#autonomy
Thin folds extended from cloth
Outline, thick-edged for effect
Dimension, pride, hardly there
Fare-skinned, bare, fixed stare
All yours, never turned around
Free, sheet-locked paper girls
Forever static and immutable
Stationery, penned all to see
No fear of harm or duplicity
May 9
May 9, 2026 at 7:49 PM UTC
Life
already drawn.
Bars shaped like
career
routine
walls
a path
already drawn
Days stacked
like quiet boxes
A track
laid down
before my first step
What would I be
untamed
no path
no blueprint
my own guide
Wind
choosing its own direction
feet turning
toward any road
Unmapped
I wonder.
Mar 6
Mar 6, 2026 at 12:27 PM UTC
Before language.
Before names.
I existed
unexplained,
uncontained.
Already
myself.
Mar 5
Mar 5, 2026 at 5:23 PM UTC
Temi
means
mine.
Not a disguise.
Not a version of myself
made easier to hold.
Just
mine.
A name
I meet myself in.
Safe.
Mine.
Mar 5
Mar 5, 2026 at 5:15 PM UTC
Not everything needs to be underlined, stricken, redacted, painted red
I wish to feel like me
I wish to have agency
I wish not to be so suggestible
I wish not to be an opportunity to parasites scouting for their next host
I would rather trudge through the mud than take the fairway pointed out to me
I bravely declare “Maybe I make some muddy friends along the way”
But one puncture in this skin
Flaws underlined
Feelings stricken
Speech redacted
A life painted red
Heat rises. For a moment.
Then I retreat into the sunken nest.
I tend to my garden as it quietly affirms my fears.
Feb 28
Feb 28, 2026 at 11:15 PM UTC
I tell myself, can't see ahead,
But my path is already drawn?
A narrow line in antiseptic light
that runs from dusk to dawn.
Each morning bleeds from yesterday
through walls too white to stain,
and prophecy is nothing more
than habit dressed as chain.
I wake inside a measured room,
where padded corners bloom,
and silence hums fluorescent hymns
against a vacant tune.
Who decides what sane is?
Who writes the rules for me?
If healing feels like suffocating,
is that recovery?
You call this safety, call it care
I call it slowly dying.
Tie my hands, dim the lights,
but you can’t stop me trying.
A canvas binds my restless arms,
fabric biting skin;
they say it’s for protection
I say it cages what’s within.
Once I held a voice so clear
like winter in the air,
now it shatters into swallowed glass
and settles into prayer.
Save me, smiling martyr,
step down from polished wood;
your halo shines in sterile light
it does me little good.
Who decides what sane is?
Who names me unwell?
If I don’t fit your diagnosis,
am I broken — or rebel?
You crown yourselves as cures
while I am tied in shame.
Don’t tell me I am better
just because you need the claim.
Your Eyes blink in corners
of every fragile day,
watching lest I fracture
or quietly slip away.
Rats of thought inside the walls
scratch along the seams;
they gnaw at former purposes
until they feel like dreams.
They ask me, will you take the pills?
Will you say you’re ill?
Will you trade your jagged truth
for something easier to fill?
Who decides what sane is?
What if the system’s wrong?
What if the thing that claims to heal
is what’s been choking all along?
You can catalogue and keep me,
file me, lock me still
but something in me will not die,
and something never will.
Feb 9
Feb 9, 2026 at 9:00 PM UTC
Self-worth hung on productivity.
A boss without empathy
places unrealistic deadlines.
Showing initiative by putting in the hours.
Compensated by promises of monetary gain and titles,
I give myself to thee.
In the name of the Company Project,
We pray.
“Let us communicate, facilitate, and collaborate.”
Months spent at home,
the same 12 hours reclaimed,
allow leisurely written poems.
I dedicate myself to
dinners with family,
poetry nights,
and lazy curiosity.
Returning once more—
no longer devout.
clock in—
clock out—
I do not pray to thee.
Jan 20
Jan 20, 2026 at 9:40 PM UTC
I measure the weight of my absence
in the fridge’s heavy, mechanical hum—
a witness finally allowed to speak
now that I refuse to be silenced.
I fold the blankets I once laid with care
into rectangles of revolt.
The fabric resists, stiff with the salt of tears
and the heat of arguments
shoved into my lungs like contraband.
The couch bears the dent of my diminishment.
Its velvet protests the space I now take,
but I rise.
Beneath me, the floorboards groan—
scandalized by the sudden audacity of my spine.
The table carries the ghosts of unfinished meals,
the silver flashing a jagged verdict:
A feast is not a home if it consumes the servant.
The lamp flickers—an impotent, shivering thing...
before it bows to the radiance of my reclamation!
I **** the oven of a desire that only ever cooked me alive.
I ****** the lavender from the sheets,
not quite as memory, but as a weapon.
Every step is a riot in wood and brass.
The hinges shriek, the handles claw,
the house begs for the ghost I used to be.
But I do not falter.
I am not walking out.
I am torching the blueprints that confined me.
I am flattening the walls that framed my silence.
I am stepping into a world that cannot cage
my breath, my body, or my tongue.
I am no longer a tenant of your approval.
I am the architect of my own insurgency.
I slam the door.
The frame quivers in my absence.
A dust mote shivers in the sunbeam—
the house remembers,
but I do not!
Jan 20
Jan 20, 2026 at 6:03 PM UTC
I saw you on the way down.
The windows zipping by.
A blank look on your face not at all like falling... or being alive.
looking up at me
gown whipping eyes so big and bright and clear, arms strait out in front.
Staring.
That moment
frozen forever
(shock) ,
Both of us
not dying.
Not yet,,,
It's never just ONE decision....
Jan 10
Jan 10, 2026 at 4:48 AM UTC
I saw you on the way down.
The windows zipping by.
A blank look on your face not at all like falling... or being alive.
looking up at me
gown whipping eyes so big and bright and clear, arms strait out in front.
Staring.
That moment
frozen forever
(shock) ,
Both of us
not dying.
Not yet,,,
It's never just ONE decision....
Jan 10
Jan 10, 2026 at 4:46 AM UTC
The realm extols conjugation’s creed,
But I discern a veiled stampede
Of shackled vows in velvet guise,
Where sovereign souls are canonized.
👁️ The Covenant of Clasped Rings
A gilded snare with spectral strings.
To cede your flame, your soul-scroll’s lore,
To one who claims your inner core.
I’ve charted stars, inscribed my name,
Not to be stitched in someone’s frame.
Not to be paused, not to be tamed,
Not to be blamed when joy is maimed.
🎭 The Duet of Domestic Grace
A masquerade in tethered lace.
No one blooms in bridal cage,
They wither slow in silent rage.
And if it’s just for flesh and skin,
Is that the gate where truths begin?
If passion’s price is self-erasure,
Then let me guard my soul’s own treasure.
💔 Parental love a sanctified flame,
Unbranded, boundless, free of name.
But this duet of spouse and spouse?
A staged affection, haunted house.
So let me clutch my soul-scroll tight,
Let me script my own birthright.
No vows, no veil, no muted scream
Just me, my truth, my sovereign dream.
🌑 The Ceremony Unchosen I defy,
To trade my stars for borrowed sky.
Let others dance in tethered grace,
I’ll walk alone, but not erase.
Sep 30, 2025
Sep 30, 2025 at 10:50 AM UTC
#(for the one who stands at the edge, where the fabric begins to fall)
She had once been known—
but only through a portrait
painted in the shades of misunderstanding.
A silhouette mistaken for substance.
A voice mimicked before it ever found
its own breath.
She knows this.
And so the chains that bind her now
are not forged of cruelty,
but memory—
a memory that clings to who she was
before she could ever choose to become.
And still, she dreams of the sunlight.
Of fabric falling, not ripped—
but released.
*Softly.
Willingly.*
In the warmth of a gaze that promises
no weight will be added
to the skin that already bore so much.
She does not want to be reclaimed.
She wants to be re-seen.
Not as the story once told,
but as the story now unfolding.
A woman not returning,
but arriving.
And if the beholder must grieve
the version of her he once adored,
so be it—
for only in that grief
can he welcome the miracle
of what is finally, freely,
and beautifully real;
and hope upon hope--
***not one of his own chains
in sight***
#
May 14, 2025
May 14, 2025 at 10:36 AM UTC
Angel's of better through
Myself, to a fascinating yarn
Of what went where, a since of owe...
That collect a share in more, to earn
Callous decision begins the day...
When is a legend of promises and due count?
Of a shadow in the grand scheme of things, say
The utmost of tries and tribulation, within a certainty's pout
Credence to verify a care, the toil of just
The riddance of guarantee, to account a new play
Oft the light of simplicity, but complex in sides of must
That have harrowed a call, a cause of means in altruism's way
Stepping forward, in the name of a treatise vaunted
We spy the court of prodigious example, for a nefarious ghost
My time here, is a walking and silent myth, a risk haunted
For the gain of truer heed, in a wish there is patience for most?
Could a faring wealth of passions decree, be?
Here is the solace of worth I will know, a caring hardiness
Made shall, a redemption to a tow and show of order, to lead
The audacity of a hand of fortune, to the rise of charisma I bless...
With that, the treasure is many and magnificent
Couth in final compare, in the spare and presiding
A wish of summation and its thought to drive, a share meant
With the lips of dignity, that shall continue without airs of denial
At role and delve of omnipotent trust
The tooth of the day, is to hope, is a forth and will of kind?
Long looks and summations hope, is a silence to discuss
Letting ours begin here, with purpose beyond fear, is mercy to mind?
Aug 10, 2023
Aug 10, 2023 at 12:43 PM UTC
Most individuals aim for speculative wealth,
these linear channels are paralleled in others
when taught to gain a greater sense of self.
If we continue to grow grouped as a collective,
are the surroundings around you yours alone.
Priorities are often lost in the process of reformation claimed through phased stages and good fortune is drawn in multiple forms.
Step aside for an instant to question contempt and observe at your own mixed objectives,
foreseen in the dreams of who you want to be.
Not visions of anarchy or set enforced orders but a better balance of autonomy in between.
Oct 24, 2021
Oct 24, 2021 at 8:56 AM UTC
#
*I don't want to be p u l l e d
in to your world..
My hope is to become able
to lift you out of your world
until you find your
true, own..
Instead of the one you
have fallen in to*
#
Oct 6, 2021
Oct 6, 2021 at 10:32 PM UTC
I feel like I have to steal myself from you
but it doesn't even matter
because you make me believe that
that's all I need
stolen pieces you've given 'permission' for me to steal
like I don't still have me
an impossibility
a dream
does it even matter
I will always have me
does it even matter
Jun 10, 2021
Jun 10, 2021 at 12:57 AM UTC
It's all about the choices
You're in a tornado of voices
And still the power is yours:
Feel free and simply choose.
Mar 9, 2021
Mar 9, 2021 at 12:52 PM UTC
and in the 12th my teacher grade tenderly grabbed my wrist
and said
what is this
and
I said
me
But
that was the wrong answer
he wanted me to say
my —-wrist
he wanted me to say my
MINE
He wanted me to take ownership
of my body
he wanted to acknowledge
Or
He wanted me to acknowledge
that I was
An inside
of a body
And
Not a body
He wanted
Me to think what I just
“mistakenly”
called “me” was just a vessel
To hold “me”
That is it was lent to me and would return
from whence it came
that I was barely or merely or some other kind of “erely” visiting
and
that me and mine were different when it came to body
Such a kindness and autono-motive restoration to remind a person that they are
More
That they are not their looks
or their actions
Or even potential ambulation
I know what he offered me was a kindness
I declined
I said no in my own way
If you’re wondering
What I said was “you are what you eat”
I still don’t know what I meant
If I meant
and I’ll ozymandius myself
If I claim to be more than this
I am crumbling, but I will stand tall on these broken feet
As soon as I can fix my posture
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020 at 5:23 PM UTC
#D Vanlandingham
*Boundless..
In its ability to extend beyond all forms of containment;
the big circle contains within it, the little one
And if it is true relationship through genuine volition of the beloved
that is to be desired most of all,
then spirit, wrapped in flesh is the autonomy most needed
in order for the dream to become true.
Spirit is being.
Spirit cloaked in flesh is being--
feeling its relationship with its own self.
Spirit, mastering its own flesh by reigning in its emotions along
with the synaptic-firing of every one of its nerve endings into full
submission of the spirit's own core nature, is the root-basis of all true volition.
Spirit, in its raw form is perfect-- wholly unable to undergo
corruption, or decay..
but the flesh..
the flesh,
Always needing to substantiate itself through its never-ending layers
of self-promotion apart from the realities of its own spirit's core.
Yet, pure Love--
wholly unable to see itself as that which is to be rejected,
enters in to the very act of the rejection, itself;
..that autonomy may continue to contain
the uncorrupted core--
and the smaller circle becomes established:
smaller.. yes.. but in truth,
its parameters self stretch all the way out
to those of the bigger one
And so, with the necessary advent of autonomy
into the relational equation, comes also
The necessary advent of God's wholly-volitional
self-depletion of God.. entering, in to it all
so that, in time, God(Love) alone might take the full brunt
of rejection's unjust hit--
in its autonomous movement away
from its own incorruptible core..
away, from its own true self.
So, follow the smaller circle, if you will, my beautiful--
either way, you are still following God.*
#
Dec 2, 2020
Dec 2, 2020 at 8:57 PM UTC
I stood up and left the fire that burnt my touch,
though as night falls I grow to miss its warmth.
Dec 1, 2020
Dec 1, 2020 at 12:48 AM UTC
I decided to give you back
I know now
I thrive with those who see
where I begin
Nov 17, 2020
Nov 17, 2020 at 3:50 PM UTC
You found me at the point
Where resignation had shaded,
Quite when I don't remember,
Into contempt
The spiteful joy of being that bit better
Standing just a little higher
& contempt was in your eyes too
The urge to rise above me
Cradle yourself in haloes
Yet you smoothed your face out
Your I could never go there's
& started asking questions
& truly wanting answers
I stood against
Denial was my brother
Knowing I simply had to
Still you persevered
A prison door ajar
A fulcrum steady levered
Help me guide my own hand
Oct 6, 2020
Oct 6, 2020 at 3:07 AM UTC
Logic to the dissonant, confetti into flames
watch it turn to ash.
The disquieted don’t want comfort,
they want to protect their definition of purity
and simply, for the complexities of the universe
to serve them solely.
Dissatisfaction becomes identity,
a vice to sate,
just one more redemptive hit
and they’ll sleep
dreaming of their idyllic reconstruction of reality.
Everyone’s a visionary
blind to the piteous state
of their mass-conformist unity fantasy,
forgetting that autonomy isn’t only in the mind of the beholder.
Aug 11, 2020
Aug 11, 2020 at 12:21 PM UTC