#dissonance
Grief left the light on for me,
when I didn't come home in time.
I arrive without ceremony—
he is settled
where dust collects.
I find him later,
already comfortable,
already certain
I would not ask him to leave—
and my body,
exhausted,
sinks into the sheets
without consequence.
In the morning,
Grief was sitting at the table
after the candles burned out.
He has made a home in the
small, quiet
parts I once called joy
Grief keeps rearranging my furniture,
and leaning
heavily
against ordinary days.
Grief touches everything eventually
Just to see if it can.
Mar 17
Mar 17, 2026 at 9:48 AM UTC
i've read a little
out of curiosity
on the phenomenon known
as vocal confrontation
of the discomfort
and disappointment
a person experiences
upon hearing a recording
of their own voice
of how the sound
is distorted as
it reverberates through
the cave complex
of the human head
the sinuses and
cavities within
producing a resonance
and timbre more pleasing
to the speaker's ear
than what is heard
on that horrid recording
shattering any preconceived
notions of self
so carefully curated
upon the foundation
of that inner voice
Feb 4
Feb 4, 2026 at 6:38 AM UTC
Will I spend all the rest of my year wishing I could go back? Except that I can’t remember what it’s like to feel like a kid. Believe me, I’ve tried. I think I’ve tried harder than any other person ever. And it’s not like I can’t remember the experiences and the stories, then again, only a couple still come through from time to time. It’s more like I grew up way too fast. And I’ve never felt like a kid, so I can’t remember what it was like because I never lived it. I never lived it. Or maybe I just…never grew up. Either one is possible, but deep in my blood I know that I will always hope that the latter is true. I don’t want trauma. I want to be a kid. I want to splash in a puddle and laugh and be a child. And I can be. To this day I still draw with chalk on the driveway, wishing, praying, begging for the rain rain, go away, come again another day. But it doesn’t feel like what I want it to feel like. I think that’s why I try so hard to engulf myself in my other deep emotions. Because nostalgia is one I’ve never really been good with. I can cry, I can hurt, I can bleed, I can be numb. But I can’t think of my past and cry to go back. Not honestly. I guess I’ve answered my question.
Jan 26
Jan 26, 2026 at 7:25 PM UTC
Visualise blackness whilst
your eyes being open.
Experience emptiness inside
the inner realm internally.
Depth exaggerated overcome
fragility within systemic.
Ramble through bramble
****** backwards ancient.
Fly filler throughout this
poetic disaster recovery.
Endanger engender entropy
emotional remembrance end.
Return underneath blackness
sink into inky slinky safety.
Dress impress surface level
framework underwear exhibit.
Peace perfection post *******
pulled down with teeth.
Genital acceptance awkward
combination throbbing realisation.
I am what I am.
Oct 20, 2025
Oct 20, 2025 at 5:35 AM UTC
Quietly quitting as a lifeless career
Our affinity feels like muscle memory.
Hosting the peak performance of a masked dissonance
I’d be well accompanied by your absence.
Accumulating hints of disdain, somewhat willingly
We let each other down, repetitively.
It’s a one-way trajectory,
A tedious forgery.
Inhibited it’s all the same -
I bore you to death and I’m all ashamed.
So we let each other down, eventually
You stopped messaging,
I stopped calling.
Oct 18, 2025
Oct 18, 2025 at 3:38 AM UTC
The weakness of the officer…
His barricade frame looming soullessly over the victim as the other officer decided she was too sick to come in…
The sadness of the old man arrested for holding a placard containing truths we all should believe in…
The weakness of your will to go along with everything now that it’s nothing…
But what’s nothing?
Is nothing breathing? Is nothing hearing? Is nothing seeing?
You can’t be at peace with dissonance…
And in order to achieve peace you must wake up to the hell that persists…
Don’t think you can avoid it…
Prepare to ask yourself the question;
Would you rather live in a cell where they don’t let the sun in,
Or be beaten to death for believing in something?
Sep 10, 2025
Sep 10, 2025 at 4:51 PM UTC
The leaflet reads:
“Be mindful of your desires,
be careful
where they come from
and where they’re heading.
Use drive to drive choice.
Be the one who decides
before you join in
and follow along.
Otherwise
the path to your freedom
is then walked down
bare feet and bare mind.
The good ol’ valley of yours.”
Inside your own head, own voice,
while taking a handful.
Mar 26, 2025
Mar 26, 2025 at 4:26 AM UTC
Shards of silence splinter,
fractals in a firestorm,
spitting tongues of dissonance—
a thousand echoes collide,
furious in their quiet.
Cacophonous breath snaps the air,
a brittle pulse skittering on the edge
of infinity’s unraveling thread.
Fingers claw through time’s tattered skin,
guts of fate, entwined in the darkening loop,
each moment—shattered, resurgent.
The sky is a broken chandelier,
raining sparks like ghostly paperclips,
stretched too thin,
too jagged to catch—
each piece too sharp to hold,
to name.
Spirals twist through aching space,
each turn a jagged refrain,
unhinged from rhythm,
lost in sound—
chasing its own reflection,
a fractured symphony,
unsung,
stifled by its own reverberation.
Hunger for motion tears through the hollow,
frenzied like a feathered shard,
quivering in the teeth of wind,
caught in a whirl of starlight’s splatter.
The sky is endless,
but always breaking,
and always,
still,
it falls.
Mar 21, 2025
Mar 21, 2025 at 2:47 PM UTC
There is nothing left to say. You declared with audacity how I was an impediment. I recollected how pitiable I was, desperate for nothing, because it wouldn't, it didn't alter anything. So enamored was I with you, I relinquished half of myself to appease you. The superior parts of me I surrendered willingly to you, as I permitted myself to become illicitly compliant in the scheme of deceiving myself. I believed the half-truths, the falsehoods, and the empty promises. You made a wreck of me, exposing me to such debasingly immoral things. I thought I could trust you after everything we shared. I never knew such passions; I never felt such care. How was I to know none of it was genuine?
Time has elapsed, and I have healed. I have moved on, not as swiftly as you, and it didn't take another to get me here. So, the emails, the texts, the contacting my family needs to cease. It doesn't matter if I'm single. What mattered was that I had so much fight in me to save us I was a willing participant, my own collateral damage when it came to you. I allowed so much and pleaded for so long for you to see me, to love me as I did you. Like you once used to. The fool I played, for it wasn't love at all. It wasn't even lust; it was mere 'usage.' I contorted myself to fit into your world. I reinvented myself to a lower self in place of the worldly woman I once was. I infringed on my intellect and played dumb, forever the fool, all for you. And it still wasn't enough. You told me I was too strong, too independent, and so I diminished myself. My integrity be ****** I lowered my standards and discarded my boundaries to please you. All for what? For you to do exactly what I implored you not to do: to toy with me, to lie and deceive, to harm and torture, to manipulate and abuse. And even then, it wasn't enough. I was never enough.
No matter now. I have healed myself, and I have moved on. How wonderful it is to see I am nowhere near where I used to be, and the me I am today you'll never get close to. So, for all the attempts at contacting me and wanting to talk, I must let it be known I have nothing left to say!
Dec 30, 2024
Dec 30, 2024 at 7:37 AM UTC
Years’ worth in our days swirl in our thoughts of lovely hands clasped in ours with no resolve of ever letting go.
Though the fates and sanguine melancholy conspire to break the bonds nothing can keep this sight from being enthralled
shall he, happiness dancing waltz with the sea, ever forget?
The tempest-swept shore of unyielding grace remains true to the beacon, be it in the peaks or prairies; a promise,
no matter how trampled still blossoms without the acquiescence of seasons, be they winter or spring,
until the day a tombstone is offered and a coat rack for weariness to hang,
no smiles will eternally be wasted on a frown as is with fear will be on Pennywise the clown.
We are here, and we are now until we become yesterday, our hearts unbowed
And yet, long after light has left times eyes, and last fogging breath has been drawn,
the echoes resound, love, unyielding, seared into the skin of eternity.
Strands of flesh, a promise, binding lives that once strobed like starlight, the universe chants with shared joys, sorrows, and dreams.
For every stumble, every fracture, every tear that pelted our time, we rise, reforged in the fires of devotion’s heat.
Love is no fleeting gale but the tide that shapes continents, despite the world’s cruel dissonance, harmony prevails.
And when the final curtain falls on this fleeting stage, let it be known we did not merely survive but thrived, kindled.
Nov 24, 2024
Nov 24, 2024 at 3:12 PM UTC
My cognitive
dissonance
Won’t make any
difference
Because his
effervescence
Rotted all of my
essence
His self assured
ambience
Expired my
relevance
And no impotent,
ignorance
Can unbalance this
turbulence
Jan 1, 2024
Jan 1, 2024 at 7:43 PM UTC
some days I grieve alone
as sunshine sounds obscene
no help or match for rain
not caring where it goes
to leave a chequered scene
the clouds hide their intent
build-up to manic heights
and storms attack our land
to savage crumbling shores
and saturate the nights
I stare in broken starts
I've seen too much that stings
with stoic eyes some pray
and mop the mud-soaked rooms
we wish our homes had wings
Jun 15, 2023
Jun 15, 2023 at 5:33 AM UTC
i hold a shaky palmful of death
noting that it is surprisingly light
i swallow reflexively
feeling shocks through my hand
i could just do it
i could just do it right now and it would all be over
why don't i do it
my body, fighting to survive
my brain, begging to die
and i am no man's land
Feb 1, 2022
Feb 1, 2022 at 2:34 PM UTC
In the fabric of time exists
moonlit seas of happenstance
and rose-scented memories
sewed in with golden beads
but it seems to me that life has found a way,
to sew in worn-out frayed threads,
that have lost their silky reflection
yet you,
with your resilient skin
found a way to make
embroidered mosaics of colour
out of the dissonance between good and bad
Dec 4, 2020
Dec 4, 2020 at 11:26 PM UTC
Restoration
Rebuilding
Reshaping
Filling in the fissures that have opened up
Between us
Within us
Fissures can become canyons
Sometimes suddenly
With a great roar of sound and cloud of dust
Sometimes gradually
Worn away by a river of neglect and dismissal
Both sides carry these fissures within
Wounds that can fester
How do we close these gaps?
Between us
Within us
First both must see
Acknowledge
Desire to heal
But there are no guarantees
Rebuilding relationships
Righting wrongs
Seeking and offering forgiveness
None of this can be done alone
Without community
In a vacuum
Sometimes the fissures become scars
Calcified and brittle
Painful when poked but otherwise unnoticed
The wound may heal over
But the fissure may never
Completely
Close
Oct 6, 2020
Oct 6, 2020 at 8:16 PM UTC
As I approach the edge
Of awareness
Danger flashes!
A veil of flame
You risk burning fingers here
Pain
Confusion
Shame
Guilt
Crushed by the weight of the past
Once invisible worlds that shimmer
Just out of focus
Beyond the veil
What draws me near?
Why do I risk burning?
I have not always felt the lie so clearly
But as I learn and explore my world
The shallowness of my existence has been plumbed
Found wanting
It doesn’t match the world that others see
To see their worlds
I must
Walk through the fiery veil
To connect
To love
To fit the pieces of their worlds and mine together
Now I pity those I was once like
Trapped in their small worlds
Blinded eyes
Plugged ears
Wrapped in cotton
They don’t know what they don’t know
But a part of me knew
A part of them knows
And mourns
For the world that waits for them
Beyond the veil
Aug 21, 2020
Aug 21, 2020 at 12:34 AM UTC
i play a song
full of dissonant chords
but i won't stop
until the last note
because maybe
someone needs to hear a song
Apr 10, 2020
Apr 10, 2020 at 1:31 PM UTC
At the brink of worlds I could
Hear hammer blows on coffin wood
Drink headline ink 'til doomsday falls
Taste newsprint paste on gray cell walls
Fissures deep in split flesh stung
With gritted teeth and muted tongue
Where endings chewed in unplacid fever
Slake only the fat of the world-eaters
Oct 30, 2019
Oct 30, 2019 at 7:32 PM UTC
There is so little left,
And still much i need to question.
So untrusting of what i can see, hear or touch,
My senses fooled a thousand times and a thousand times again.
Hardened fortifications blossom,
Bringing perpetual reinforcement.
Working for at least a respite,
From coyote hordes outdoors.
Odysseus waits at the gates,
Educated eyes identify his horses,
Staring straight through the belly of the beasts,
Thwarting threats before they take to action.
King in the learned castle,
To never be fooled again.
Entrenched deep in his defences,
Securing solace through his reclusion.
it is lonely on your own
There is so little left,
This gives forth the question,
so untrusting of what i see, hear, touch but feel?
Perhaps the fraud is mine.
Cynical battlements sprout,
With spores of harsh repairs.
Crusading for disenchantment,
Cry wolf and call coyote.
Teach to never looked beyond the gates,
Focus attention in,
Cowered behind walls and towers,
Forever fearful to lower the bridges.
Lord of what little is leftover,
If any is left at all,
Prisoner to himself,
Until he allow himself to leave.
Sep 23, 2019
Sep 23, 2019 at 8:52 AM UTC
it is what you most fear, your reoccurring nightmare, the thing you can not grasp, understand, that shorts your brain, that death is the end, there is no after life, no purpose to your existence, no just god sitting on a throne, dispensing justice, punishing the evil, rewarding the good. reality is too hard and harsh, you pray to god, is it true, you are more my creation than i am yours.
how do you reconcile the fact that you know so deep down inside is true. you lie to yourself, suppress the fear, repress the thoughts, ignore what you see with you own eyes. the fear rises, the anxiety worsens, the insomnia lengthens, you fall prey to cognitive dissonance. to understand is to forgive, the anger, the irrational behavior.
the idea that you are mortal is unbearable, that you will die, your flesh rot, and be forgotten. how any man can make sense of it and live, court, marry, have children, when the world has spun out of control, the three horses are here. the pale horse is coming, it will soon be time to die.
Sep 12, 2019
Sep 12, 2019 at 2:04 PM UTC
Murmurs on pillow
throbbing at temples
made of steel
by now.
Hear me out
I said
holding signs
visible to me
and to me
alone.
But silence
is a temptation I can’t resist
as the body trembles
at full throttle
to the beats of innocence
or is it
cognitive dissonance?
Aug 9, 2019
Aug 9, 2019 at 9:49 PM UTC
It’s easy for anyone to associate harmony with music.
I’m no exception.
I’ve been an alto since I learned how to sing,
Dedicating the past seven years to rhythmic consonance.
That’s not the case for what’s in my heart.
In fact, the past seven years,
I’ve felt at constant war with myself.
Ironic, coming from a pacifist.
I can’t love my neighbor as myself,
If I’ve never known that feeling.
I’ve been taught to despise
Every one of my imperfections,
Learned how to hide my flaws;
Nothing but perfection was accepted.
None of my friends know the depth of sadness,
The dark in my heart,
Or the intensity of my rage.
I don’t know who I am,
Or who I want to be.
Nothing about my emotional state
Sings like a four-part harmony.
Nothing goes together,
It’s all a mess,
Pointlessly swept under the carpet
And I hope against hope
No one is smart enough to look underneath.
I can’t write about peace
If I never seem to relax.
I can’t pretend I’m alright
When I stress over everything.
I’ve never known harmony
Outside of sheet music,
And I’m terrified I never will.
Feb 20, 2019
Feb 20, 2019 at 10:21 PM UTC
Just hours since I learned of the great fall
my childhood enemy has taken.
My heart is shaken in internal squall.
Yet still, there is joy which I partake in
Why feel guilt at such a time, so long sought?
When others still roam the alleys of night;
our nightmare meetings still frequent and fraught.
The terror still real in the broad daylight.
I have been, largely, where she has now stood.
I have ground teeth on the obloquy.
I can’t rejoice now, though I wish I could
**** this infernal anisotropy!
And yet anger smolders at the pylons;
burning bridges and lashing at icons.
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 12:55 PM UTC
Five of us sit together
Four are boys
Three are gamers
Two are sick
One is me
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 12:49 PM UTC