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i smoked that ego down like a pack
it's still fuming
fumigating the room
clearing out space
coughing out lungs

can you see through the fog of your own *******

your hair is on fire
do you even smell yourself
     small talk and *******
will tomorrow remember tonight
        it's all for a story
       but can you connect the next line

her voicemail asks my favorite *** position
caller #9 ~ maybe we'll get lucky next time
life of the party
dying to be the story
  that no one can forget

ego is a roach
trampled by music
5:37am dream wake up
this poem is penned from that unconsciousness
  Feb 16 Taru Marcellus
Emma
into the
   glitter of
your own
               (un)holy
                       shimmer—
            a reckless
   riot of
jo(y)
       that burns
too bright
          and leaves
   you hollow
   like a house
after the
          storm

   oh!
to feel alive is
   unbearable
       (the world
sings)
          in your veins
   a song
           you never
   learned to hold
     (the weight
of breath)
          like a
     broken elevator
   plummeting
into the dark
               basement
       of you

“i’m fine,” you say
                     “this time”
       (you promised)
but here you are—
   back in the
      hollow,
           dragging
the weight
        of your
    own
   lies

it tastes like
rust, regret,
      (the blackness)
sleeping feels
like sinking—
   how do you tell
them you’d
        rather not
   wake tomorrow?

“i’m sorry”
        sticks in your
throat;
they want your
           light
but you’re out,
   out like
   a flickering
candle
          (the itch,
   the need)
to chase the
   next high,
               a needle,
     a prayer—
and still,
    it spits you out
           again,
this cycle,
   this sickness,
        this burden
      no one asked for

you sleep, hoping
to find a softer
   somewhere—
far from the
      endless climb
and the crash,
   wanting to rest
forever,
         but you wake,
            again.
and again,
   and again.
  Feb 4 Taru Marcellus
Emma
My mind, ruminating,
thoughts eating themselves,
snaking longer, longer,
like that old Nokia phone,
remember?
The game we played—
winning meant losing space,
meant swallowing whole.

I can’t stop it.
No off switch.
No pause, no rewind.
Memory flickers, a broken reel,
an unreliable witness in my own courtroom.
Why did I disassociate?
To survive, to vanish?
Was I drunk on innocence,
or did I crave your love so much
I kept my mouth shut,
called my silence devotion?

You—
standing there in my shadow,
writing your story over mine,
turning my quiet into consent.
But I was always spinning,
always folding inward,
splintering.

Now I haunt the game,
chasing the tail of what I was,
swallowed by the loop,
still wondering
if I’ll ever find the center.
  Jan 30 Taru Marcellus
Emma
colors spill softly,

rainbow bridge greets the still sky,

light bends into peace.
we do not know what
                                          we reach for
yet it awaits us                                                     beyond
                                                          ­                                   the visible
                                   within the potential
energy existed before touch
       kinetic art
                            ever in motion

candlelight is an extension of wick
                                                            ­  and inspiration
a  n   e  x  p  a  n  d  i  n  g   a  u  r  a
        breaching the frames of darkness
we are just as greedy
   our hands
      our mouths
         our minds
                they all run toward our outermost limits

heaven only knows
what escapes our clutches
                                                arms
   ­                                                       branches
 ­                                  fingers
reaching into the azure sky

                              1000 petal lotus floating
                                           in metta
12-minute writing prompt incorporating the words: branches, azure, frame, candlelight, petal, run
  Jan 24 Taru Marcellus
Emma
I found a photo today—
its edges frayed,
its silence speaking louder than memory.
The ghost of her,
born of pain but draped in a soft, unknowing light.
How could she not see?
The naïve tilt of her mouth,
the unarmored gaze of someone
who believed in futures made of love.

I would step into that stillness if I could,
shake her shoulders,
tell her to run before the lies
knotted themselves around her ribs,
before his dagger—
not sharp, but slow,
pierced the center of her trust.

I would tell her to proclaim love
where it mattered,
to her daughter watching silently,
to the family she left in the shadows
for a man who swallowed the light.
Every day, her daughter saw it—
the slow dying,
a death stretched across years,
not swift but unrelenting,
like a clock with no hands to stop it.

Run, I’d say,
before the hollow gestures,
before the waiting
for a love that never belonged to you.
See through him,
his promises fragile as dried leaves,
his truths curving away like smoke.

But now I hold the photo,
and she is already gone,
a ghost I can only argue with
in the quiet of my mind,
a ghost who will never hear me.
2am can't sleep again looking back at photo memories and wondering at how stupid I was...
I.
Condensedwords
Stackedandpresseddown
Stackedandpresseddown
Wei­ght sinks to the bottom
Structure becomes dependent
On prepositions and conjunctions
On loose articles of understanding
A book is built      pages of sentences
What happens when you remove   single word

What happens when   solitary page is ripped
         standing is compromised     brevity’s sake
It all falls


II.
[from] [a] [What happens when you omit a whole sentence] [a] [out] [under] [for] [down]
Playing with form. A poem after Maya Marshall's [midnight with a new moon]
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