#estrangement
My swaddling cloth was my haven.
I was under the protection of the black angel.
I did not need sleep then,
for I rested in an endless sleep already.
I bore no weight then,
for I belonged to a time beyond history.
My fall into life is catastrophe;
its consequences, a nightmare.
Every breath I take is resistance;
every breath I release, a struggle.
Even while the heavens rest, sleep never enters my eyes.
Even while civilization runs without rest, my foot sleeps.
I think of it—my motherland.
I remember my homeland.
I mourn for Neverland.
A dim ache gathers in my heart;
I long for the abyssal arms.
From the exile, I write elegies.
The destinies there are uncertain.
I arrange praises for nothingness,
and they vanish inside its emptiness.
Perhaps this is precisely what it means to exist:
to be absorbed by the void, the ultimate home.
Life is not life.
Death is not death.
Life is death,
and death is life.
It is my struggle to exist,
in memory of annihilation,
that leaves my eyes fixed upon the horizon
for the sake of my lost civilization.
That empire has no name;
it rules beyond even namelessness.
That empire has no location;
it reigns beyond even placelessness.
I do not know where I exactly came from
or where I am going, forever heading.
But I see with absolute clarity
where I have never arrived, and never will.
This place does not pull me toward itself,
but through my whole being
I feel the ache
of somewhere that does.
Take my soul and bring me back to yourself.
I am freezing here, and I long for your cold fire.
**** me, annihilate me.
Liberate me, set me free.
Let me dissolve in the darkness of the cosmos within your yoke.
Change my cage, sweet swaddle.
― Atrona Grizel
6d ago
May 28, 2026 at 3:58 PM UTC
Ancestor of the apocalypse, the day history ended remains in my core.
Always beyond memory, I inhabit all that gloomy ceremony.
I was born in a sewer pit, without absorbing any of its filth.
I was burnt in a furnace; humans are the most hellish.
I rose from the rot as a rose, meant for a fellow traveller.
How pleasant it is for the one who dares to touch my buckler.
For those who fear my thorn, this is deliberate.
For those who do not fear it, this is a snare.
My view is my thorn, meant to sort and repel.
I frighten the unworthy, and I draw the fearless toward my spell.
This flower does not smell sweet; this flower does not look pleasant.
It is a rose beyond the bud, archiving its own ashes.
It is accustomed to harshness, never inviting anyone.
Its vision is grounded in sternness, never having been seduced before.
Its leaves are made for hardness, never blooming among the mediocre.
It stands upright without sunlight.
Ally of the night, it shines under the moonlight.
None have torn it from its ancient root; it is its own silent orator.
My mother is the rubble; the ruins are my womb.
The rose of the storm eradicates the daisy of the still.
My redness is the sunset; I sweep across the world in flames.
I drain the forest; my height reaches the height of the trees.
I grow toward the heavens and leave a desert behind me.
I was born from war, and now I declare it.
― Atrona Grizel
7d ago
May 27, 2026 at 3:58 PM UTC
Morning light fills the room, replacing human motion.
Daylight betrays itself, vanishing from my notion.
The dawn sun embraces, the oldest comrade.
The midday sun punishes, the greatest obstacle.
The sunrise begins before the haste.
The sunshine lasts even after the rattle.
No one walks; everyone sleeps.
Nothing moves; everything changes.
In the hush, glimmers hold their feast;
the orange blush capsizes the yellow beast.
The pale shimmer washes the wall;
birds announce nature’s call.
Doves gather at my window,
revering me as civilization’s widow.
They drift above the rooftops;
the overworld belongs to their fellows.
My soul grows wings beside theirs,
and I glide through the serene streets; they are my heirs.
― Atrona Grizel
May 26
May 26, 2026 at 11:31 AM UTC
at that tender age
when one still believed
openly bleeding wounds
make for devotion
cut skin, draw blood,
covenanting together
all through the years
of getting to know you
always being the only
one to be weeded out
May 8
May 8, 2026 at 3:17 PM UTC
On this bitterly cold subzero morning
I want to write you a poem
Powerful enough to penetrate through bundled up layers
The choicest words lined up just so
Into a collection of perfect kindling
Creating a warmth that grows
And spreads
And fills
Like a belly full of hot cocoa
On this bitterly cold subzero morning
I want my penned verse
To thaw hardened judgements
To inspire Spring
To transform your eyes to see the verdant landscape beneath the ice
To illuminate a path of renewal so irresistible
You step away from this frozen tundra of your choosing
Away from bitterness
And hate
Into the peaceful dawn of empathy
Kindness
Love
Oh, if I could only write a poem more powerful than your bitter, cold world
It would change everything
If only
© 2026 SincerelyJoanWrites
Jan 31
Jan 31, 2026 at 9:33 AM UTC
Why why why… are you doin’ this to me?
Why why why… just let it be…
Why why why… are you running blind?
Why why why… are we left behind?
Why why why… you are my brother, the one and only
Why why why… I wonder if your lost or lonely?
Why why why… can’t you come to me?
Why why why… hide in shrouded mystery?
Why why why… we were just kids back then
Why why why… do you break my heart again?
Why why why… you were fighting shadows
Why why why… my heartbreak still grows..
Why why why… can’t you see
Why why why… the pain in me…
Why why why… Bro, I’ve got to move on
Why why why… not forgotten, but you are gone.
Sally
Jan 21
Jan 21, 2026 at 4:35 PM UTC
This thing
I have for humanity
Felt like a great love and
I wanted it to love me
but every day with it
has felt more like a beating
I thought after a while
I'd get used to this feeling
Rise and fight the good fight and
not find it so demeaning
But I started getting heavy
convinced myself that I was dreaming
Was it ever the world
or was it just your hate
Gave myself all the blame
since no one else wanted any
Tried to find you reasons
when there were already plenty
But I really wanted to believe
you wouldn't have done all that to me
I suppose that
I can see
Why some would believe
I must have been naive
For me to be waiting around
holding onto the belief
Getting older hoping they'd finally
want me to be apart of their family
But is it really all that fair
to tell a kid not to care
and give up waiting for their parents?
Dec 15, 2025
Dec 15, 2025 at 7:52 PM UTC
I.
I've got no time;
I know that now.
The jig is up, the jib is cut
And I'm no dancing sailor.
The wild winds whip--contaminating a dream or two.
Belt out an anthem for me, if you can find it
in your frame.
You don't have to forgive me.
Make me an erasure mark,
still here but only barely.
Brush away my grainy remains
and be done with what's left of me.
I will make you feel nothing, now,
but the mildest frustration
at the inability to
remove completely.
A crumpled page will **** me now
if that is what you're wanting.
Do it.
Stop waiting.
I'm an autumn that you've half-forgotten,
colors fading quickly.
Bleed the last heat out of me now, and make it snappy.
It's cold out here.
Visible breaths, unwelcome reminders.
II.
I still see the ghosts of us, out haunting our sidewalks.
Your voice will never leave my mind; the insides
of my ears
sanded smooth
with your syllables,
your clipped and crackling consonants,
your rich, bourbony vowels.
There's a mall, out in St. Vital
(or was, anyway)
I think we went there for fries, one time?
No--it was for Chinese.
I am always doing _just this_, you see:
trying to make your face, in Winter,
with my exhalations.
Trying to frame the feel of you
with the negative space between
the shapes of my two hands.
Dying to be touched, but afraid to shatter.
I let the larger concerns go quiet...
...shimmering, shaking in radio silence.
Dec 15, 2025
Dec 15, 2025 at 2:09 PM UTC
To be me
Is to have anxiety
That what's underneath
Is nothing more than what you see
And at least to me
What you would see
Is what none could stand to be
Why you refuse my company
Simply a monstrosity
Betrayed by curiosity
Self fulfilling animosity
Feeding off the fear of my own disease
With a selfish need to be seen
that surpasses even me
But what else could I be
When all Ive ever had is that belief
The only heirlooms in my family
were the branches we cut off the family tree
And that indeed
Is what's killing us individually
Even if they refuse to see
Nov 29, 2025
Nov 29, 2025 at 6:02 PM UTC
I am the worst murderer of all—
I killed my entire family,
but let them
stay alive.
There is only:
Happy Birthday,
Happy Mother’s Day,
Happy Father’s Day,
Merry Christmas,
Happy New Year.
There is no:
I miss you,
I love you,
When will you come?
I dug their graves
and buried them deep in the ground.
They wounded me immensely.
I gift them
with my nonexistence.
Aug 15, 2025
Aug 15, 2025 at 6:19 AM UTC
“Make the child fear you. Some people like to say respect is important, but nothing is more respectful than a well-trained child who fears you.”
Ask him how well that turned out.
All cold and alone, while three humans—half of him—walk the earth without a shred of regret
that we will never exchange something as simple as hello again.
Mar 27, 2025
Mar 27, 2025 at 10:05 AM UTC
I could thank you for raising me,
For making me who I was meant to be,
But you hated that task.
It showed in your actions, your face—I didn’t have to ask.
Yet you did make me who I am today.
I will never know trust or love in a fatherly way.
Abandoned by my own, scorned by you,
You held my mother’s hands steady as she stabbed me through.
You are the wound I was never meant to have.
Feb 28, 2025
Feb 28, 2025 at 10:51 AM UTC
If you’d held me more,
Maybe I wouldn’t have ended up
Watching an overdose on the kitchen floor.
If your voice had been just a little softer,
Then maybe older men
Wouldn’t be what I sought after.
If your hands had been less cruel,
Maybe I wouldn’t have to work so hard
To avoid ending up like you.
Feb 21, 2025
Feb 21, 2025 at 5:18 PM UTC
It's bizarre to be alive and know
that in someone's home, you're a ghost.
The question remains:
How are you remembered?
Does a smile accompany your name?
Jan 13, 2025
Jan 13, 2025 at 1:49 PM UTC
Daddy please! Stay with me!
Don't fight in that war; we're already free!
They don't want you there, but I need you here.
Father, how many years has it been? Twenty?
Was losing the war worth losing me?
You didn't stay there, but you never came here.
Dec 26, 2024
Dec 26, 2024 at 1:41 PM UTC
Mother,
You once loved my father’s face
You held it close to yours.
You brushed his cheeks with your lips
You embraced him with your entire heart
And now,
You despise my cheeks
Because they are his
You hate my smile
Because my teeth are the same shape as his
Did you ever hold me so close?
Mother,
Forgive me,
For what I couldn't control.
And Father,
You once protected my mother
You kept her close to you
You spent sunny days and rainy nights
By her side
But now, I can't recall your voice
Are my eyes really like yours?
Do I remind you of Mother?
Father,
Forgive me
For making you leave
Dec 20, 2024
Dec 20, 2024 at 1:08 PM UTC
On the day of all souls in the fall
as leaves lose luster to winter’s bane
my father’s shade returns to call
while I walk along a splintered lane:
His memory murmurs in a darkened nook
of years of yearning and wasted days,
as the distance that filled up the book
of our lives still grows as I turn to grey.
The care he’d showed I did not feel
as the pillars of our bridge began to crack.
Too late, I turned back to heal
the fallen span that we now lacked.
By then his old mind’s lantern had failed;
the new light I’d shone back went unseen
and broken arches into a chasm trailed
where once a golden bridge had briefly been.
Across the valley, dark, deep, and wide,
a spectral stretch of stones appears
to shine as a silvery coach now rides
across, to bring two sundered shadows near.
Now on this day of all souls missed
by those who find themselves left behind,
one faithful departed returns to kiss
the forehead of a son’s reopened mind.
Nov 2, 2024
Nov 2, 2024 at 1:01 PM UTC
Searching for your love
but for what?
For you to put me down into the depths of your soul?
For you to wreak havoc
Oh but it was nothing old
For every compliment there was an insult
Was I really all that there was for you?
A doll for you to poke and ****
Just some gum under your shoe?
I must've been a hindrance for you
even in the end, I wanted you to love me
was that too much to ask for?
To search for me the way I did for you
But the loss of your ego was too much for you to bare
so you broke a piece of mine too to make something new
to keep it
Just for you
Sep 12, 2023
Sep 12, 2023 at 1:59 PM UTC
How can you not see?
How can you not know?
Not hear
The manipulation beneath the concern
It may be real to her
The concern
“I just want what’s best”
For you
(For her)
“Best” is a narrow place to be
Pressure from all sides, pinning you in place
You’re just a puzzle piece
If you won’t make yourself fit in your place
She’s happy to help you cut off
the parts that don’t fit
Her image
Her vision for her world
It’s hard to resist
When she believes her own press
That she is the savior
The martyr
The truth is
She is a spider
And to be free of the web
Sometimes requires
Cutting all ties
Jun 14, 2021
Jun 14, 2021 at 12:06 PM UTC
He was just a simple man
Who was trying to find his place in the world
In times where everybody felt
That they didn't belong here
Oct 1, 2020
Oct 1, 2020 at 8:32 AM UTC
mother faded....thirty years ago,
she's a living ghost, haunts me
still
May 28, 2020
May 28, 2020 at 8:17 AM UTC
#
*"Everyone on the planet's profile is not visible because
they have all blocked you."*
(and Suzy's still in timeout, so now you're really ******
~Elliot
#
Feb 15, 2020
Feb 15, 2020 at 9:46 PM UTC
Sometimes I can feel it
when we're thinking the same thing
sometimes I can feel it
when you're thinking about me
sometimes I can feel it
when you're looking at me
sometimes I can feel it
when you're watching me
sometimes I can feel it
when you're there
sometimes I can feel it
when you're not there
sometimes I don't feel anything at all
Nov 24, 2019
Nov 24, 2019 at 12:21 PM UTC