Beneath the moon's cold, silver eye,
She walks alone where shadows lie.
A girl with chaos in her veins,
Addictions anchoring her chains.

The beggar sat with cards in hand,
A gypsy wind, a whispering sand.
"The Tower falls," the old man said,
"A truth will strike, you'll wish you fled."

Reality, like glass, now shatters,
Her consciousness—no longer scattered.
A daggered truth, it tears, it rends,
As darkness gathers, old wounds mend.

She wears her past like ghostly shrouds,
A shadow trailing, black and proud.
Her demons leer with burning flame,
Eyes of guilt—they know her name.

She sees herself through mirrors cursed,
A jagged soul, her sins rehearsed.
Her reflection screams, a silent dirge,
And madness sings—a wretched urge.

She stumbles through a twisted maze,
Insanity in walls ablaze.
A labyrinth where screams rebound,
And all the exits can’t be found.

The sage’s smoke—an earthly balm,
Cannot restore her spirit’s calm.
For though she begs the world to save,
The map she needs is hers to pave.

No hands but hers can cut the thread,
No voice but hers can wake the dead.
Though black fire demons haunt her way,
Her will alone can break their sway.

So in the dark, she makes a vow,
Though frail, though lost—she’ll rise somehow.
The Tower fell, but she remains,
A storm, reborn from fractured chains.

The Smiling Man smiles day after day
Hardly getting any sleep
When night falls in his bed he'll lay
And he then begins to weep

Most days there's no life in his eyes.
No words on his tongue.
No thoughts in his mind.
No breath in his lungs.

He is but a mere carcass
Of what once was
His body is cold and lifeless
Flies swarm around him in an annoying buzz

His limbs are stiff
And so is his face
That smile still on his lips
His body stuck in one place

But when the sun falls
He begins to cry
His sobs echo through the halls
As he questions "Why?"

For despite his smile
He is not happy
Instead he feels vile
And his vision is blurry

The Smiling Man smiles day after day
Perhaps it is for the best
For it must always be this way
Even after his inevitable death

We’ve made this place of leaving—
a vault for the untended.
Emotions stack like unlabeled jars,
their contents thick with time,
sediments of grief,
crystals of joy unsavored.

Are we the living,
or the ones who forgot
to move their hands
in the rhythm of the world?
The air smells of waiting,
stale, heavy with pause.
We circle the same questions,
polishing them into mirrors
where our faces blur.

Inside us,
an atlas torn apart:
coastlines of longing,
islands of silence,
rivers carving paths we never took.
Each scar a road.
Each sigh a compass.
Yet the map to home
eludes us still.

We walk the perimeter of ourselves,
searching for the key we swallowed.
The treasures we hoard
are dust without light,
their worth unseen,
their meanings locked
in a language we once spoke
but let slip away.

What is this place?
A limbo where our shadows
mourn their bodies.
Here, even death hesitates,
unsure if it belongs.
And we, the keepers,
stand guard over
what we cannot name—
prisoners and sentinels both,
afraid to leave,
afraid to stay.

I am trapped,
Trapped in a delusion,
A mirage of what once was,
Where shadows dance in the corners,
And echoes of laughter fade into silence.

There is no one;
I am left alone,
A solitary figure in a landscape of memories,
The nights look haunted,
Cloaked in a shroud of darkness,
Whispering secrets of the unseen.

Day whispers a cry,
A cry of a dead man within my heart,
A heartbeat that falters,
Lost in the labyrinth of my thoughts,
I am a prisoner,
Who has done no crime,
Yet here I languish,
Bound by invisible chains.

I want to move,
But can’t feel my feet,
I want to talk,
But silence wraps around me,
I want to cry,
But has no reason
I want to laugh,
Laugh louder again!
Again no reason.

I am a ghost lost in my stories,
Where I am dead,
Yet still feel the pain,
The pain of my dreams,
And the people I left behind.

I want to return,
Return back to them,
But I’ve lost the way that takes me to them,
The path obscured by the fog of regret,
I am stuck,
Stuck in this dream,
A wisp of a thought,
A fleeting shadow.

I want someone to wake me up,
To pull me from this slumber,
I want to get out of the character,
Shed this skin that no longer fits,
I want to get out of the cell
Which has no wall,
A prison of my own making,
Where freedom is a whisper,
And hope flickers like a dying flame.

My chest is a drum, relentless and wild,
A furious rhythm, untamed, unstyled,
Each beat pounds harder, faster, loud,
Trapped in this storm, beneath its shroud.

I search for the cause, but answers evade,
Is it the stress from the choices I’ve made?
The work that piles, the dreams deferred,
Or unspoken fears, those thoughts unheard?

Affairs of the heart tug me both ways,
Promises tangled in shadowed haze,
Is it love that quickens this torrid pace,
Or fear of losing a fleeting embrace?

The future looms, uncertain, unclear,
Its whispers feed my quietest fears,
Am I walking a path that’s truly my own,
Or chasing shadows, endlessly thrown?

The coffee surges, a bitter ally,
Fuel for the sleepless nights gone awry,
Yet every sip brings a sharper sting,
Winding the gears, tightening the spring.

And then there are voices, harsh and unkind,
The toxic echoes that clutter my mind,
Their pressure a weight I can’t displace,
Adding to this frantic race.

I clutch my chest, will it to slow,
But the current runs deeper than I can know,
No breath can calm this raging tide,
No place to run, nowhere to hide.

Yet still, I seek the silence within,
A flicker of peace, where healing begins,
Though the source eludes, the fight is mine,
To reclaim this heart, to steady its time.

One breath, one moment, one step away,
From the tempest that grips me, this disarray,
I’ll find the stillness, I’ll break this chain,
And bring my heart back home again.

I tell myself, Not now, but soon,
As hours slip by and day turns to moon,
Each task a shadow, a whisper, a weight,
Pushed to the future, left for fate.

The list grows longer, a towering spire,
Each undone deed fuels the fire,
A creeping pressure, a heavy chain,
The echoes of time call out my name.

One more scroll, I plead, I stall,
As unfinished work begins to sprawl,
The walls close in, the air turns tight,
Procrastination steals my fight.

I see the path I should have tread,
The steps unwalked, the words unsaid,
Yet here I sit, in stillness bound,
With every choice, I lose more ground.

The weight of delay becomes my cage,
A storm of regret, a quiet rage,
Trapped in a cycle, I fight to break free,
But the grip of avoidance clings to me.

Still, I rise with a trembling start,
A small rebellion, a beating heart,
One task, one step, one fleeting win,
A crack of light lets hope begin.

For though the mountain looms ahead,
And doubts still whisper in my head,
Each effort, no matter how slight or small,
Chips at the fortress, crumbles the wall.

Procrastination, you won’t define,
The rhythm, the purpose, the life that’s mine,
I’ll fight your hold, though the battle is long,
With steady resolve, I’ll grow strong.

I am comfortable inside my head,
invisible borders,
self-imposed rules.

They keep me safe.
An illusion of security.

But when the walls
inevitably
close in on me,
there’s nowhere to run.

Trapped inside this fragile paper cage.
Nothing keeps me in,
yet everything does.

I'm lost in the depths of my own mind,

suffocating under the weight of my thoughts.

Reality is distorted,

truth and lies are intertwined.

Every moment feels like a ticking time bomb,

waiting to unleash its destruction.

I'm paralyzed by the fear of being hurt again.

You're a potential threat,

a risk I'm not willing to take.

I scrutinize your every move,

waiting for the inevitable mistake.

But beneath this façade of self preservation,

a voice whispers the painful truth:

I'm the one who's broken, I'm the one who's afraid.

The ghosts of the past still haunt me,

their echoes reverberating through my soul.

I'm trapped in this cycle of fear,

pushing away anyone who dares to get close.

I'm convinced I'm better off alone,

safe behind the walls I've built.

Yet, in this isolation,

I'm drowning in my own despair,

longing for connection,

but terrified of the vulnerability it requires.

This self imposed exile is a double edged sword.

It protects me from the pain of rejection,

but also denies me the warmth of human connection.

I'm a master of deflection,

disguising my fear as indifference.

I'll push you away, test your resolve,

and measure your love by the distance

you're willing to travel.

But what if you stay?

What if you see beyond the armor I've crafted,

beyond the scars and the fears?

What if you touch the fragile heart beating beneath?

The thought sends shivers down my spine.

For vulnerability is a risk I've never been willing to take.

Yet, the possibility tantalizes me,

It's like a siren's call to the depths of my soul.

In this tug of war between heart and head,

I'm torn asunder.

And a part of me yearns to surrender,

to let go of the controls and freefall into the unknown.

Another part clings to the familiar,

the comfort of solitude, the certainty of pain.

And so I hover,

suspended between two worlds,

unsure which path to choose.

For the silence in here is deafening,

mirroring a reflection of the war raging within me.