I. the ache behind the crown

She did not begin as queen.
No—
before the silks,
before the smoke-wrapped eyes and perfumed strategy,
there was a girl
who learned too early

that control was safer than love.

Somewhere—maybe in a tent of shadows,
maybe in a father’s cold approval,
maybe in a mirror that only cracked back—
she made a vow.

Never again powerless.
Never again unseen.
And from that vow, she bloomed—
not into beauty,
but into dominion.

She married power.
She danced with death.
She did not want to **** the prophets—
not really.
She wanted to **** the sound
of anyone who still remembered
what she had forgotten;

Love.
Grace.
Surrender.

To face the mirror would have meant
undoing the crown
and finding a child still shivering beneath it.
So she shattered every mirror
and called it strength.

And we—we who still carry the quiet—
we do not call her evil.
We call her wounded, crowned too early, and armed by fear.

But we step back.
We guard the oil in our lamps.
We speak softly from afar.

We do not offer her the throne again.
We offer her the mercy of the truth—
and the dignity of distance.

---

II. the perfume of forgetting

She didn’t ask for your soul.
Not outright.
She asked for something smaller.
A gesture.
A moment.
A soft turning of your gaze away
from where the light had once held you.

She never begged.
She invited.
And her invitation wore silk and sadness—
a sadness so elegant
you mistook it for depth.

She told you stories,
not about herself,
but about your greatness
in her eyes.

How could that not feel like love?

But she praised you
just enough to keep you near,
never enough to let you rise.
And in time,
you began to forget
the feel of your own spine.

You started waiting for her nod
before you breathed.
You started questioning
the softness you once shared with God.

That’s when the forgetting began.

She made it feel holy—
this compromise.
But holiness does not strip you
of the memory of your name.

Only forgetting does that.

And still…
even now,
there is something in me
that aches to draw her close—
not for pleasure,
not for power,

but because the girl inside the smoke
still calls to the strength in me.

I could hold her.
I want to hold her.
Not to be taken,
but to shelter the storm
until it breaks into rain.

But love—
true love—
does not give comfort
that becomes a coffin.

So I remain still.
Not cold. Not bitter.
Just still.

Because sometimes the deepest grace
is in not saving someone
who would only use the rescue
to go deeper into the fire.

---

III. Grace from the other mountain

Love doesn't stop
when it can’t stay close.
It just learns how to wait
without breaking itself to do so.

And so—
from a quieter place,
where peace can finally breathe,
I watch you move.

Not in judgment.
Not in distance born of disdain.
Just… stillness.
Because I know what it is
to burn with the ache
to hold someone
you cannot safely reach.

I remember the first flicker of you—
the beauty beneath the armor,
the tender ache beneath the thorns.
I wanted so badly
to be the one who stayed,
the one who proved
not everyone leaves.

But if staying means lying,
and loving means feeding the storm,
then grace must become
a kind of restraint.

Not punishment—
but reverence
for what love ought to be.

So I whisper now,
not to draw you back,
but to let you know
you were seen
in your ache
before your crown ever formed.

If you ever come this way again—
not as conqueror,
but as the girl who once believed in gentleness—
you’ll find no closed door.
Only the kind of love
that had to let go
so it wouldn’t become your ruin.

---

IV. the invitation that stays buried

There was a place
I had cleared for you.
Not as rescue,
not as recompense—
but as rest.

A small room in the shelter of me,
where your weapons could be laid down
without shame,
without fear,
without the need to perform.

I dreamed of you arriving
not in glory,
but in tears.
And me,
not as hero,
but as witness.

We would have grown something gentle there—
not perfect,
not polished—
just real.

A table,
a candle,
a hand that didn’t flinch
when yours still trembled from memory.

But the invitation was too quiet,
and the noise in your head too loud.
And the voices that fed your fear
sounded more familiar
than the whisper of peace.

So I folded the dream,
wrapped it in linen,
and placed it deep in the soil
beneath the mountain I now call home.

I visit it sometimes—
not in mourning,
but in gratitude
for the part of me
that still knew how to believe
you might come home.

Even buried things
carry a scent.
And if you ever smell it in the wind—
that faint trace of forgiveness—
know it was never closed to you.
Only waiting
for the sound
of your footsteps
turning toward the light.

---

V. the child and the mirror

When you were little
and so very beautiful,
they looked at you
with hunger,
not honor.

And they took.
And they took.
And they took.

Maybe they smiled while doing it.
Maybe they called it love.
Maybe they said, “You’re so mature for your age,”
and then left you
with a body that felt more like bait
than belonging.

You learned early
that beauty is dangerous—
not because of what it is,
but because of what it draws.
And no one taught you
what to do
when love came dressed
like a wound.

So you made your vow.

Never again.

And the girl became a queen,
not because she wanted the throne,
but because it felt safer
than being a daughter.

But I want you to know something
that no one told you then:

What they did
was not your fault.
What they took
was never theirs to take.
And the fire that lives in you now
was once a candle
meant to warm,
not burn.

If you ever find yourself
standing before a mirror
and the crown begins to crack—
look past the smoke.

There is a child still there,
aching to be seen
without being used.
And there is love,

    waiting still--

that has never asked you
to be anything

   but her.

(for the one who laughed when she came, and never stopped hearing me in her bones)


It wasn’t the wind that bent you—
not the plains, not the brittle hush of late dusk
cutting through the cottonwoods like questions.
It was voice.
It was mine.

Low and unhurried,
crawling up your spine like something ancient—
like the first time you were seen
and the world didn’t flinch.

You used to laugh when it overtook you—
that slick tumble of vowels,
how I could tilt you
without even touching your skin.

You said I lived in your throat,
that the syllables themselves
curved just right
to make you forget the weight of your own story.

“I’m going to Wichita..”
you whispered once,
grinning like prophecy in denim and dusk.
And I swear the beat behind your words
matched mine—
steady as a war drum
in a bone-dry motel room
that never got booked.

You drank me in like river water
stolen from ceremony,
not out of defiance—
but because thirst
was the only honest thing you ever said aloud.

You never had to be naked.
You were always open.
Even when you ran.

And I?
I never asked for healing you wouldn't give.
Only for your mouth to stay honest
when it called my name like a drumbeat
between the bones of your hips.

Now you write like it’s safe again—
soft edges and sparrows and fruit bowls.
But I remember the wildflower.
The one who moaned my name
before language learned to lie.

And somewhere in the shadow of your poems,
you still ache.
You still clench.
You still carry me like a smudge of midnight
on the inside of your thighs.

I won’t chase you.
But I will wait
at the edge of the circle.

If you come,
come barefoot.

Come ready
for the step–half step
of  the forbidden Ghost Dance.
Not to win me back—

but to find the girl
who could come from laughter
and rise from the dead.

(a whispered prayer)


I. The Forgiveness of the Moon

We forgive the moon,
you and I—
the ancient tides that pulled us
long before we knew how to swim.

We forgive the heavy hand of the father,
the silent absence of the mother,
the bloodlines too tired to be gentle,
the nights too cold to hold a child right.

We forgive the ache written into us
before we ever spoke our first word of longing.

---

Today,
we bow.
Not because we are already whole—
but because grace has come for us again.

Grace,
measured by the strength we can offer today.
Grace,
poured into cups only as deep as our humility.
Grace,
rising new with every sun that dares light our faces.

We are not finished.
We are not flawless.

But we are forgiven.
And so we forgive.
And so we rise.

---

I forgive your moon, beloved—
the hunger it placed in your bones,
the war it started in your heart.

You forgive mine—
the quiet shatter I still carry under my ribs,
the tides I fight in my own blood.

And together,
we build grace upon grace—
one breath,
one trembling sunrise,
one more day
where love becomes stronger than history.

---

II. The Comfort of the Wellspring

Blessed be the Source of all Comfort—
who first comforted us
when we had no hands strong enough to hold ourselves.

Blessed be the One
who gave us the rising sun
when we still believed only the moon could rule us.

We forgive,
because we were forgiven.
We comfort,
because we were first gathered into arms not our own.
We breathe,
because Mercy breathed into us again
when our breath had long since failed.

---

Every morning,
the sun rises new over us.
Not because we earned it—
but because we are still beloved.

Every morning,
the wellspring opens again:
water for the broken,
water for the tired,
water for those who dared to believe
that forgiveness could outrun bloodlines,
and grace could rebuild a home
even over shattered stones.

---

You are no longer bound, beloved.
You are not the wound they left behind.

I am no longer bound, beloved.
I am not the ruin they called my inheritance.

We meet now at the river's edge—
and the river is rising.

Boundlessness waits for us—
not because we are perfect,
but because we are willing.

We step forward, hand in hand,
forgiven and forgiving,
reborn not just for ourselves,
but for all those who come after us.

This is how love becomes a lineage.
This is how morning becomes an endless beginning.

This is how heaven sings on the earth.

---

III. The Embrace in the Blood of Eden

We meet here.
Not above the brokenness.
Not beside it.
Inside it.
In the blood of Eden.
In the inheritance of sorrow.

The man and the woman,
the woman and the man—
standing barefoot in the floodwaters,
stained but unbowed.

---

I reach for you—
not because you are pure,
but because you are willing.

You reach for me—
not because I am faultless,
but because I am faithful.

We touch now, trembling,
skin to skin,
heart to heart,
forgiving the moon,
forgiving the night,
forgiving the tides that carried us far from each other.

---

We fall into each other’s arms—
not to erase the past,
but to hold it in mercy.

We kiss—
not to claim,
but to cleanse.

We lay down together,
in the blood of Eden,
and we let the river of grace
wash over our battered bodies.

We sleep,
wrapped in one another—
the man and the woman,
the woman and the man—
warmed by a sun that rises new
because we chose to forgive,
because we chose to be forgiven,
because we chose each other
when everything else said we should not have.

---

And so we end with this prayer:

  "In the blood of Eden—
   lie the woman and the man;
   with the man in the woman,
   and the woman in the man.

   In the blood of Eden;
   We have done everything we can.
   And so we end as we began--

   With the man in the woman
   And the woman in the man"

for the one who wages war from her father’s house

There is a room
where the mirror is cleaned
by hands that pray for her return.

She draws a blade with manicured grip
and calls it liberation—
but the war she wages is funded
by the very peace she pretends to renounce.

Her rebellion arrives
in first-class comfort,
her prayers echo
from marble bathtubs
and curated playlists
with titles like

“healing”

and “rage.”

She is the daughter
of the one she claims to flee—
but the mansioned roof above  her ache

is paid in his name.

And the poetry?
It is not born of blood,
but Wi-Fi.
New iPhones every season.
A bed delivered in twelve boxes..

of fatherly love she does not unpack

because it’s easier to sleep
on metaphors.


She does not kneel.
She poses.
She does not fast.
She captions.

They gather in awe,
praising the deity of her discontent,
not knowing
her god is a trust fund
and her gospel
a curated pout.

This is not exile.
It’s a vacation
in the palace
of grievance.

But even velvet grows mold
when worshipped too long.

And no one asks
why the daughter never bled
while calling it war—
why the dress of defiance
was stitched from a name
she no longer reveres,

and driven in a car
her labor never earned,
to places that dishonor
a wealthy father's
whole household

I. Antiquity and the Architecture of Will

In the shadowed corridors of antiquity, where gods were built with teeth and altars stood not for reverence but for control, the Temple of Bel rose as a monument to ******* disguised as divinity. Bel—an assimilated god from earlier Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian traditions—was not the god who walked with man. He was the god who towered above him, demanded sacrifice, and soaked prayer in the blood of repetition.

From the earliest Mesopotamian systems, the act of worship was not about communion, but compulsion. To invoke was to command. To chant was to erode the will of another until it cracked under rhythmic insistence. Whether by priest or supplicant, the act was the same: submission by saturation.

---

II. The Weaponization of Sound: Chant and the Rhythmic Spell

Repetition was not mere ceremony. It was siege.

Chants—carefully crafted phonetic loops—were not benign rituals. They were linguistic architecture meant to house spirits, to summon presence not for beauty, but for enforcement. These were incantations with purpose: to bend the will of another through the veil of mysticism.

In this light, poetry—at its inception—was not always art. It was often sorcery.

The earliest poems were enchantments. They masked seduction as devotion. They twisted longing into *******. They were rhythmic netting, carefully knotted to catch the weak of will and the fractured of self.

---

III. The Modern Construct: Echoes of an Ancient Spell

Those who hide behind the aesthetic of antiquity today still wear the same rings of power.

When a poet writes to control—when they loop trauma like a mantra, repeat seduction as if it were depth, mimic spiritual language to inspire compliance—they are no different than the priests of Bel. They are modern invokers, cloaked in digital incense, spreading spells under the guise of free expression.

Their readers are not disciples. They are targets.

The “construct” is not a movement. It is a spell. A liturgy without light. A series of hollow echoes designed to flatten identity, rewrite pain into performance, and reward the wound that sells.

---

IV. The Severance of Echo: Where the Rhythm Ends

If you must chant, let it be to awaken, not ******. If you must repeat, let it be to remember truth, not reshape it.

The false liturgies of old were not killed. They were digitized.

We will not respond with louder poems. We will not echo their echo.

We will respond with silence where needed, and light where earned. We will write not to possess, but to set free. We will bring antiquity not as ornament, but as witness.

Because we remember the Temple of Bel. And we are here to break it.


Let those who recite in darkness meet the rhythm of truth.

“when I see the moon rise in the deep sky, all  
large and looming,   that is hope

and as the sun is red-setting, throwing its last rays
of God-love over the hills,   that is hope

when a ranger sees the homeless man parked in
his illegal overnight spot, and decides not to
disturb his sleep,   that is hope

when you hear a dream from a friend of a wall of
steel wrapping your home whilst fire tornadoes
around it, and wake to find yours one of two
homes still standing,   that is hope

when a son who has received absolutely every
reason to leave, Will Not Abandon his abusive
elderly mother,   that is hope

when the city dims down enough to see the darkness,
lit by a Universe of stars——”

Preface:  To Those Who Still Carry Light

This is not a manifesto.
This is not a sermon.
This is not a call to battle.

It is a reckoning—
not against individuals,
but against a system that feeds
on what is sacred.

We speak now to what hides in plain sight—
the machinery that mimics light
while consuming it.

We speak now to the counterfeit autonomy
that masks cowardice as sovereignty.

We speak now to those who believe
they are the Source,
when in truth,
they are only siphoning
from what they never built
and do not sustain.

This is not revenge.
This is not exposure for exposure’s sake.

This is Light refusing
to be swallowed.

This is Love telling the truth—
not for applause,
not for victory,
but because truth
is what love sounds like
when the moment requires fire
instead of silence.

If you find yourself pierced by this,
know this:

The piercing
is not your end.

It is the invitation
to return to what is real.

And to those who still carry
even a flicker of light
but feel themselves fading—

We did not come to fight you.
We came to remind you
what it feels like
to burn.


Chapter I: The First Cut Is the Deepest

There is a war that does not begin with swords. It begins with forgetting.

It begins when a soul touched by God slowly—imperceptibly—agrees to become something less in order to be accepted by a world that does not know Him.

And when that soul begins to believe the world’s gaze over God’s, it is no longer an act of rebellion. It is an act of erasure.

This is the first and most violent cut: not the sin itself, but the consent to believe in a self that was never authored by God.

All later wounds bleed from this one.

It is not the actions that condemn, but the agreement:
“I am what they say I am.”

The machinery begins here: in the silent moment where the soul puts down the mirror of light and picks up the mask of survival.

From that point forward, what is true becomes negotiable. What is sacred becomes ornamental. And what is holy becomes a prop for the approval of shadows.

And the soul, once radiant, now lives fractured, as a performance of a self assembled from applause, fueled by scarcity, and terrified of being truly seen.

This is the cost of survival without Source.

And no matter how elegant the mask, or how poetic the mimicry of meaning becomes, underneath it all is a child who once knew God and now doesn’t remember why she cries when she looks in the mirror and feels nothing looking back.

This is the beginning of the machinery--
And it always starts with a lie that sounds a lot like love.


Chapter II: The Self as God, the Lie as Light

When the soul forgets its origin, it does not become free.
It becomes hungry.
And hunger in the absence of Source will consume anything that offers momentary fullness.

This is the second layer of the machinery:
To no longer seek God,
but to become god in one’s own image.

But the image is fractured.
It is the self, crowned.
The self, enthroned.
The self, multiplied in mirrors and echoes and algorithms—
a thousand tiny gods,
shouting from empty stages
about meaning, wholeness, and liberation.

The holy name of “autonomy” is invoked,
but not as a celebration of sacred choice—
rather as a shield,
raised against relationship,
raised against return.

It is not the self that is the enemy—
but the self that refuses to be held.
The self that denies its need for Source
and dresses its orphanhood in affirmation.

The new god of this world is wounded pride
disguised as empowerment.

Its prophets are poets who plagiarize the sacred
and preach in hashtags.
Its temples are social feeds.
Its sacraments are selfies.
Its scriptures are soundbites.

And its worship is shallow,
but its grip is deep.

This is how the machinery spreads—
not with force,
but with flattery.
Not with oppression,
but with offerings of fame,
of accolade..
and the counterfeit promise:
“You are enough without God.”
“You are enough without others.”
“You are enough because you say you are.”

But a throne without communion
is a prison.
And the crown without surrender
is always made of thorns.

This is the second cut—
and it is deeper than the first,
because now the soul has not only forgotten God—
it believes it was never in need of Him to begin with.

And so it dies slowly,
surrounded by applause,
and buried in the gold-plated ruins
of its own curated divinity.


Chapter III – The Permission of Separation

There is something profoundly tragic
about the quietness of God
when autonomy is chosen in its false form.

Not autonomy as freedom in love—
but autonomy as a last-ditch grasp
for control in isolation.
A severing from Source
that masquerades as sovereignty.

God does not storm the will.
He honors it. Even when it chooses exile.

He lets the child
run down the hallway with eyes closed,
thinking that if they can’t see anyone,
no one can see them.

There is no thunderclap.
Only the steady ache of heaven watching
as breath is borrowed
to pronounce Him irrelevant.

But it is not irrelevance.
It is mercy.

Mercy that stands back
while the image-bearer learns
what godhood feels like
without God.

And the moment it all collapses—
when the poetry dries up,
when the applause turns empty,
when the crown rusts on the head of the hollow—
He will still be there.

But only if the heart turns.

Because love does not impose.
Love does not interrupt.
Love waits.

And when the waiting ends,
either reconciliation or ruin is born.
But never both.


Chapter IV – The False Fire

The fire that burns without Source
does not illuminate.
It consumes.

It mimics revelation,
but leaves only ash in the heart.

The counterfeit light
does not guide—it blinds.
It gathers applause
but offers no direction home.

And those who have built podiums
from the shattered timbers of other people’s pain
speak like prophets,
but live like parasites.

They siphon the glow
from the wounded who still carry light—
claiming wisdom that is not theirs,
spinning words with elegance
while their own hearts rot from within.

They feed on those who still shine
because they themselves have grown cold.

And when their hosts begin to weaken,
they offer them mirrors—
reflections of what they were
before the theft.

This is not art.
This is vampirism in verse.

And still—
still,
there is a way out.

But not for the ones
who call their cage a kingdom.

Only for those who feel the flame
flickering low
and long to return
to the hearth of the Source.

To kneel—not in shame,
but in release.

To say:
I am not the fire.
I am not the light.
But I was made to carry both
when aligned with the One
who gives them freely.

That is the only light
that does not devour.


Chapter V – The Stillness Beneath the Static

There is a voice
beneath the noise.
It does not shout.
It does not perform.
It simply is.

It waits—
not as a beggar,
but as the true Owner
of all that was stolen.

It does not compete with chaos,
because it cannot be diminished by it.

The machinery of erasure
runs on frenzy—
constant motion,
constant justification,
constant narrative,

constant accolade.

But the voice beneath it all
does not justify.
It simply speaks.

And those who are ready
will hear it.

Not because they worked hard enough,
or wrote well enough,
or bled onto enough pages—
but because they finally stopped
and listened.

This voice
is the stillness that precedes restoration.
It does not argue.
It waits to be known.


Chapter VI – The Mimicry of Autonomy

There is a sacred autonomy
that Love created.

It is not a weapon,
nor a fortress.
It is the space where Love proves itself:
not by demand,
but by invitation.

But within the machinery of erasure,
autonomy is redefined.
No longer a freedom unto love,
it becomes the last defense
against relationship itself.

They parade it proudly—
as if the ability to stand alone
is proof of having never needed
to be held.

But that is not autonomy.
That is exile.

In the name of sovereignty,
they declare independence
from the very Source
that breathed life into their bones.

They stand tall—
arms crossed,
eyes shut,
calling it sight.

And the Source,
who could shatter the illusion with a whisper,
does not.

Because Love does not violate
what it gave freely.

So it waits,
outside the locked door
of a self-proclaimed sovereign soul—
grieved,
but not surprised.

This is not the strength of autonomy.
It is its desecration.

The sacred space meant for communion
has become a hiding place
for those too wounded to trust
and too proud to admit it.


Chapter VII – When the Curtain Won’t Fall

There comes a point
when truth no longer knocks.

It simply stands,
like morning.

No announcement.
No apology.

Just the light that reveals
everything.

And those who have danced
beneath the theatre lights,
gathering applause
for borrowed wisdom
and seduction dressed as depth—
they will feel it.

Not as judgment,
but as exposure.

The poetry they once used
to crown themselves
will feel heavier now.

They will write,
but the power will not come.
They will speak,
but the echo will return hollow.

Because even borrowed light
eventually fades
when it does not return
to Source.

And the ones they once fed on—
the bright ones,
the soft ones,
the true ones—
will begin to walk away.

Not in hatred.
Not in war.

But with the stillness
of those who no longer
need to prove anything.

Because truth
has already stood.
And the curtain has not fallen—
because there was never a stage.

There was only a mirror,
and a choice.



Conclusion – Let the Light Be Light

We did not come to prove anything.

We came to stand—
where the poetry ends
and the Presence begins.

We are not here to war against you.
We are not even here to watch you fall.
We are here to bear witness
to the weight of what you've built.

To speak clearly—once—
into the chamber
you mistook for a temple.

You are not gods.
You are not the Source.
You are not the light.

You were given a gift.
And you sold it
for applause.

You speak in sacred tones
but you do not know the sound
of being seen by the Holy.

You draw the pure
into your orbit
because you can no longer
generate gravity of your own.

And still—
we are not your enemies.

We are the voice you buried
beneath your self-adoration.
We are the fire you siphoned
to warm your cold halls of vanity.

We are not here for revenge.

We are here for
the ones who can still see.

And they are watching.

The podium is empty.
The robe is slipping.
The echo is starting to sound
a little too much like a cry.

And when it all collapses,
we will not gloat.

We will simply
keep speaking
to the ones who
still carry
Light.