sometimes you sit in the dark all alone
and it's not a guiding light that you want,
but for someone to be there with you,
to know that they know the dark, too,
to have them keep you company.
for the light can become a trap, you see,
like a constant pressure to push through,
so you'd rather have someone stay with you
to practice counting each other's breaths.
there's a sense of hope to mutual setbacks,
tethered by the unseen hand you're holding
as you co-write a step-by-step guide to coping.

Let it be the Mountain she finds Holy—
not because it sparkles,
seduces her
or speaks in riddles,

but because its dark loamy soil
receives her bare feet like a memory.

A prairie hill above the sea,
where grasses bow and whisper,
and the wind carries the salt and scent of things
too old for names—
that’s where the house stands.
Not built from stone,
but from time.
And longing.

And the laughter of those
who once remembered Eden.

Let her dig down,
as if the roots of a wildflower
were waiting to rise through her skin,
lifting her slowly from within—
the stem, the pistil,
the fragile yet indestructible bloom.
Let the soil speak to her in silence,
saying:

You are still loved.
You are still alive.
You are not what happened to you.

Let her turn toward the sun—
not in shame,
but in radiant defiance—
and know in that moment
where her help truly comes from.

Let her running to the mountain
be joy, not dread.
Let her ascent be not an exile,
but a return.

Let her wings unfold brazenly,
as the daughter of the living God.
Not tucked.
Not hidden.
Not compromised.

She does not belong to the mountain that mocks love
and feeds on the ruin of hearts,
or exploits that which is still unhealed

She belongs here—
where her own flesh and bone
become not only family
but friend,
through the common bond
of the soil that gives life to all who dare to sink into it.

She belongs
where peace lives in warm light on cold nights,
where cotton sheets smell of soap and skin,
and starlight sifts through trees
like the hush of forgiveness.

Let her remember her first love..
before the theft,
before the theater.
Before the wound.

Let her toes remember
what it was to wiggle in the dirt
of something unbroken,
unshamed,
true.

Let her find home again—
not in a place carved out for her,
but in the space she reclaims
with her own rootedness.

Let her petals unfold slowly in the sun—
but only with her feet deep in the mountain's soil,
where others also have planted their lives,
becoming one
in harmony of breath and memory and Grace.

She will not enter into a sepulcher
or a place that makes usury of her pain.
She will stand on the mount before the rising sun—
alone if she must,
but never abandoned.

And somewhere in the hush between
the breeze and the soil,
she may yet feel

the quiet echo
of someone still with her.

There’s a hallway in me
I don’t walk anymore.
Peeling wallpaper,
footsteps that don’t echo right.
I think you were there once,
or maybe I placed you there,
like a candle in a burned-out house.

The mind is a liar
with a soft voice.
It tells me we laughed
in that room where the screaming happened.
It paints smiles
over broken teeth.
It places hands on my shoulder
and forgets they used to bruise.

I remember a lullaby
stitched from silence.
I remember warmth,
but maybe it was fever.
Maybe it was blood.
Maybe it was survival
pretending to be love.

Photos rot in the drawer.
I touch the faces like I’m blind,
trying to recognize
which ones were real
and which ones wore me
like a mask.

There are days
when I almost miss it.
Not the pain,
but the clarity of it.
Now it’s just fog,
a theater of soft lies
replaying
with the volume turned low.

I smile sometimes,
but it’s reflex,
like a corpse twitching
as the nerves forget
they’re not alive.

"I want to forget"
Stupid words said by a stupid child,
That deep down wanted to remember.

Now that I'm forgetting,
I try to put it into words,
So one day, when i forget,
They'll remember.

If I am not rage, then what am I?

I tried love, trust, patience, empathy

They were accepted out of courtesy

But discarded like an inconvenience

If I am not anger, then what am I?

I tried so very hard, so much time

Just to receive little effort and no time

Just to be abandoned and misled

If I am not anger, nor am I rage itself

Then I am the pain you gave to me