infinite.

We are the echo
of all that has ever been
and all that shall ever be.

Listen, and one shall hear
how the mountains weep
not because they are broken,
but because they are becoming.

                                                  And so are we.

-                                        I've spent so many hours
                                         underneath this sky,
                                                         Lamenting,
        The days between pass by me
         one by one, ah,
         Unrelenting,
                      They've all been the same,
                                       You see,
                Since you left this world behind,
      But I look for you in the starlight,
                    As your voice plays in my mind.

There is a house
on the edge of the world,
where the wind forgets its name.
It does not welcome travelers;
it devours them,
pulling their stories
into the walls,
where they rattle like leaves
trapped in glass jars.

No one built this house.
It grew.
Its beams are the ribs
of something that never learned to die,
its windows open not to air
but to the sighs of lost seasons.
Even the sun’s gaze
glances off its roof,
afraid to linger.

The door isn’t locked,
but it resists touch—
a surface too smooth,
like skin stretched
over something restless beneath.
Still, you knock,
your knuckles trembling
as the sound folds into silence.

Inside, the rooms shift
when you look away.
A hallway grows longer
with each step,
its floorboards breathing softly,
as though the house is inhaling
your unease.
The walls ache with the weight
of unsaid things.

In the center of the house,
there is a room
with no corners,
its shape dissolving
as you try to name it.
Here, the wind gathers.
Not the wind you know—
not the playful breeze
or the feral howl—
but the discarded breaths
of all who came before you.

You see their faces in the wallpaper,
their mouths frozen mid-sentence,
their eyes half-lidded
like clocks stopped
between seconds.
They whisper your name,
though you have not spoken it.

You try to leave,
but the house will not permit it.
It swallows your footsteps,
its floors growing soft
as the wind begins to rise.
It presses into your chest,
pulling at the corners
of your voice,
stealing the words
before they can shape themselves.

And then you know.
The house eats the wind
because the wind carries memory,
and memory tastes of the living.
It feeds on the forgotten,
the untold,
the silences that stretch
between what was
and what will never be.

When you vanish,
as you must,
the house will grow another door,
another room to catch the wind.
Someone else will come.
They always do.