let me tell you a story of remembrance. it's made of green glass shards, crushed beer cans, men's thick bones scraped clean. life ain't like the sea. she's her own god. i should know- I'm one of her angels.

2. let me sing you a lullaby about salt. how my mother left my body to the waves. how i learned to swim instead of drown. it's not a sad song, don't you weep like that. it's a good lullaby, a lullaby born of survival, and if you follow me i'll sing you the rest.

3. let me tell you what i am: scales and gills and smiles made of sharp teeth, sharp teeth, sharp teeth.

The moon hangs over the earth
A dead thing
Over a dying thing

I grew up with soldiers—
their boots a lullaby,
their grief stitched into uniforms
they never took off.

I learned how to die
a long time ago—
not in flesh,
but in forgetting how to be soft.

We played with shrapnel like toys,
measured time
by the distance between sirens.

And still—
I carry their silence
like a medal
no one pinned on me.

you are so much more
then your fathers son
you are so much more
than the wars you have won

unclench your fists, my love, the war is over now.
(i've forgotten how to uncurl my fingers from the trigger.)
be gentle, my love, the war is over now.
(i don't remember what it's like not to have gunsteel in my bones.) come home, my love, the war is over now.
(i'm back at the place i left but home is gone where i cannot find it.) sleep, my love, the war is over now.
(the war follows me into sleep. i'm afraid i'll never leave it behind.) kiss me, my love, the war is over now.
(my fingers still drip red and i do not want to stain you with them.)

teach me how to be at peace again

I only ever thought there were two types of love,
the kind you’d **** for (till blood coated your arms )
and the kind you’d die for ( gasping their name with your last breath)
but you my love
you were the kind of love
I would live for.

My English teacher said The opposite of love
Is hate.
But it's not hate,
It's apathy.
Hate still breathes,
It's fiery, raw, and real.
But apathy?
Apathy is a void
Where nothing's left to feel.
No anger, no tears,
Just empty.
So if you ask what's worse,
Hate or apathy,
I'd say apathy,
The silence,
The hollow space, Where nothing is felt
And nothing is left
Between us.

Flowers bloom in my lungs white like a frost covered morning, their roots weave intricate walls around my heart protecting it. But although they look pretty, I find I cannot breathe. the white suddenly seems more like fresh gravestones and the roots choke my heart in a thorn lined cage.

Flowers bloom in my lungs, white like a frost-covered morning, their roots weave intricate walls around my heart, protecting it. But although they look pretty, I find I cannot breathe. The white suddenly seems more like a freshly cleaned gravestone, and the roots choke my heart in a cage lined with needlepoint thorns. The bright flowers once blooming in my lungs are now a wilted bouquet clutched in sweaty hands watered by salty tears.

but then they call you hero
and you sigh and shake your head

The sky is on fire,
and the world holds its breath.
It bleeds out in streaks of crimson,
fingers of flame
licking the edges of clouds,
leaving behind ash that the wind cannot carry away.

It doesn’t scream.
No, it only burns
in silence,
a slow, tender rage,
as if the heavens themselves
have grown tired
of holding the weight of the stars.

We watch from below,
a chorus of small prayers
wrapped in our own fragile skin.
Some of us still believe in rain,
in the mercy of the dark,
but tonight,
the fire is too bright,
too wild,
too beautiful
to look away from.

The sky is on fire,
and I wonder if this is how
the end begins—
a blaze too beautiful to escape,
too hot to be touched.

We hold onto the night,
our hands trembling with the heat,
knowing,
somehow,
that this fire does not care
if we burn with it.

The sky is on fire,
and all we can do
is watch
as it consumes
the last of the light.

this is how it ends....
not with a bang
but a whimper,
and the ringing of cruel cruel laughter.

teardrops
petals
snowflakes
rain
stars
eyelids
time
shadows
the sun
and I,
for you

If you are so committed to being perfectly lawful
that you would do everything you are told
never thinking for yourself
you're not good, you're obedient.

What did I expect?
To leave a haemorrhage
of violets wherever I walked?
No. A lost son is called prodigal.
A lost daughter is just called lost.

I was a gifted child. Until I wasn't. I was the golden girl. Until I couldn't burn anymore.
My parents expected me to build wings of gold and fly further than anyone could ever try. I don't blame them, having a child to raise is like sculpting a clay ***, you can shape it the way you like, paint it the color you fancy. To raise a child is to play God. To raise a child is to be God.
But to be a child is to fall, to make mistakes, to fail. The thing about being too bright at an early age means you burn out by the time you're 16 and suddenly the world around you becomes more gray and terribly, terribly lonely. The fire is never warm enough, nothing is ever enough. And one day you find yourself begging to a godless sky, begging for a new spark.

"You've been writing again."
Yes, I have.
"So, who is behind the pain?"
What do you mean?
"I know you. You only write when you're hurting. When your heart's heavy, your mind full, your soul splintered. Those are the times when your best words
spill on the page. I know this because I've read them, I've felt your words enter my skin, flow through my veins, and embed themselves onto my heart. So tell me, who's behind the beautifully heart breaking poetry this time?"

divinity will stain your fingers and mouth like pomegranate juice.
it will swallow you whole and spit you out,
you will reach for it again and again,
greedy human fingers clutching at everything you can reach.
the divine will curl its way through your veins and take you over,
and it will not leave you quietly.
i feel divinity in my bones like aching; like fire.

"When they talk about the tortured genius, somebody always brings up Van Gogh-
how he swallowed yellow paint
because he wanted to put the sunshine inside himself.
How his psychosis was probably the result of lead poisoning.
They called him a prodigy ,
but what I see is a man who was so sad,
he found a beautiful way to **** himself.
They say, "it's awful isn't it?"
They say, "It's always the talented ones who go before their time."
And me, a 10 year old kid
who's always been told they were so
talented
wonders when I am going to die.

I'm the monster
parents tell there children about it

you love each other
you really do
but here's the tragedy
its not enough

***** burns my throat
but your name hurts my head
so i would rather black out with a hangover
then stare blankly at my hands
trying to forget what its like to touch you.

she's like glass they said

shatters at the smallest touch

crushed into a million tiny shards

she's like glass the said

break her and your the one that bleeds

The war will end.
The leaders will shake hands.
The old woman will keep waiting for her martyred son.
That girl will wait for her lover to return.
And those children will wait for their heroic parent.
I don't know who sold our homeland.
But I saw who paid the price.

they call you a patriot
and brand death between yours brows.
you smile and sing for them.

so take my dog tags and I'll take yours
and if we die in this brutal ****** war
don't tell them we switched
let me buried under your name
and you under mine.

'You're a heap of flesh and guts and blood in a wax museum. The only thing real. Sickeningly real. Crimson and warm where the others are pale and cold. Revoltingly red,
nauseatingly alive. You're a child in a graveyard.

I did what any rational person would do
I reached up to the sky ever so calmly and tore the stars apart
It rained blood and iron
That clung to the air as thick as glue coating everything in red .
Blood soaked mouths parted to reveal crimson stained teeth.

do you ever tell your parent that what if you can't do it and all they say is "I know you will". No mum. What if I can't ?  what if I disappointed you? what about my guilt? where do I keep this feeling? why is it so heavy? what if i fail? what then? will you still think of me as your brightest kid? will you still use me as an example for my siblings? will i be an example? what if i couldn't be that intelligent always making you proud kid? what if i fail mum? why is this feeling so heavy? where do I keep it mum? What if i fail?

when i die i want my corpse to be unrecognizable. a something-or-other dead on the side of the road, half-eaten, half-crushed, all-forgotten

i am no hector of troy.
the gods of Olympus won't keep my corpse clean until my father comes pleading.
my gods are the earthworms writhing beneath me and gift-giver Gaia, who strips my bones of their flesh and whispers softly as she feeds me to her children "lie still, lie still, lie still"

one time he and i were sitting in bed and i said "where do you feel stuff?" and he said "what do you mean" and i said, "here is anxiety" and pointed to my bottom left rib where the spiders start. he pointed to his throat. "it's here for me."
i keep anger in my breastbone, he holds it in his hands. i feel sadness on my shoulders, he feels it in his lungs.

Why is it always about Jesus' Suffering and God's Sacrifice?
Where is Mary?
Where is the woman whose reward for goodness and virtue was to have her baby boy tortured and killed as a warning?
Do you think Mary the ******, Mary the Mother, Mary the human ever regretted being good enough to earn attention of her God?
Do you think she ever quietly, privately, resented her faith?
Cursed her fate to be raised on a pedestal, carved into history as beautiful, weeping, covered in gold, cradling the body of her child?
How would she feel today, to step into a church and see above the pulpit, larger than life, the glossy painted likeness of her boy, thin and bleeding, looking to the heavens to a Father who would not spare him?
Was it terrible for Mary? Did she hate her God, in the end? Or did she stand tall to the last breath, a reluctant but obedient witness, faithful despite everything?
Was as she ever torn between her faith and her heart? Her love and her fear? The choice between loss or betrayal?
It would be terrible if she was in torment, but would be terrible if she wasn't.

You fear the stars
not because of their beauty
but because of their distance
how they hang unbothered
while you remain
earthbound

They do not need you
Their cold light spills
forgotten knowledge
burning far away
untouchable
like the things you cannot know
You fear their silence
the way they look down
without speaking,
without offering comfort
or explanation

They are too old
too full of stories
you are not part of
whispers of time
that do not echo
in your fleeting breath
In the dark
you trace their patterns
the vastness presses
against your ribs
reminding you
how small you are

You fear the stars
the absence of answers
the endlessness of questions
the reminder that you
are just another blink
in the night sky

you are not violet
you are not hands filled with morning light
you are not  tears pooled in corners of my eyes
you are not broken coastlines
you are not chipped fingernails

you are rain the soft type
that slowly eases into a catastrophic storm
and causes a typhoon that sinks entire villages
you are the type of rain that trickles into a river before it floods

She should've stood out in a crowd
She should've made her mother proud
She should've fallen on her stance
She should've had another chance

She should have been a son
She should have been a son
She should have been a son
She should have been a son

World, forget me — grind my name to dust,
Let rot reclaim and turns my blood to rust.
Strip me bare of flesh and thread,
Unmark my grave, watch as i bled.

Erase the stain where I once stood,
Bleed out my soul into the wood.
Let crows feast where memory fades,
And silence howl through empty glades.

No prayers, no plea, no tender grace,
Just darkness folding in my place.
Let time spit out my bitter taste —
A shadow lost in deeper space.

World, forget me — not in peace,
But like a curse you must release.
Like breath you choke and force away,
Like light that dies and dares not stay.

Let no one speak what I became,
Let even grief forget my name.
No myth, no ash, no twisted tree —
Just nothing left.
So let it be.

"That's so cute. You think you're scary.
But mister, I've seen scary-
and you ain't got his smile."