She stood in my dream—
a blade braced against the city,
wind snapping at her hem,
red dress fitted like war paint,
like blood that refused to clot.

The moment felt stolen—
like slipping into someone else's dream,
knowing the ending,
but not wanting to wake.
The air throbbed—thick and sharp,
each inhale dipped in fire,
sharp enough to carve her presence into me.

Her green eyes—
not just green, but glass-fire,
feral and wet like crushed ivy,
hooking into me like wire—
dragging me into a pool of silence
until I drowned for looking too long.

I looked down, ashamed—
my body weak as paper,
my knees betraying me quickly.
But when I looked back,
she was still there,
smiling in a way that burned—
that split the cold open,
as if begging for a touch.

I stood, fevered—unsure,
struck by this delicious heartache,
the taste of something wild on my tongue,
something forbidden—
as if I were tasting wild strawberries
for the first time.

She has her palm
to her wound’s open eye—
no cloth, no cure,
only the cold air
moving through her naked body.

The pain does not beg anymore—
it has long since learned
its own language,
driving its message in with slivers—
she is tired of that sound—
her heart breaking.

She falls asleep crying
and wakes to her king next to her,
rubbing her bloodied palm—
she is hypnotized and slowly sees
his hands are weaving.

She does the same,
her hands now in a dance,
weaving what could not be seen,
turning ether into silk,
pressing it flush against her ache.
It wraps not as flesh does,
not as iron or oath,
but as mist in the morning,
as light cradles her lost.

It is enough sometimes—
not to erase but to soften,
not to heal,
but to make her believe—
a love that won’t break,
waiting in her dreams.

Life moves—
one moment
wind in my hand—
the next,
stone in my shoe.

I think I know the shape of it—
I don’t.

I race ahead,
laughing,
I drag behind,
sobbing.

Life—
ghost of a dream.
I reach—
for more,
but my hands
return empty
because
all I can have
is the life
that I carry.

Love is just a word
people throw around
like confetti or knives—
depending on the sharp of their day.

I once read that love is a noun
but that sounds so wrong—
because when I love you
my heart bleeds through my shirt—
like trying to say good morning
without sounding like a rescue dog.

They don’t tell you love
can sound like a washing machine
three minutes from spinning apart—
or look like my hands
gripping your thighs
without losing their cool.

No one talks about how
when you whisper the word 'babe'
the hollow of my knees
feels like you’re a church
and I’m praying you won’t leave.

I’m told there are definitions,
brilliant ones in books—
but none explain how your mouth
feels like a world of good,
or how your breath
is the only song I want
to fall asleep to.

I don’t know what love is,
but if it’s the art of opening
the most terrifying soft part of ourselves—
then maybe we’ve been doing it right
all along.

Late morning light slants across the fence.
A ladder leans where someone still needs it.
The cat circles twice before lying down.
Wind moves the laundry—
one sleeve lifts.

In the orchard, branches sway,
apples drop one by one,
the sound caught by wet grass.

Wood splinters,
as doors slam—
Someone always ends up leaving.

Down the hall,
voices rise, then settle—
we were taught not to talk to strangers,
even the ones who once loved us.

Love is a blanket,
too short to cover our feet—
stretched too thin,
it always tears us.

A house can break in small ways—
first in the sharp cut of words,
then, in silence,
until even the walls stop asking for us.

In the end—
there is nothing left
but the frame of a doorway,
a threshold where no one waits—
just air shifting,
and a ghost stepping through.

Dusk slowly spills over rooftops.
A train rumbles past the orchard,
through the crowded station—
windows lit, then dark,
then lit, then dark—

Leaves scatter near the tracks,
whistle echo low.

Offre moi la majestueuse cadence de tes marées
avec influence pacifique à fleur d’eau—
d’un chant allusif
maîtresse des forges
sur l’enclume de tes récifs
je me commotionnerai
pour débâcler mes barrages enfoncés
résiliés par mauvais herbages salés
varechs extirpés
enfin disculpés par ton écume d’albâtre

Offre moi passage clandestin
**** des troncs rocheux entortillés de tes écueils
et de nos malmenages advenus—
ma conduite guidée le long de tes platiers
je veux m’étendre sur tes plages distinctives
recroquevillé à flanc de falaise
ma préservation réinventée
sur les refrains flûtés des lulus dorés
camouflés dans les champs talqués de roses blanches
et des forts jetés sur les horizons cassés

Offre toi à moi sans artifices
pure et limpide
comme les eaux décantées
a l’ombre de ta futaie de mangroves
partage tes délices limoneux
sustente mon estomac récalcitrant
de papillons laqués d’or et d’ambre—
dans une euphorie amusante
truffée de motifs purs et viscéraux
je t’offrirai une poignée de chrysalides
et le chant de mon âme

Part 1
Moored to Your Fate

You never thought it would be her—
the one who once traced your hairline
with lullabies,
who held your hand across the street,
who held up your name,
like a promise that the world would
never break you—Hope.

But sometimes—love wears a cruel mouth,
fingers that once soothed now shove you under —
you learn to swallow the tide,
to keep quiet when her rage bleeds
her voice upon you—Hope.

Part 2
The Haunting Storms

And when you run away to find shelter,
the storms do not ask if you are ready.
They do not care if your ragged bones
are already cracked.
If your heart, heavy as a stone,
has already been tossed away into
deep, dark water.

Still, they sink and you drown, they
sink and you drown—you hate it—
hating who you’ve become—sunken,
cursing your name—Hope.

Part 3
Unmoored

One day,
you wake to a  perfect calm—
not sure how you got here,
only that the air is crisp,
with daylight most forgiving.

Beside you,
a younger version of yourself,
small fingers tracing your hairline,
as if mapping a way back.
She grabs and hugs you,
pushing her tiny nose into your neck.
She kisses your cheek and whispers in
your heart—thank you.

Thank you for not giving up.
Thank you for holding up my
name to your heart,
like a promise that the world would
never break us.

Thank you—for becoming the oar,
the mast, the unsinkable hull
that does not break—having me safe
as your stowaway.

Thank you—learning to row
with bleeding hands,
to steer by the stars no matter what—
the punishing rain blinding you,
and the wind lashing at your face.

Thank you for taking my hand and
carrying me across the oceans.

The sky splits wide with light,
a flood of emotion makes you both fall
to your knees.
The brightest shore fills you up
like a slow hymn, and you—
breathless—
standing grateful
in this perfectly made morning—
a day to remember—Hope.

After the burning,
I kneel on the blackened ground,
sink my hands into the warm ruin—
roots like charred veins,
soil tainted with the bitter taste
of scorched dreams.

The air smells of ember and ash.
I wonder if the earth remembers
what it once had—
amid these remains,
a tender green dares to rise—
small vivacious sprout,
climbing into thin air—
feeling the shift within—
a slender belief in tomorrow.

I sit with it and say nothing—
watch the wind test its will,
watch it shiver, bend—
seeking balance.

And somewhere inside me,
a quiet warmth stirs—
not unlike the seedling,
not unlike the light it leans toward.

Perhaps this is how we begin again,
kindred, this seedling and I—
not in grand gestures,
but in small, defiant hope,
in the way we root ourselves
to what remains after a scorching
and trust the sky to find us.

A chessboard romance—
queen surrenders to white knight
king caught in checkmate

The universe plays—
aligning planets with string,
tipping cups, slipping numbers
and small celestrial bodies
into my pocket like a trick
it knows all too well—
and I’m in for a wild ride.

7, 14, 21.

A row of my favorite doors
along the way and know better
than to ignore the ticketmaster.

March 14th—
Today is such a day
A day of synchronicity—
my father’s birthday,
the day for blood works
the day my ex-partner get
the results back from her
cancer operation.

A waiting room,
a needle, a past.
The air hoping for a futur—
even the clock seems rushed
to know.

March 14th —
diagnosis wrapped in gauze,
results not yet spoken.

It all started with one day,
a day to split me clean—
Hello, Wickerman!
stomach cancer over here,
then grief in the next room—
yours father just passed away.

[...]

The calls came back to back
like a one-two punch,
leaving nothing standing.

Now, I go looking
for a cart at the store.
None left.
My arms cradle
what I can carry—
cheese bagels, yogurt,
something sweet and cold—
a hug full of comfort food.

The total blinks—
$21.00

The universe
taps its foot.
I put the groceries down
I click open a link—
a song,
fire and rain,
a green number—
21 again.

Finally,
I can wipe my hands clean
of my cancer.

The tide
has left its mark—
roots clutch the silt,
drifting breath
caught in brackish waters,
thick
with what settles—
salt
for our desires.

We step soft
where shadows swim,
curling
around our feet
from winds circling
trying to sink in,
all hoping
for a pause—
for something
that will not
wash away —
make us stay.

It begins soft, like the touch
of fingertips trailing your neck,
each note a sensation, a memory
from a deep pocket in your heart.
I sit by the window—
light slanting across my face,
as if the song brings back the warmth
of someone who is no longer here.

Stréliski plays as though
she knows the precise measure of aching—
the heft of it—how it brands into the chest,
drawing you forward,
closer to the keys, closer to the past,
closer to the place where a single chord
could bring you to your knees.

The piano returns—
the way her hands hovered,
above the keys
like a sparrow deciding
whether to take flight or stay,
the way she would play until dawn.

With eyes closed,
the melody gathers,
a gust through bare trees,
the kind of wind that tugs at your coat
and uncovers the truth
you have been trying to avoid.

In the music,
I see her hands, veined and sure,
holding the ache of a life spent
between silence and song.

The last note hangs,
suspended like the final break
before silence.
It’s not an ending—
more like the pause
when the wind shifts,
and you feel it—
this change, the way
it both moves you forward
and leaves you behind—
making you want to listen
all over again.

I think of the knife often—
how it must have shined
beneath the low lamplight,
its eager edge,
carving moments
from the relentless ache
of living.

I imagine the world in my palm—
warm, throbbing softly,
as if it still listened—
the wind in wheatfields,
the splatter of paint,
spread thick across canvas,
like a wound.

What did I hope it would say—
did I think it might carry the words
I could never find—
soft-spoken, soothing enough
to prevent a quiet rejection.

I wonder if they understood—
the sounds I had to silence,
how every brushstroke
was an excuse,
too loud to admit.

The fields were alive,
the sunflowers bent toward me
as if drawn to my warmth,
but the sky—
always felt bluer
than my heart could endure.

There is a kindness in the earth,
how it accepts what falls,
takes it all in.
The way it keeps the secret
of every shivering root.

I pondered,
as the blood streaked down my neck—
a rusted ribbon tying me back
to something harsh,
something that could never
leave me behind.

I send my body
into the clouds—
scattered like seeds
beneath the same stars
that refuse to be still.

What is left of me
is what I could not give away—
a hunger so vast,
it can only be seen
in strokes of blue and yellow—
and the light between them.

I am—
an unlit wick,
a sparrow unseen
in a flock of starlings,
a smudge,
in a trail of erased steps.

No one claims
the air I move through,
as names fall away,
unspoken—
a shadow too faint
to take notice.

I am—
and I vanish.

The crowd breathes
indifference,
dissipates—
a broken branch off a tree,
a blank page
torn out of a book.

I was—
now vanished.

The attic is no place to live—
but it’s where I hide,
among clocks leaning against walls,
their faces turned away.
There’s a kind of shame in being watched
when time isn’t yours to keep.
I know they’re scheming—
like men in trench coats,
hands hidden in their pockets.

Words escape me now.
I hear them as they slip—
trickling out sideways,
like strangers running through fields
where nothing flowers.

They’re bright, buzzing—
fireflies, too quick to catch.

Once,
I trapped silence in a jar.
I named it Weekend
and made it swear not to leave.

For a while, it did.
I told myself
it might stay forever.
But silence is clever,
it knows how to sneak away quietly—
and now mornings are like Mondays,
with thin, pale faces
peering through the glass,
watching,
tight-lidded.

Nothing speaks here—
not even the coffee.

The windows are painted black—
someone thought it was kindness,
thought it was better this way—
now, no one, not even the light,
can find me and trap me
in a jar.

We carried the ocean
between us—
love spilling from our wrists—
too vast,
too fragile,
too little shore.

I reached—
but you had already
turned to tide.

And now—
we carry the ocean
between us.

It’s not the fall
that breaks—
it’s the slow descent
of our horizons,
the moment between
what we once held
and what has slipped
through our fingers—
our efforts
unmoved by regret
and broken
from remorse.

Not that it matters—
down here
everything
scatters the same
but
we will all
be judged differently.

Act 1

The play Dry Humor
was a success—
people laughed,
gasped,
clutched their chests
at all the right moments.

Then, Act 2

The fall
was not scripted—
the crack of bone,
a fractured femur
was all too real,
too sharp,
cutting through the lights,
the crowd,
the silence.

They called
for the understudy,
told them
to be ready.

The director
leaned in—
You know what it means
when we ask you to break a leg,
right?

A poem can't be open-minded
A poem can't be thoughtful
A poem can't be endearing
And a poem can't certainly know better.

A poem can’t cook
or can't even be a limp noodle.

A poem can't do anything—
Except show us how good we are at giving
And maybe teach us how to give to ourselves.

My words—
thin as autumn leaves
humble— scattered
never quite
reaching.

I watch them fall—
some swallowed by wind
some fading
untouched—
I do not mourn.

Not all things take root,
not all echoes return—
I let them drift
unburdened
knowing—
there will be
other autumns
to endure.

I like blank pages—
like quiet rooms
where I can sit and wait
where thoughts and distractions
circle above
like sparring partners—
dancing
with clarity—
making me
listen
before I can truly hear.

The space
where thoughts
stretch—
fragile
and undecided
between focus and futility.

I wait—
for thoughts to gather
and distractions to mutter—
the ink to fall
and the noise
to pause
for silence to shape itself—
to find a voice.

I miss her complicit
'behind-closed-doors' smile,
the way she would erase
all the faces sitting at the table.
And if she saw me catch her,
she would pause—
push her elbow toward me,
hesitation laced
with invitation,
shift her eyes,
and give me
that 'just-wait-till-we-are-alone' look.

Silent dares and stares
that turned distance cozy.
There was no need for words,
just the warm space between us,
a language written in peeks,
translated in breath
and the touch of skin.

Now, the space remains—
cooling where fire once
danced between us.
And I wonder—
does she miss the heat, too—
how I wonder.

Scarlet light cuts through
silent wings deploy at dawn
morning strikes the field.

Orange spreads softly—
a freshness stretched across fields,
horizons kissing the sun goodbye,
where the sky leans close, and
dreams dissolve into a warm night.

It lives in the laughter of children,
the spark of first loves,
the soft ache of waiting—
the sweet and bitter taste of it,
all at once, like ripe fruit,
heavy on a branch.

I see it draped across the sky—
a silk robe, streaked with amber
and flame, still ardent at daybreak,
whenever I think of you.

So let us gather orange, let it
rest between what was and
what might be. Each shade,
an ember of something tender,
something alive that endures—
an inner fire, forever bright,
forever ours.

You walk ahead,
your back a sultry *****,
your hands hanging—
fingers splayed,
as if you’d held something too hot
and dropped it too quickly
to the ground.

I watch your shadow flutter
beneath your pretty red skirt—
a natural-born wildflower
in a white and yellow tank top.

The rain hasn’t stopped in days.
Even the air tastes sharp,
bitter as orange peels—
the kind we scraped our teeth against
as children,
zest running down our throats—
sweet, but always with a sting.

We walk like this—
through wetness,
through the morning
your step is careful—
mine, careless.
The sound of us
almost matching,
not quite—but it’s okay,
just like a song that falters
before the first note
but ends
with a bang.

And when we cross the street,
I don’t ask
if the other side
is any better than this one—
if it was ever less than a promise
we made to ourselves,
as the rain softened
the road beneath us.

It's not the fall
but surviving
that fails us—

It's the not getting up
that keeps
the ache in place—
the quiet prize
of dodging
life.

What hurts us
the most
without a sigh
to let it
all go.

We crown
first love—
all fireworks and foolishness
as if nothing after
could ever
burn.

But last love
moves
like moss—
quiet and
abiding
finding
a way of staying.

It doesn’t ask
for trumpets
just the kind
of trust
that waits.

We don’t
write songs
for the late in life—
too soft
too wise
but last love
is the one
I will remember
long after the echo.

Waves echo softly,
like sleep that tosses and stirs—
a dream of returning lovers,
where both friendship and love are found.

They beckon and brush closer,
falling gently,
hoping the tide will catch them.

Where the ocean meets the shore,
and hungry lips drink elated tears.
Hesitations vanish like morning mist,
as life’s day-to-day rhythms,
rise and fall—
relentless and sure.

Where trust and innocence rise,
woven between drenched sands
and settling waters—
kindred souls drawn together,
seeking refuge in truth.

Solace lingers,
soaked and speckled,
touched by the sea.

Where hope blooms—
freckled yet beautiful,
softly echoing,
tender and sublime.

We all
find calm
where we can fake control—
a postbox taped shut
a red shovel scoop
a body turned to snow
a soul sinking
back to sea.

It’s not the scene
that matters—
but the reflex of return
muscle memory for mercy.

Some stay
afloat by sinking
others walk in full
scuba toward a post office—
with mail
undelivered
but chuckles in tow
or polite laughter—
even trauma
learns to tread lightly
when stamped
via Air Mail.