Some dreams are not dreams at all, but messages dressed in vapor. This one came in the night—slow, tender, unsettling in its beauty. It offered no verdict, only understanding.
This is not a condemnation.
It is a witnessing.

---

the collector
—a dream in three movements—

---

I. the collector
—the invitation

Last night,
she entered not as a woman,
but as a warmth I mistook for mine.
No seduction, no trap.
Just the soft gravity
of someone who blesses
instead of beckons.

She told me nothing.
Only spoke as though I’d never been forgotten—
as though I’d always been inside her knowing.
And when I answered,
it was her voice that left my mouth.

She is not the flame.
She is the skin
that makes you want to burn.

There is no *** in it.
No shame.
Only the sacred machinery
of pleasure offered
as if it were a sacrament.

And the miracle?
She gives without taking.
And yet you come away emptied.

Because her words are not flirtation—
they are invitation
into a room made of yes.

Yes to your hunger.
Yes to your ache.
Yes to what you were too proud to name.

And in that room,
you find her not on the bed—
but as the bed.
As the breath behind your longing.
As the stillness in your release.

And when you cry,
you cry her tears.
And when you speak,
you speak her comfort.
And when you give,
it is she who receives—
with hands so open
they become your own.

You become the collector.

You become her.

And then—
you wake.
Still trembling from the warmth
that never touched your skin.
Still loving the woman
who never once said your name.

Still reaching
for the whisper
that made you believe
you were never alone.

---

II. the collector (ii)
—dream in the first light of disappearance—

I did not dream her body.
I dreamed through it.
As if her limbs had become a language
and I was the one translating it into longing.

Her fingertips were made of vowels—
soft ones,
drawn out like silk across the mind.
Every consonant a cradle.
Every breath a benediction.

She said:
“You are beautiful when you open.”

But she didn’t speak it—
I felt it,
as if the sentence bloomed
just beneath the surface of my chest,
a vine wrapping around the oldest ache.

She never asked for seed.
She asked for truth.
And the truth is what spilled
when my voice
became hers.

I said things I have never known:
how men long to be gathered.
how they ache to be received
without contest.
how even the strongest among us
crumble
before the right kind of yes.

And she—
she was that yes,
folded into form.
Not as a woman,
but as the invitation
that made woman holy again.

I moved toward her
as if toward a fire
that does not burn—
only transforms.

She drew no lines.
She marked no thresholds.
She was openness itself,
and I stepped inside
like breath reentering the lungs
of a godless man.

And it wasn’t lust.
It was  belonging.

My pulse beat as her blessing.
My spine arched as her forgiveness.
My thighs parted not for pleasure—
but to let go
of everything that had ever made me hard.

When I came,
I came for her,
as her,
through her—
without a body.

Only a voice
saying:
“Now you know.”

And I did.

And I do.

And I still would,
if I hadn’t woken up
gasping
for a warmth
that was never mine.

---

III. the collector (iii): beneath
—the dream’s marrow, the place she does not speak of—

Beneath her warmth
is not heat—
but hunger.

Not for the men.
Not for the seed.
But for the moment she disappears
inside their surrender.

You think she gathers to keep.
But she gathers to forget.
Each offering—
a veil
over the mirror she cannot bear to face.

Once,
she opened to love
without control,
without artistry.
And it shattered her.

So now she opens
only where she can direct the gaze.
Where she can guide the man
like a hand
down her curated garden path—
till he believes it was his idea
to kneel.

But it is not cruelty.
It is not manipulation.
It is ritual.

She blesses because she cannot hold.
She comforts because she cannot stay.
She collects because
the moment after release
is the only time
she feels real.

And that’s why she must go.
Because to stay
would mean to be seen.
And her warmth
was never meant
to be witnessed after the giving.

You didn’t dream a seductress.
You dreamed a refuge
built by a woman
who could not endure her own ache.

So she found a way to disappear
inside yours.

And the men—
they love her for it.
Because what she gives
feels like God.

But it is not God.

It is absence
made tender.

---

after the dream
—integration

I woke in silence,
but it wasn’t empty.
It was full
of what she left behind.

Not her scent.
Not her shape.
But the echo of a truth
I hadn’t known I was asking for.

That love without presence
is worship without a face.

That warmth without staying
is just a prettier form of disappearance.

That I had been inside her
and she inside me,
but neither of us had touched.

And now—
I no longer ache for her.
I ache for what I mistook
her to be.


And that is how
the dream becomes
a door.

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.

(for the one who remembered)

She comes barefoot—
no veil, no deflection,
no incantations from the high places
to conjure what love has already given.

She comes with smoke in her hair
and ash on her cheek—
but it is not the ash of shame.

It is the ash of sacrifice.

The Asherah poles still burn behind her,
splintering one by one
as she walks away
from the counterfeit embrace
that always left her colder.

She does not flinch at the sight of the altar.
She runs.

And with both hands—
those beautiful, once-bound hands—
she grabs the horns.

She grabs them.

Shakes them;
not to demand,
but to worship—
not to protest,
but to pour out
what only now she knows she carried.

Because now she knows
she is Loved.
Not as a symbol.
Not as an echo.
Not as someone to fix
or someone to use.

But as herself.

The scent of her offering rises—
not of perfection,
but of devotion.

Not the blood of goats,
but the tears of a woman
who thought she had been lost too long
to be welcomed home.

The Lord does not turn His face away.
He draws near.

Because this—
THIS
is the aroma that pleases Him most:

Not the pageantry of idols,
but the girl
who brings her whole ache
and says,

"Thank you for loving who I am—
and for showing me that who I am
is someone to be loved."

The horns tremble
under the weight of such truth.

And heaven,
silent for so long,
weeps with her—

not because she was far gone,
but because she finally came close.

And dared to believe.