I've been to the crushing
place.
It smells of death, and
spider mums.
Daisy chains dropped
when the music died.
The lake is murky now.
Clowns roam the street,
looking for carnivals
and meat.
Silly boys still believe
in love and dreams, and
girls that like opera and
giving head.
This world is strange, and
Picasso walks the lonely
avenues, feeding
seagulls' peanuts and paint.
No one blames him.
It's his blue period.
All the while,
an old bent man plays
the guitar.
He smells like camels,
and hope.

It's okay if your skin feels electric,
if the walls shift like fractured mirrors,
and you stumble in the dark spaces of yourself.

It's okay if fear snarls at your feet,
if your heart drums too loud for quiet,
and the weight of everything presses
so hard you forget how to stand.

Let the storm rip through you.
Let it howl your doubts into the night.
These wounds are not final,
they are only birthmarks of a greater becoming.

It's okay.
Let the world bruise you.
Let the ache of it teach you
how to be soft where you've always been steel,
how to break where you've only been solid stone.

Feel the quake in your chest,
the shiver in your bones.
You are not fragile.
You are fire learning its own heat.

And when the darkness shifts
and you are left with your breath,
with the quiet after the storm,
you'll find,
you have always been more
than the breaking,
more than the fall.

It's okay.
The ground beneath you trembles
because you are rising.

This morning I found myself
sorting paperclips by size—
the way my mother taught me
in motel rooms across southern America,
organizing what little certainty
we could hold in our hands.

I’m on my own now, and I still wake
some nights with that familiar itch,
with this restlessness that whispers:
nothing here is permanent, child.
Not the dust on windowsills,
not the coffee stain on carpet,
not even this gravity
that holds us to one place.

I've spent years
trying to unpack this blessing:
how each goodbye taught me
to find home in the strangest things—
in the comfort of all my belongings
jammed haphazardly in my car,
in the methodical way I label
everything I own, as if naming
things would make them stay.

I handle each object
like a rosary bead, each dish
and book a meditation on what
we carry, what carries us.

Some collect seashells
or pressed flowers. I collect
empty spaces, fill them briefly
with my particular silence,
then leave them blessed
with a swelling, lingering
air of sentimentality.

I’m sleeping in
just call me out
it’s the simplest kind of comfort
I do it for me
there’s a softness and care
my, that got so wholesome

I know, I should embrace hardship
adversity builds resilience
it’s darkness that reveals the stars
that last one sounds too good to be original
but I’m not researching it
haven’t you been reading?

I’m sleeping in fugaciously
and metaphorically.
If you’re in the water
it’s good to swim
otherwise
you could be writing.
.
.
Songs for this:
Sleeping In by The Radio Dept.
Save the Phenomenon by Fievel Is Glauque

My mother taught me about love languages at a young age
She said that’s what makes or breaks a relationship
She said that’s why her and my father aren’t together anymore

I know a boy
He was one of those kids who you can tell wasn’t loved as much as he should have been
Those types of people have a pull on me
Maybe it’s just a silent connection between children of divorce

Usually you can tell how people want to be loved
They like to give you hugs when they see you
Or they bring you a gift after every vacation
But this boy wasn’t like that
He put my brain to work
Trying to understand him
He told me his love language was acts of service

Eventually I found myself trying to let him know he’s loved
Silently of course
Taking stickers off his laptop when he said he wanted more space
Offering to pick up coffee when he was studying
Sending him summaries of the readings we got for homework

The things I’d do to make him feel loved are insurmountable
I’d do anything to pick up the pieces I didn’t break
I wish there were an easier way to say that