Oh, to give a dam—much like a lake, its waters
held back, silence breaking my spine. All of my
worries are so high; walled off like Kariba—
****; the young grow old faster than you
can say the word— telling jokes, but even
a straight path smiles with crooked teeth.

Hope laughs at itself, when it forgets to believe.
And what’s one more injury in a whole lifetime,
lest you hang yourself with the very lifeline
you cling to.

0808 4116 is the helpline; but on an island
of despairs, what becomes of a landline—
when your thoughts are rigged like landmines,
waiting for the wrong step to set them off.

Watch your step. Hope lives in an arena, fighting
to be heard through the noise. And anything worth
holding onto is something worth bleeding for—
But it will demand you take your licks, like a kitten
burning through lives, losing a few before it learns
what survival really is.

So don’t litter your worth on the ground.
Guard it. Nurture it. As a mother cat does
her litter— fragile, trembling, but alive.

there's a certain trap to it
drumming dark thoughts –rat-a-tat-tat,
my mind caught in a snare again, and again
circling in hi-hats of doubt. in this tandem
of life; pedal-pedal-pedal —decisions spinning
like wheels, chains creak, my brakes squeal,
for the bravest choices are always stuck in repeat.

ding-ding —the alarm mocks the dawn,
clang-clang, trains pull apart, same departure,
but all different routes. your roots only grow
as deep as you choose, silence hums louder
than footsteps on the pavement.

whoosh — rustling leaves write new lives,
whispers stitched into the wind. but the harder
it blows, the less you see your tears —
shhh… hush… hush…they'll vanish in the static,
like cymbals fading after a final crash…and in
the quiet after, only the echo remains.

sweet pea, sweet tea, sweet potato—
love’s blush red, soft as a tomato.
kisses like a recital,
tongues dancing together,
smiles too wide, they crease teeth,
and stuck there forever.

a boiling *** touch, a stove-top man,
hot-headed, cooling down as fast as he can.
unread texts on the nightstand,
after a one-night stand— holding onto
a cheap thrill, it's just a heavy hand
so sad!

a thirsty kiss trying to buy back time,
swallowing coins like medicine—
quarters down the throat,
all of those pennies in a rhyme.
hoping for change. but the clock
just swallows, and it doesn’t rewind.

crumb stains on fingers,
love shouldn’t taste like fast food.
fast and crude, but hunger plays
its tricks— and we eat what’s near,
even it's not true.

fringes in both eyes, a bite
of apple pie—the kind you’d
call the apple of your eye.
but sigh—still
no husband or a wife.

just two souls giving it their best try.

I wear a love-proof vest, swallowing bullets with my face—
all my scars know their taste. My hopes are all on diet to fit
today’s problems; spray-painted days, worries tagged across
the night— each thought a vandalism I can’t scrub away.

Fruitful passions, I can’t stomach passionfruit in my punch.
Life loves to punch back harder— each sip a reminder that
sweetness still bruises. Young & depressed: insecurities
overdressed, confidence underdressed, thoughts pressed
into stress.

Life asks you for a ruler, to lay it down smoother, measuring
the depth of your love. But... it doesn’t apply so well to me,
when I bunked a few lessons as a day-schooler. Always trying
to fit in by being cooler, amongst a circle of friends, but really,
we were just squares— boxed in by our insecurities; angles
sharper than the bonds we bent. And I try to pray long—
but sometimes, I digress. Sorry… what were we saying?

So much emptiness, schemes plotted against me, reality
never stretching as far as dreams. Illuding the fact, illusions
often feel more real. Interluding between horizons: am I ahead,
or beneath the dark where even stars are too shy to come out?

Hope still comes as a guest. Still wishing for superpowers:
invisible to pain, invincible to scars, shapeshifting to belong.
Force fields to block their touch. Time manipulation— just to
keep up with the times. X-ray vision to see through their false
intentions. Superspeed to outrun the pain. Healing to undo my
shame.

But in the end, I have no cape, no mask, no trick of the pen—
I'm only human. And I’ll be human to the end, recalling the
feeling of being young & depressed.

And I know time isn’t in our hands.
Still move with life, or watch it move
on without you. Either you walk with
time, or time walks away from you.

They gave you a one-star review for
your love, judged your heart, spat into
your scars, dragged your name through
the mud. Still, don’t paste their words
onto your heart.

Because when you live a better life, they’ll
circle back to copy. You’ll ask yourself,
“why do the ones who once overlooked
me now want to over-book me… or cop me?”

All the seconds you felt like sloppy seconds
will become the taste of their main course.
And what they called leftovers is the meal
they'll hunger for the most.

Remember:

Time is a thief, it steals your hours, your hope,
your years. But don’t let wasted time rob you  
of what’s real. Don’t let it steal the reason you live.

a silent laugh—
an inside joke no one else can catch,
trying to take flight over the height of a dream.
but what is a dream if it only stings the eyes?
an eye sore, instead of wings to soar.

...I am a prisoner of flesh and skeleton,
fueled by passion, smuggling scars beneath
my skin; blood turned ammunition,
bones as empty shells clattering the floor.

...I am animal, and I am engine—
factory default, released into a world
obsessed with modifications.
we bolt wings like spoilers onto cars,
spoiled for choice, but never to lift—
only to weigh us down.
heavy disguises, dressed up as flight.

and still, we dream of air.
still, we hunger to rise.
such a cruel irony:
built for motion, yet forever
grounded.

Chances seem high that I sink so low tomorrow— where
do I return the belongings of my skin, stitched too tight
with sin? And is there a good intention I can borrow?

To call love a bullseye, but it's just something darting past
me; for a lap dog on the leash of longing can’t run free—it
only circles the grass. As I fuel my odds at a gas station lot;
feathers searching for a birdie; practicing my golf swing,
hoping for a hole in one— or just putting one in a hole.

"Find a stable life," they say, but the horse track is empty,
where hooves never sound, and only echoes of betting slips.
Online, some search for a type, the screen listening to the
type of fingers. But knowing is never seeing, and belief
needs more than a glow of pixels.

"Good grief"— so cried the one who buried their beliefs,
but they still dug the dirt back smooth, as if planting a
seed for tomorrow. Till we're gone, we'll always have
tomorrow.

I whisper my struggle against rage, a vulture perched, refusing to
budge, circling the leftovers of life. My tears — a mirror, awkward
disguises, suggesting more than I admit. What is a man in his own
fantasies, if even there he dreams himself as someone less?

Knowing a circle of friends blooms misshapen, my circle is more
like a triangle —each angle pointing out each other, each edge
sharp to sharper your edge. I am obtuse among the acute, aware
of my struggles with precision; people measure me from distance.

Still, their echoes and hues pull words out of me, inspiration sparked
by friction. But I’m just this jar chasing lightning, as if it ever strikes
twice; each dream I hold flickers fragile in my hands; the texture of
a dream is lucid, slipping through like current.

The recipe of life: tears, sweat, regrets, a hint of success for taste.
And the chef? Shadows us like a grand tree on the hillside, quietly
stirring the ***, watching, seasoning my days with the abrupt nature
of time.

If I could move past the point of *******— my bull horns
are beaten down by life’s whip. Feeling ready to blow
my brain, an itchy finger on the trigger, searching for
life's plus centre: a positive man stuck in the middle; senses
sharp, but it sounds insensitive to an eager mind; all
of our dreams have been suffocated by the placenta.

I think I can be honest about the work of others, but
speaking that truth loudly — for some— sounds like
we don’t really love each other. Chained only by deeper
ambition; passion weighs heavy when it isn’t complete.
Here’s a writer’s petition: loving poetry— an appeal to
careless ambitions over being Christian.

Pride mirrors itself— words reflecting the world’s
weakness, ugly earnestness to be outstanding; going
out to make something of yourself as an artist surely
disappoints a family. Gain success through your own
struggle, heavy prayers; "I guess we’ll all be wealthy."

It all depends upon: the task of multitasking most
of your dreams— to exactitude; the power of words,
poetic charge, poetic energy. But know this—the
lightbulb to your dreams is what will turn them on.

All those wanting pieces of your spark—
you’ll lose track of where they all came from.