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 May 25 Neil Mcpake
badwords
We are not survivors.
we are residue.

the soot that lingers
on collapse's last tongue.

entropy's loiterers—
spiteful, unfinished.
neurons in feedback.
systems with no gods.

the architects left
when the scaffolds imploded.
we cradle their blueprints
like scripture in ash.

rebuild?
with what breath?
with what myth?
our dreams are famine-shaped.

nirvana is a severance package.
emptiness sold
in velvet robes.
a silence that never asked
about wreckage.

so we sharpen our vowels.
scribe ruin in elegy.
chant hymns for dead logics.
leave witness marks
in the marrow of this glitch.

we were not chosen.
we remained.
“Failure Spiral // Witness Marks” is a blistered fragment from the edge of philosophical exhaustion — a poem that resists salvation with surgical precision. Cast in scorched economy, it unspools a mythic post-mortem of civilization, depicting a world not built but inherited — a residual loop of cascading failures mistaken for history.

The voice is not that of a prophet, but of an archivist trapped in recursion — mapping entropy with a cartographer’s detachment and a poet’s poison. In this world, survivors are no more than loiterers of meaning, spectral stewards of systems that have outlived their gods.

There is no crescendo, only a ritual of reckoning. Each line is a witness mark — the scorched etching of presence, absence, and the irreparable fracture in between.
 May 22 Neil Mcpake
Cadmus
Apart from your mother…

Only insurance companies
pray you live forever
no crashes, no coughs,
no inconvenient surprises.

They pray for your safety
with more sincerity
than your friends ever did.

No backhanded compliments,
no masked resentment.

They’ll cheer for your success
as long as it’s mild.
Celebrate your fitness
but not too wild.
This poem exposes the transactional nature of modern relationships, using insurance companies as a metaphor for the rare, conditional loyalty found in a world where even love is often veiled in competition, envy, or quiet sabotage.
 May 22 Neil Mcpake
Cadmus
🙏🏻

They feast with the wolves…

Bark with with the dogs…

Weep with the shepherds…

Guests at every table,

but a pillar at none.

Call them seasonal?
Situational?

Maybe,
Socially fluent? morally absent?

Friends to everyone…
and loyal to no one.

☝️
This poem reflects the nature of surface-level friendships. those who adapt to every group but commit to none. Present in moments of ease, absent in moments of need.
 May 19 Neil Mcpake
Anugraha
In the depths of my mind,
dishes pile high on the sink
stacking on the countertops
and leaking on to the floor
with dried crusty food
now too hard to scrub down.
And the laundry basket has overflown
The basket no longer in view
Now, just a mountain of clothes
And the table has never been cleared
The bedsheets never changed
The ceilings joined by cobwebs
And the bathroom floor all grimy.

A house is like a machine
Requiring frequent oiling
Frequent repairing
Like a newborn baby
It can't help but wail through the night

And I've tended to it like a slave
Day in and day out
All the while growing the clutter in my own.

I can't seem to help it
It refuses to forget
You laid the foundation and built it brick by brick
Where love resided once, has been suffocated
By clothes and dishes and dust and dirt,
And you ask me where the love went
It's there somewhere
Perhaps in the laundry basket
If I can find the bottom
Or in the drain  
Or on the bathroom floor

I just can't seem to find it.
Some departures we choose,
and some departures are forced upon us—
They arrive with the weight of mountains,
practiced in hesitant steps,
as if dragging the entire world behind us.
We move forward a little... then glance back a little,
for behind us lie things, dreams, souls,
to which our hearts remain tethered.

— The End —