Life is a mystery,a storyline you can't truly hate.
Not everything is all bad, you sink,and you rise.
That shifting....breaking and remaking,it builds you.. destroys you, sometimes.....both at once.
İt's like water,dissolves you to almost nothing.

But you still return,softer yet fiercer.
Rise like a phoenix,not in fire but in breath.

Life is a mystery,and the best part is always the bounce back........so live it,till you can't anymore.

oh sad eyes,
look up,
try to see—

it’s not over.

you didn’t break,
you didn’t falter.

i know it’s hard,
harder to deny—

sometimes you
have to let them go
before your soul dies.

you can’t carry two worlds
when only one is yours.

look at me,
sad eyes,

i promise
it’ll be okay.

sometimes you
have to build walls,
draw a line in the sand.

sad eyes,
please understand—

it doesn’t mean hate,
it means you chose peace
over conflict.

maybe one day
you’ll cross paths again,
and both of you
will understand.

sad eyes,
look up,
try to see—

this is not
the end of you.

Something Beautiful After

I didn’t expect to want again. Touch had become a memory, a ghost I nodded to in passing—familiar, but too far.

Then you walked in like a secret I didn’t know I was still allowed to want. Not loud. Not demanding. Just sure.

Your hands didn’t ask questions—they knew answers. Like they’d waited their whole life
to map this skin I’d buried under silence.

You kissed me like it wasn’t a reward, but a right—like you’d earned it just by seeing me
and staying.
Staying when I trembled.
Staying when I burned.

This isn’t a rebound.
This is a rise.

There’s something holy in how you undress me—not just my body, but the layers I kept hidden even from myself.

With you, it isn’t just passion—it’s permission.

To want.
To ache.
To feel everything again.
Lips like an offering.
Fingers like truth.
Breathless doesn’t mean broken anymore.

You don’t heal me—you remind me I’m already healing. That I’m not ruined, I’m ripe.

And now—now I know the difference between being needed and being wanted.
And God, you want me. Like fire wants air. Like night wants skin. Like I want you—with everything I was once afraid to give.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.

There is a thorn in my heart
Planted by someone I used to love
I carry it wherever I go
When I climbed cliffs in Penida
When I hiked on the northermost island in Japan
When I was surrounded by boisterous crowd
When I saw the fireworks lighted up
When I faked a laugh,when I cried my heart out
It was there,it is still there
Once I learn to forget
Once I learn to let go
Will the thorn be lifted out and pacify my heart?
To shed no more tears and feel no pain

six months
after leaving home,
i returned for the holidays.
it wasn’t the warmth
that stayed with me
but the shortage of praise.

i didn’t expect it —
i didn’t expect anything,
just a friendly check-in.

i was surprised to learn
that the people i worked with,
part of the reason i left,
were so smothered
by their own bitterness
they wished for me to fail —
to run back home
after a few weeks,
admit the dream
was too silly,
too frail.

they didn’t hate me,
just my courage —
that i dared
to refine my life
while theirs
stayed the same.

busy in a world
i could call mine,
i remained gone
and let their silence
become my applause.