#psychology
The classic two for one,
one getting to know the other;
agreeing and then disagreeing.
Where are the problem-resolution skills?
Whose favorite sport is it to watch?
At once both social and antisocial,
outgoing and not going.
Two opposites that both repel and attract
enough to dwell,
to share common space,
common skin,
clinging from without and from within.
This coupled personality,
a veiled duality stretched thin.
3d ago
Jun 1, 2026 at 10:21 AM UTC
You walk through the world, an echo in the dark,
Wondering if the flame is real, or just a spark.
Your hands hold paper, yet they grasp at air,
Questioning the faces gathered by the stair.
Are they solid truth, or shadows on the wall?
The friends who laugh, the lovers when they call?
Your family, your siblings,
the partner's gaze—Are they merely phantoms lost within the maze?
Are you a creature of the earth, flesh and bone?
Or just a nameless insect hiding in a stone?
A bird in mist, a flower blooming fast, A drifting fish,
or roots that anchor to the past?
Are you a mountain reaching for the sky?
Or a falling leaf that time has hurried by?
Are you the river winding to its endless end,
Or the biting cold of winter, a cruel, familiar friend?
Are you the pain that cracks the weary chest?
Or the love that heals and promises a rest?
The tiny atom, unseen, yet holding space,
Or the expanding universe, a boundless, starry grace?
Maybe you are nothing but a breath of air,
Bound to a name, a phantom standing there.
Perhaps you do not know, and that is perfectly fine,
To wander softly through the fog, without a grand design.
It is better, isn't it, to let the mystery stay?
To slip without an answer into the fading gray?
That is what you sought, beyond the fading chime, The quiet peace of being unknown,
after all this time.
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Right?
May 23
May 23, 2026 at 9:52 AM UTC
The first time I stepped back,
I expected the delay.
The small confusion
that happens
when something necessary
goes missing.
It never came.
The meeting continued
at the same pace.
A point I usually correct
was repeated incorrectly.
No one noticed.
The decision still moved forward.
I stayed quiet longer
after that.
At first,
only waiting
for the moment
my absence would appear.
It didn’t.
Replies arrived
on time.
The structure held.
Even the parts
I thought depended on me
found their way
around it.
That was what unsettled me.
Not replacement.
Not removal.
Adaptation.
The system
had not pushed me out.
It had simply learned
how to continue
without requiring
my participation.
So I tested it.
Spoke less.
Explained less.
Left spaces
where my weight
used to be.
Nothing slowed.
Nothing returned
to ask for it.
And somewhere inside that,
a realization began
setting itself down—
quietly,
carefully,
like something
that understood
it would not be leaving again.
I had mistaken
being included
for being necessary.
After that,
I still attended.
Still answered
when spoken to.
Still sat
in the same chair.
But something
had already shifted.
I no longer knew
whether my presence
was part of the structure—
or just part
of its appearance.
— J.D. Vale
May 15
May 15, 2026 at 2:10 AM UTC
If it's okay to not be okay,
then how come I'm not alright?
If I'm told I'm overthinking - shall I dwell on it overnight?
If indeed it's written in my DNA:
That I need watch what I think or say
I'd rather think about it, overly, until the break of day
Copyright ©️ David Bosworth May 2026
May 13
May 13, 2026 at 11:01 PM UTC
Relieve me of this cruel,
Subterranean passion,
Or douse dispiriting reason,
Cast out the angst,
Heart distressed,
Regain your soothing rhythm.
Return to me
Resilience,
Revoke this grim oppression,
Please recall
Lost resolve,
Compel its requisition.
Don’t consign me to
Nor evoke malign surrender,
Be wise, heart of mine,
For luring wind songs
Are the primary cause
Of many a heart’s demise.
May 12
May 12, 2026 at 8:37 PM UTC
In my trials and tribulations,
Be they however great,
I’ll forever own the splendor
In the sanctity of faith.
You, my precious God,
Are my hope, guide and way
Throughout this realm of ruin
Where I patiently remain.
You amplify my vision
When blurred by policies
Of godless constitutions
And scientific fallacies.
In a world marred by feuds
And depravity of endless bounds,
In the midst of wretched waste
My resolve you surround.
Allowing me an exodus
From spiritual regression,
Providing me asylum
From this decaying prison.
In all my allotted days
Amid triumphs and troubles,
You are my brilliant beacon
Through lifts, and minor stumbles.
Upon my last, departing day,
I’ll lift my heart, mind and soul,
Up to a timeless, sacred haven
To you is where I’ll go.
May 12
May 12, 2026 at 8:32 PM UTC
We wake before the light arrives,
Not dawn, but something staged,
The clock declares the hour as real,
Yet the body feels confined.
We dress and move to take our place
Beneath a borrowed sky,
And learn before the day begins
Which truths we must deny.
No iron binds the wrist or throat,
No warder guards the door,
Yet something tightens, notch by notch,
More certain than before.
It does not bruise, it does not bleed,
It leaves no mark to prove,
Except the grim compliance found
In everything we do.
The lights hum low and never die,
The dark is never whole,
A thousand windows flicker blue
And substitute the soul.
We scroll through polished ghosts,
A life confined to frames,
While something sacred disappears
Behind the human face.
We practice small submissions,
The nod, the tempered tone,
The careful check of many thoughts
We fear to call our own.
The ones who speak without the veil
Are marked and set aside,
Not feared for what they do,
But for what they will not hide.
No scaffold splits the public square,
No sentence rings aloud,
Yet silence serves the very same
Beneath a docile crowd.
And those who feel too much withdraw
Or stand at silent odds,
Not broken, yet unwilling still
To bow to lesser gods.
Something in them will not yield,
Though everything is tried,
A knowing none can truly teach
Yet will not be denied.
What strange affliction, then, to see
A world that has gone mad?
What sickness lies in naming loss
For all we truly have?
If order asks that we lose
The core of what is true,
Then let it keep its fragile peace,
We know what we hold to.
So, mark the ones who do not yield
Though standing set apart,
Who guard beneath the weight of things
An uncorrupted heart.
For though they walk through fractured days
Where hollow kingdoms gleam,
They are the final witnesses
To all we might have been.
May 12
May 12, 2026 at 4:51 PM UTC
While aversely obliging
decadent demands
of the reigning, endorsed affluent,
an internal voice howls
interposingly loud
and insists I really shouldn’t:
“pitiful, weary worker,
Coerced, uncaringly ordered
and ****** by upper class rules,
will you ever tire
of being a servile martyr...
of acquiescently singing the blues?”
Yet indignantly yielding I remain,
for on the altar of entrenched conformity,
sacrificed is this entrancing sound
of truth and reason by an ear-piercing,
reticent silence en masse.
May 12
May 12, 2026 at 4:47 PM UTC
Whilst bequeathed
are the grasping wealthy
with pilfered, false grandeur,
plundered and encumbered
are droves of working poor.
As the rancid wind
of wrongness rages
and fiercely blusters
in your faces,
arise, my brethren, arise,
effect its due demise,
for benumbed you’ve been for ages…
arise, ye battered, arise.
For shackled are your weary limbs
by gilded chains unseen,
and dulled are noble minds
by contrived and poisoned dreams;
whilst hollow men of arrogance
in swollen excess bask,
ye toil beneath oppressive suns
and seldom pause to ask
why palaces stand radiant
as children starve in gloom,
or why the fruits of countless hands
so seldom freely bloom.
As venomous decrees descend
from towering halls of stone,
and callous tongues speak coldly
of sufferings unknown,
arise, ye burdened laborers,
ye trampled and betrayed,
for tyrannies grow monstrous
when frightened hearts obey.
Though battered by exhaustion
and the grinding weight of years,
though haunted by uncertainty
and disciplined by fears,
still flickers deep within you
a fiercely sacred spark,
unquenched by all the cruelties
that thrive within the dark.
For they have long divided you
through tribe and hue and tongue,
lest unified remembrance rise
from old wounds deeply wrung;
they’ve taught the poor to war amongst
their fellow castaway,
whilst those who feast upon them all
slip quietly away.
And lo, how false the pageantry
of pomp and polished greed,
for no abundance justly blooms
from institutional need;
the banquet tables overflow
with spoils unjustly won,
whilst widows count their final coins
beneath an absent sun.
As ravenous machines of gain
consume both flesh and hour,
and human worth is bartered cheap
before the throne of power,
arise, my brethren, arise,
let not your spirits bend,
for apathy toward wickedness
invites the bitter end.
Let conscience be your lantern flame
amidst the gathering night,
and truth your unsheathed instrument
against corrupted might;
for though the tempest howls aloud
and drenches earth in dread,
still tyranny grows fearful
when awakened souls are led.
So arise, ye battered, arise,
though scarred by grief untold,
for dignity was never meant
to bow before mere gold;
and though the path be arduous
through sorrow’s bitter haze,
far better fierce resistance
than compliant, shackled days.
For fleeting are the monuments
of empires built on pain,
and fleeting too the arrogance
of those who rule through gain;
yet everlasting is the cry
for justice long denied,
thus arise, ye weary multitudes…
arise, and turn the tide.
May 12
May 12, 2026 at 4:38 PM UTC
1. THE WITHERING
the tree stood—
arms outstretched,
leaves loud in the wind,
but hollow at the belly,
a cathedral of unanswered prayer.
i searched it once,
twice,
a third time with hungered eyes.
nothing.
not a fig.
not a promise.
not even a hint.
and i,
taught to measure grace
by the pound,
felt the curse rise
like a coal in my throat.
should i not speak fire?
should i not say
what the book said?
but the tree—
it only shivered
in the hush
before the rain,
its roots gnawing
at the dark’s arithmetic.
2. RESOLUTION
so
the fig
is plucked.
the fig
is eaten.
i won’t
outchrist
christ,
who cursed
a fig tree
for its figlessness.
i will wait—
not like a saint,
but like the soil:
gritted,
greedy,
working its slow alchemy.
i will dig
beneath the bark’s scripture,
unclench the earth’s fist.
the fire in my mouth
will cool to embers,
banked for colder nights.
3. BEYOND THE CURSE
so—
the fig is ripe
and taken,
the fig is eaten.
but i
will not
curse the quiet branch,
nor chide the soil
for its stutter.
i will not
outcurse
the clock,
its metallic tongue
counting barren hours.
i will prune the brittle twigs,
hands soft as rain
but deliberate as dawn.
i will listen
to the sap’s gossip,
the root’s rebuttal
to my inherited fire.
4. IN THE TIME OF FIGS
in the time of figs,
some trees will bow
under the weight of bees.
others ache
in the drought’s lecture—
roots parsing
the grammar of survival.
the fig is ripe—
it is taken,
it is eaten.
but i
will not
curse the quiet branch,
nor scorn the stem
for its slowness.
i will wait—
through leaf-fall,
through the dry bark’s psalms,
through the long hush
of unbecoming.
i will wait
for the swelling,
for the fig
that comes
when it is time,
or does not.
5. FIRST FRUIT
and then—
as if remembering
how to give,
the tree offered
a single fig.
no trumpet,
no thunder,
no decree etched in gold.
just one fruit,
warm with stolen light,
nestled in green.
i did not pluck it.
i placed my hand beneath,
and it dropped
like a comma
into my palm—
a pause, not a period.
and i wept—
salt pooling where the curse
once burned my throat—
for the soil’s stubborn breath,
for the tree’s mute argument
against my inherited fire.
6. SECOND WITHERING
and when the next fig fell—
not to my palm,
but to the ants’ feast—
i bit my tongue
to keep the old curse
from crawling back.
(even grace
has its winters.)
i knelt,
pressed my ear
to the split bark,
and heard the roots
laughing underground—
a sound like figs fermenting,
like futures
not yet named.
7. EFFLORESCENCE
now, i measure time
in blushed skins,
in the slow sugar
of patience.
i have learned
to read the tree
backwards:
fruit first,
then flower,
then the ghost
of a bud
teaching me
to unlearn
the arithmetic
of scarcity.
the curse is still there—
but it hums
like a hive now,
its venom spun
to honey.
© Lanre Adebayo
May 10
May 10, 2026 at 10:07 PM UTC
Slide in sideways, half faded,
Frustrated, minds play mind games, jaded.
my high goes mile high, while my haze gross-weight stay underrated.
Five cutthroat days in an elevated state, Friday’s state of mind stays with a different design.
Eyes glazed, primed to preside with elation over variations of various iterations.
My reign, to persuade away from a chain phrase, I'ma have it my way.
Should you choose to, It'll behoove you, if you were to refrain from staying.
You could try to hit the highway and see the signs, leave this place and the pain behind.
Am I romanticizing an ill-gotten grace?
Or justified by the look-slapped upon my face?
Either way, and all the while, I survive by occupying the underlying base.
it pains me to say:
I bent over backwards and my back aches-
just to maintain in a misshapen way.
Can't fall in line if I’m calibrated into a crazy shape, suffice it to say, I know not a better way.
Im a spring sprung unconventionally, hoping to eventually glean a reason for believing.
Obviously, and subconsciously I'm obnoxiously awkwardly leaning.
A collection of circuitry, dyslexic in complexity and perplexingly in need of correctioning.
My thought mix exists in a twisted form, of wisdom born, from boredom.
A delicate mix of tics missing tact, reminiscing over ruminating talks, and intrusive thoughts.
And the thought that scorn is enough to adorn the prism within, in order to reward my addictive sin, without shouldering the burden again and again and again.
May 9
May 9, 2026 at 3:15 PM UTC
I am a bad person objectively
and
good person subjectively
so, what am I?
I don't know
but I know that
tests are graded through mistakes and not rights
May 9
May 9, 2026 at 1:02 PM UTC
There’s horror coded in you
I feel the red begin to spill
From every hole in your words
Lies become you
As the flames do
Light up the dark
I’m standing right behind you
There was a spark that caught the leaves
How can I say no to the ashes as they rise?
There was something beautiful in your eyes that night
But beauty is a curse driven by the stars
And you fail to twinkle in mine
May 4
May 4, 2026 at 10:22 AM UTC
“Smile,” they urge, “just play the part,” But what’s a grin without a heart?
Perhaps "happy" is a word too tall, And a simple curve is all they call.
“Smile a little, it suits your face,” A splash of paint to hide the space.
They don’t need your joy, your light, your fire, Just the upward tug they all admire.
Smile for them, so they never trace.
The hollow lines behind the lace; A porcelain mask, a grand design, To keep the wreckage from the shrine.
Are you happy, drifting through the years, Or just an expert at drying tears?
You want the truth, not the painted lie, But a smile looks better to the passerby.
It’s a decoration, a gilded screen, The prettiest veil that’s ever been.
“Wear it,” they say, “it fits so well,” But you’ve lived so long in that hollow shell.
Why claw at the edges? Why try to break free? When the mask is all they want to see.
They fear the salt, the raw, the deep, The nameless secrets that you keep.
Is it an ugly face, or just unknown? A map of shadows you’ve walked alone?
You dropped the mask once, felt the chill, Was that the freedom you sought to fill?
Or are you trembling, stripped and bare, Scared of the ghost that’s lingering there?
Perhaps the crowd didn't build the wall, Perhaps you’re the one who fears the fall.
It isn't their hands that pull the string, But your own fear of the truth you bring.
Perhaps it’s you who shuns the light, To keep The Smiling Mask in sight.
May 1
May 1, 2026 at 3:20 AM UTC
Hold your silence, but let it hum with a song,
Be heavy with sadness, yet know where you belong.
Grow tall and wise, but keep the child’s silver play,
Build walls of glass—clear to see, yet keeping hurts away.
Give with a quiet hand, not for the world to see,
Be firm in your truth, but let kindness be the key.
Let your anger burn as heat, but never as a blade,
Walk trembling into the dark, but go unafraid.
Let your failures be guests, not ghosts that haunt the hall,
For when you bow to the stumble, you rise above the fall.
For you are the sun’s high fire and the moon’s soft pull,
The jagged, broken pieces that make the spirit full.
You are the brilliant bloom and the rot beneath the leaf,
The logic in the mind and the salt within the grief.
It is not a war to win, it is not a self to shed.
It is not about the "good" or the stories you’ve been fed.
It is simply pulling out a chair for the parts you used to hide,
And letting the shadow sit peacefully by your side.
Acknowledge the storm, the ugly, and the grey,
Give them a seat at the table, then continue on your way.
You are not a single note, but the symphony they make—
Whole not because you’re perfect, but for every breath you take.
So tell me, now that the house is open and the light is stable,
Will you finally give them a seat at your table?
Apr 27
Apr 27, 2026 at 9:28 PM UTC
with a rotting tongue you push the branches
praying to throw them into a grave
and bury them with a stone tear
you severed each one with words
you steal the sun from the mouth
you even took the gaze of the blind
only the shadows you could not take
persistently seeking them in the wake of reality
Vjetar
Trulim jezikom guraš grane
Moliš se da ih baciš u grob
I zatrpaš suzom kamena
Svaku si odsjekao riječima
Kradeš sunce iz usta
Uzeo si i pogled slijepog
Samo nisi mogao sjene
Uporno ih tražiš u tragu jave
Apr 23
Apr 23, 2026 at 11:21 AM UTC
Heavenly dogs scattered my gaze
The game lasted long enough
To throw the last flame into my pupils
I sewed myself to a sleeve
I left the house
The one with walls made of silence
And a threshold that remembers dead steps
Until the hearth caught a cold
Sometimes things rush through my skull
A thought or two ends up there as well
I transformed my spine into a sickle
To cut my own shadows
The poet's burden is light for paper
Heavy for people with only one heart
Teeth must be strong enough
To chew through certain words
The same ones know how to break them
Teret pjesnika
Nebeska paščad mi rasuše pogled
Igra je trajala dovoljno dugo
Da mi u zjenice baci poslednji plamen
Sebe sam zašila za rukav
Kuću ostavila
Onu sa zidovima od tišine
I pragom što pamti mrtve korake
Sve dok se ognjište nije prehladilo
Katkad mi štošta projuri kroz lobanju
Bude tu i poneka misao
Kičmu sam prebrazila u srp
Da siječem sopstvene sjene
Teret pjesnika je lagan za hartiju
Težak za ljude sa jednim srcem
Zubi moraju biti dovoljno jaki
Da sažvaću neke riječi
Iste ih znaju i slomiti
Apr 23
Apr 23, 2026 at 4:21 AM UTC
In your walls, ghoulish tall
Members of fairy tail and malls
One and ten, now and then
Render the morning sun moot
But not of joy nor simple plot
Do we come and go in the dance
Winters will burn
Autumns will crave
And exchanging release will be at play
For good or ill
Not tormented spill
Do we arrange in the hay
That we are asked a good portions snake
To learn of the words
Frightful and unclean
Brilliantly obscene
Nothing with a plan b?
Now we are at the second complete letter rarely having time
There is much to learn and binded is an illusion
We learn of the hearts connection to the scared mind but,
We will not always resort from fear
Mar 5
Mar 5, 2026 at 8:12 PM UTC
“Duh-Smiley” once said:
“I know you like hats, so I brought you some hats.”
[Her “hat” looked different.]
She was writing a college paper on mental health.
[I was her topic.]
I did not care when those, of whom, were “learning”
A new trade came into the room.
[My “lonely-child”
Turned “isolation”
Was her sub-topic.]
So, “we” kept it up;
[She did not “know” my “own trade”,
So, that’s when “the behaviorist” came into play.]
A woman, of whom, I had “seen behind a glass”,
Once, “like being behind a window” was there,
Again, when I went to college.
[All that I had needed was “one good look”,
And she was back.]
I “took three steps back for every [three] step[s] forward”.
And I had “passed the[/her] psychology class”.
But I will “never forget”
How I was “Treated”
By That School.
AND: “By the professionals”, of whom,
Called it “Social Isolation”
In Other Classrooms.
©2026Ellen Finn
Feb 2
Feb 2, 2026 at 9:50 PM UTC
Rational fear keeps life alive,
on study of the fear, in mind be sown,
shifts from unknown to now known,
thus I'd say about the fear of illusion,
of getting known the yet unknown -
I shall readily fear the conscious populations,
among the masses encompassing our nations,
literate shall they be, among the ignoble crowd,
leaving believers, predictable of their own shrewd,
a student of reasoning, thus doctory, over the rest of speculations,
a chemist perhaps, being the base of medicine, a science of exceptions,
a physicist to be feared over it's resultant, chemistry,
or a set of axioms in math along, it's dead ends of infinite mystery,
pseudorandom to be feared of, among all randomness,
and a philosopher always over the math it condenses,
and after this pinnacle of human intelligence?
I shall fear the one disguised, for a keen diligence,
constantly, unknowingly, studying mortal mind,
especially if yet devoid of, any emotion of known kind.
Feb 1
Feb 1, 2026 at 6:34 AM UTC
Your teeth are falling out
When you wake with relief
Freud asks you, "are they really teeth?"
"Or everything you are, crumbling beneath you?"
"All of your secrets, tumbling away for all to see?"
"What do they REALLY mean?"
"They're just teeth" you try to say
but how can you speak through empty, bleeding gums
Jan 27
Jan 27, 2026 at 5:43 PM UTC
I’m feeling vacant
Reacting slightly
Rebooting nightly
Dusting my soft-furnished ache
My false replacement
Will keep the lights on
But when the flight’s gone
There’s still this freeze on my plate
Drained relaxation
Buffs out the corners
Streets full of mourners
Head full of nothing but void
No graduation
From sight to warning
And in the mourning
Those thoughts I need to avoid
Those days are over
I thank the skies, dear
I’ll cry my eyes clear
And scream my passages dry
Then breathing slower
--without surrender
I might remember
If I give it a try
Calm the fighter
Warm the freezer
Still the flighter
Sleep the pleaser
Turn the lights down
Slight the caution
Pause the countdown
Tension soften
Those days are over
Now breathing slower
I might remember
If I give it a try
Jan 26
Jan 26, 2026 at 4:06 AM UTC