Have you ever wondered
If your existence was simply
A universal mistake?
That when your mom talks about
Almost making sure
That you weren't born
That something got in the way
That shouldn't have?

I lay here in agony
Believing this
Believing in my supposed
Unexistance

When she talks about forgetting
That you even exist
Other than when she randomly gets
A little reminder
I sit and I wonder
If that's maybe just the universe glitching
Because somewhere in some time
I wasn't meant to be

I sit and I wonder
If my supposed unexistance
Can explain everything away
Because maybe its the universes way
Of trying to correct its mistake

I'm not a mistake here
Not there
Or anywhere on a level of your attention
I'm a mistake on the level
Of universal inattentiveness

My existence has been pure hell
Full of near death experiences
Via my own hands and others
But I am a quantum mistake
That isn't easily erased
Even tho I long to be

I sit and I wonder
If my supposed unexistance
Can explain everything away
Because maybe its the universes way
Of trying to correct its mistake

Are all the failed relationships
Simply because the universal pairs
Made between one person and another
Had never included me in the equation?

Is my upbringing full of abuse
And horrors beyond comprehension
Simply because you can't love
Something that wasn't meant to be
In existence?

Does my body fail me
Fall apart
And crumble more and more
Throughout every year that passes
Simply because I wasn't meant to be?

Is the reason that no supports
Can be accessed by me
And I can't get any help for me
Or my disabilities
Simply because the world wasn't built to house me?

Is my existence a universal
Quintessential
Quantum mistake?

One that will only be corrected
By my
Unexistance?

I believe the answer is yes
Because I am floating
Unbound
Through pain
And through hell
With no universal help

Abrupt decline
No pilot driving
Chutes opening
An empty vessel
But your hands are steady
And I feel myself landing

Hardened by times
of neglect,
assault
Years of hostility
I fought
But in your contagious serenity
I feel myself softening

I shouldn’t be here
I am reminded all the time
Constant memories
of it is all my fault
Is it all my fault?
All the gates are closed
But I see your arms opening
And I feel at home

A third of you want to
Play pretend, like Barbie and Ken.
Americas a dream house in a
Dreamland.

As if we aren’t all feeling the
Same fires or drowning in
the same
Waters.

We need you to
Pay attention too.
Ignorance may seem like
Bliss for now

A third of you want to
Stay uninformed
Negligence is a nod
To the oppressor to
Go on and push through

A third of you will see a
Third of us dead on the
Streets and try to weep.

It all starts with a thought that follows a pop
So vivid and appealing like a curious onslaught
Then the person starts grooving out of the block
Views change, make shift, foundations are formed
Weak flame, pledged words, a moth to a bulb
Big talks, fake blogs, witfully involved

Visually lost, embraced the chaos, but that’s not enough
Growth-fully stunned, what’s wish to a cause, gracefully lost
Blinded by love, falling down a slump, to fulfill the duty to the loved ones
Amidst the carnage, the survivor can’t protest
Ravages of wars again and again, without a break
Leaves the person with nothing intact, no sense of sobriety
No realizations, No hope, just pitch black dent
And nothing’s new just plain ol’ Lament

While everything seems to make them upset
Moderating the pain to soothe the backlash
Fell in depravity, now can’t even sleep for a sec
No notion or moderation yet they try to fulfill their conquest
Their whole world is falling apart yet they can’t seem to stop themselves
For all they know is to work and work and work, so inhumane-like self
A glimpse of countless fallen souls, heroes bound for hell,
Enduring storms so cruel, even therapy lost its spell.
What you talk to isn’t even a human anymore but a charred combusted shell
Whose silence screamed for help
For years they endured so much, a salute to their resilient self

Wish someone would have noticed their stutter
Some kind words, a simple compliment, a flutter
Maybe a graceful guide, bucket-full of hopes and a house of surprise for shelter
Maybe a good friend, and a great teacher, for them to not pretend either
To mend the vice of the bitter, cries of the Aether, heart that is cluttered
Before it falls back to the nether

Their cries went in vain yet the voices still refrain
Afraid of losses and faces scorned with disdain
Forcefully smiling throughout the pain
Imminently violent and without restraint
Engulfed in the darkness for the darkness smothers their brain

Vengeful and perplexed without a rest
Their hatred is genuine, perfectly jest
For the cries that went unseen and the angst of mesh
A turmoiled life, A fractured mess

Hope is but a blundered sail
Plethora of monologues, a crumbling rail
Exhausted sighs, eerie gales
A Note Not Worth The Bother
A Ghastly tale
                                                                  -Asher Graves

i have realized i can't stand being touched.
not after him.
i crave the warmth of another soul,
but i flinch, i shrink, dread settling in.

breaths ragged like the flowers
i once placed in his hair.
a scream claws at my throat,
i can't stand to be here.

release me from his phantom jaws,
let me force life back into my lungs.
his behavior never gave him pause,
i can't stand to see what he has brung.

i need to be held, to be warm.
to be safe and nestled by your form.
so please be patient, and never ask why
i cry when you graze my scars
with nothing but something truly kind.

I was supposed to be somewhere holy by now.
Twenty-eight, maybe.
Soft-eyed, loose-shouldered,
eating cherries on a porch that faces west,
“I trust the sky not to drop me.”
“I haven’t wished on a coin in months.”
Instead, I’m awake at 3:47 a.m.
Googling “What does it mean to feel inside-out?”

I keep finding pieces of myself
in weird places—
a sandal from eighth grade
in my mom’s basement—
a song I skipped for years
until it wrecked me—
now it’s the only sound I can breathe to.
A fourth grade diary entry
that ends with:
“I think something’s wrong with the air.”

I think something’s wrong with the air.

I was so sure by now I’d
quit making altars out of absence,
retire from bleeding for the line break,
know how to hold still when people love me.

I thought I’d hear God more clearly
and panic less when I don’t.
I thought I’d be done
being undone
by
a read receipt.

/ Then the break. /

And yet.

I flinch at compliments
like they’re coming from behind me.

Sometimes I still check
if my name’s spelled right on things.
I still rehearse
what I’ll say in case I’m asked,
“So, what do you do?”

(I become.
I break and unbreak.
I drink soda in bed and call that healing.
I make it to morning and call that enough.)
I keep living like the soft things won’t leave.

There’s a version of me
who doesn’t bend into a wishbone
for every boy with a god complex—
and a version
who flosses because she thinks she’ll live
long enough
for it to matter.

There’s a version who never had to explain
the scars on her thigh.
A version who didn’t stay
just to see how bad it could get.

I keep dreaming of her.
Not to compete—
just to confess.
Not to ask forgiveness—
to give it.

She sleeps through the night and means it.
She makes plans and keeps them.
She doesn’t exist.

So I just keep writing toward something
I’m not sure I’ll survive.
There’s a version of me
who didn’t touch the red button.
Didn’t ask.
Didn’t hope.
Didn’t write any of this down.

when i was ten my sister tried to drown me because
she wanted to cleanse me of my sins. they said she was
schizophrenic but
i think she was right

I was told
Time and time again
That theres no more reason to be scared
I can sleep in peace

But time and time again
Everyone who ever said
Those words to me
Got proved wrong
Along with me

So now I lay here and wish to do
Everything to flee
The capture of sleep

it remembers me.
the sky.
the mouth above the mouth.
the lightless gullet where clouds go to rot.

i kneel in the driveway
and my bones click like prayer beads.
i say nothing.
the wind fills in the blanks.

above,
the bruised vault peels open.
something pours out that smells like me—
ozone and old milk and motherlessness.

i know this feeling.
the ache behind the eye.
the tug in the marrow.
the static in the throat right before god speaks
and forgets my name again.

the sky remembers me.
like blood remembers stain.
like salt remembers wound.
like hunger remembers teeth.

and so i let it.
i open my mouth
and taste iron,
and ascend.

not float.
not rise.
just—
dislocate upward
until every tendon sings its own name
and snaps
like wet string.

there is no rupture.
there is no goodbye.
only the soft gulp
of return