Faster.
Hurry.
We’re gonna miss it.
Leave me alone.

Your laugh—
like wind chimes—
gives me chills,
a feeling I never
want to forget.

One day,
I may sit by myself
and not remember
my loved ones.
I may struggle to walk.
I’ll be done
chasing dreams.

But right now—
slow down.
Stop running.

Let me look at you
a little longer.
Let me absorb your face—
because even if,
someday,
you seem like a girl
from a fever dream,
allow me now
to memorise every bit of you
while you’re still
tangible to me.

Because time
is something
you and I
cannot run from.

I don’t get to see you
too often,
but I don’t blame you
for what you did.

You couldn’t stay,
and that’s okay.
You always try
and sometimes lie,
but I won’t hold a grudge-
who am I to judge?

You tell us
you still love us,
and I know that.
So we can chat,
and i’ll sit with you a while
then you’ll feign a smile

But I see how it hurts you
your start anew,
your empty home.
I see your eyes like chrome.
You never stay too long
and your voice doesn’t sound as strong…

It’s hard to pretend,
and even harder to try to mend…
But anyways,
I’ll stop this haze-
I just wanted to say:
Happy Father’s day

Do you ever wish,
you could redo it
all
over
again?

Go back to when
there were no problems,
or at least
no real problems.

A time I can’t even remember anymore
let alone imagine,
No pressure or worries?
back to a flowing, carefree entity…

All the what ifs?
they will always gnaw at me,
would I like to satiate them,
or are they better off starved?

Although, I know
the future doesn’t wait,
so some time or another
it will arrive.

And there will always be
more bad things to happen,
more good things to happen,
more losses than wins

So would I try to escape or
accept what I cannot change
and keep going
anyway?

I never know
the right thing to say, or do
but you don’t either
so it’s okay.

Maybe I talk too much sometimes,
and I freeze
when you look at me,
like that.

We’re not like a movie couple,
our love is raw and messy,
but it’s true
and that’s what counts.

And maybe one day
we’ll go our separate ways—
but what we have now
is something.
And I’ll always,
love you.

I feel like those old abandoned factories-

My heart, a shattered window
My legs, crumbling bricks
My thoughts, muddled graffiti
My whole body, rusted and broken down

But I still stand.
Like that dilapidated factory,
through suffering, it also stands
even in its ruined state.

But then, suddenly,
shards of light
cast a spectral play
through fractured panes,
an almost ethereal experience
it is so rare.

Still, hope glimmers,
and after a while,
wildflowers bloom,
stretching across the span,
reclaiming the ruins,
growing over the brokenness,
not in spite of it
but because of it.

A musician strums a sorrowful song
chords ringing loud enough
for his little girl,
who sleeps in the earths embrace,
six feet deep.

A woman files paperwork,
answers relentless emails,
and even stacks her grief in neat piles,
but it’s only her distraction
from nine to five…

A girl avoids mirrors
because it hurts to see
how she traced pain
along forearms and thighs
‘damaged’ ‘ugly’ ‘ruined’, she thinks,

A mother screams
about clothes on the floor
and unwashed dishes
because the silence of her broken home
scares her more than feigned anger.

A writer spends endless nights
scrawling lovesick thoughts,
and morose notes
on scrappy, tear stained paper
no one will ever see.

A teenage boy, never at home
swallows pills like promises
whilst he loses himself
in the haze
of a swirling smoke room

An old man looks out the window
of his care home
and names clouds after the ones he loved
while he waits for someone
who will never come.

If you look close enough-
Everyone is in pain.
And that’s the truth,
the real, visceral truth,
but we carry on.