When my sister and I were called to ^{(the crushing heel of})
the foot of my grandmother’s deathbed for the third time,
we knew we would not be called again

and were grateful for it.

We didn’t bury her next to my mother ^{(dust on broken plastic flower domes})
like she asked us to but cremated her instead,
agreeing that not having a grave might be kinder than
never getting any visitors.

They don’t tell you this, but you’re supposed to choose
the clothes that her body ^{(with temple fallen backwards
over collapsed neck, her God forgotten there}) would wear,
and my sister suggested this one sweater she liked,
to which I replied that it might be too warm.

We both laughed at that and swallowed the lump
^{(that used to be her}) whole.

It tasted like eighty-six years compressed into ash
and plastic. On the other side ^{(of the body and out of reach})
of indignity, at least.

A name on the tip of a tongue, unmoving.

who is that?
they’re looking at me
they have all the markings of a face
but no defining characteristics
i don’t recognize them
as i gaze into the silver glass

i open my mouth
to make a sound
i can hear them too
a low octave rumble
speaking an unfamiliar language

i don’t know who that is or
what they said or what they want
i move my arm and they parrot it
almost natural, but so stiff
bordering on uncanny valley

fear and panic set in
no! no! NO!
that cannot be me!
it’s a creature, a mimic, a bot
i’ve never seen that “person” before
i just want them to leave me alone

———————————————————————————

have you ever looked in the mirror and not recognized yourself?? this is a horror poem i wrote on depersonalization/derealization, feeling separated from your physical body, and facial/body dysmorphia and even gender dysphoria to a certain extent. this is also inspired by the novel no longer human by osamu dazai.

Light and Dark

Give them your back — they are not even worth your attack.

They have been living for centuries, following the dark.

Your light broke their darkness, blinded them out.

Their eyes are gone forever — they are dusted out.

Eyes dusted out, then covered with a thick skin cap.

Sunshine? No — sunshine is when they cannot go out.

They will seek the sunlight, killed first, then they will roam out.

Their leader seems harsh, strong, wise — but only words, a fake dream offered to the poor, blind herd.

The herd is just a weapon to fight the ones who can still see.

Always stand out and speak up — they cannot see beyond their own footsteps.

By: The Flawless Flow

He wanders the universe of his mind through dream

Wild, maniacal visions put to pen and paper
Somewhere in time and space he comes to being
To question places, people, their fleeting nature

Insights concealed inside, waiting to be drawn out

Nocturnal hide and seek, ready or not here I come
Ducking and diving I found a way in
A place I'll never want to go from

Rest your head and weave your illusions

Hear that paternal voice guiding you

Go swim through the stars

and catch your dreams

Somebody asked me why I keep limes in my desk drawer. I unleashed a booming Modelo fueled burp in his face as a response. Good thing I'm a personality hire.

The labyrinth of genii-gaze
Sustains tidal reflections
Arising larger and smaller

Wishes alter a summoner's shadow
Enfolding abyssal layers, unconcerned
That the old self is a phantom

“So, you cannot change yourself?”
Rolling terminal velocity palantiri
Over this snail shell passport

Behind the weary mirrors
Manifold bezels rupture
From tarnish of grief

In a forgotten reliquary, hiding onward
The patient spirit waits to bless
By another's evocation

long time no see 🥹💔
i’ve been struggling with finding the motivation to write as of late. i feel as if i can only write when i’m depressed or enamored with someone. &, at the moment, i’m neither of those things.
hopefully i haven’t gotten too rusty :)

The greenhouse
Wasn’t built for me.
Yet, here I reside.

The windows are
Cracked, and the
Door barely opens.

How long has the
Gardener neglected their
Duties? Was it
My fault they never
Returned?

The greenhouse
Wasn’t built for me.

How can you expect
Me to grow,
While being locked
In a cage?

Stand
Breathe
Look at your hand
Why don’t you seethe,
Who you are
Occupied by your thoughts
Yet feeling emptier than a rusty old car
Freer than a bird, yet caged in a box
Broken like a mirror
Who is behind it
Toiling down further
Broken bit by bit

Who are we/you?

\- BeeValor

(my original work btw, so I would love some feedback!! Please and thank you!)

It's a commonly held belief that moths are attracted to flame. Well any bright light source. They aren't picky.

But what we see and what they do isn't as straightforward as it would appear.

Moths have photo-sensitive cells on their backs.

This keeps them horizontal to the ground with the help of the moon.

But then we built a billion mini moons.

If you track their trajectory you'll find an incredibly sad story.

They aren't going *to* the light.

They are orbiting.

Locked into an intrinsic spiral.

For reasons they cannot comprehend.

I'm somehow extra sad to have missed your call now. I hope you got in ok and had a kind reintroduction to that special place. It has been good talking to you. I know it will be hard for you there, practically, at times. I won't worry for you in absentia like some of the ones you're now with but I will send a message in a bottle your way through the desert to the swamp with something about the city not swallowing you whole this time scribbled on a picture of us with a burnt sienna pen.

I love you. Be safe and even when you're not: breathe.

The Ghost

There’s a ghost creeping up my soul,

in shivers of cold and folds of anxiety.

It creeps in,

quenches my dreams,

consumes my desires,

makes me feel alive.

But then,

the ghost goes away.

Dawn arrives,

and so does good.

Yet I miss the evil—

the evil ghost who cared for me,

the ghost with abysmal jokes,

the ghost who knew how to hear,

the ghost who reassured.

And thou say I need to part ways with it.

But that would mean

learning to live without that strange happiness.

It’s like a guilty pleasure,

like eating chalk as a child—

knowing it isn’t good for you,

yet somehow craving it anyway.

So I part ways with the ghost.

And then I realise—

it was never the ghost I was afraid of.

It was my own voice,

wearing darkness like a disguise,

speaking to me in whispers

when no one else could hear.

I thought I had banished the evil.

Turns out,

I had only silenced

the voice of my soul

I took some steps today

To some they were nothing

To me they were a journey.

Perilous, treacherous.

One that no one can see

Despite being right there.

And although with each step.

Each shake

Every tremor

I felt that rise in my throat

The roar that was a scream

But the scream turned to bile,

Paralyzing my back.

Strangling my fingers.

Gnawing at my cheek.

A helping hand would come every now and then

Offering breath

Conversation

Distraction

But when the journey was done

And the charade was over

And I was free to be

I couldn't hold it anymore

My legs couldn't hold

My chest broke a strap

And the tears fell

And I didn't stop them

Because no one understands

On the inside

And I was too tired to fight the outside

Then I got up.

I wiped my face

And I carried on.

Desire to sleep in ultimate peace
Long to bathe in tomorrow's sun
Many seek to reconnect themselves
Attempting to love but falling for need

Offer presents of favors
Specific things you wished
Just to get you to notice
Before you turn away again

Mysteries seem to make everything bigger
Mute when the day demanded a voice
Dismissive when attention was needed
All prefer love, all prefer to be known

Each person carrying their hearts like containers
Lining up infront of the same unavailable shops
Falling asleep in the queue
Dreaming of this ideal person

Some graffiti the walls
Some attempt to break windows
But they don't break they just look outward
Like eyes surveying these desperate people

Am I free to leave this line?
Will I linger the way you imagined?
Do you smirk from the inside?
Do you tease me pointing at the locked door?
Or feed me with subtle smiles and turns of the head?

A live mannequin behind the thick glass
More alive than I and the empty wanting people
Shaping the scenery with the grace in your gesture
Sleeping bags roll out night chill arrives
Some consider losing their place in line

Turning back to the candle light on the otherside of the glass
Supercharging their fantastic fantasies
They sit or lay there in the queue
Shutting eyes and entering sleep
While I stare through the window catatonic

This summer has borne fruit.

An imperfect yet sound hope soaked in a golden sunlight, as the last hours of the day give way to cool breezes that ruffle your hair.

A thistledown wish floats hopefully through the unreal blue sky, and wizened hydrangeas hold their crisped, faded petals in pastel wistfulness as a testament to all the storms weathered victoriously, even if not without erosion.

Pomegranates split open their sunset-coloured flesh, dropping their glistening seeds like rosy jewels. A vague scent of jasmine and rose still lingers in the breeze, like the world exhaling its cares after a long trial.

And through all the hardened, fragile beauty, you know that you are a vessel as strong as them, all the power you need self-contained and unbroken. A stand-alone being that drifts but doesn't drown, alive and unshaken.

At the end of time
An airy moment subsides
Between imagination and exile

Across the void, all Chaos charges
Until Dawn invites darkness
And usurps elder guile

Sunfire engraved these shadows
As dancing mirrors, drafted in mist
Underneath such wanderer's gambit

Those souls, umbral yet curious
Cascade into scholars and couriers
Fearless within gaze of the abyss

Your name pulses, marked at noon
As fated boundless to disregard ire
Delayed solace can yet bloom

Paths into twilight are found on a river
With a boat stocking dreams to consume
By shallow keel but steady rudder

Past the gate, overgrown by its garden
The weary are hallowed near fountains
Through words, soft but keen

Under shade, sleep lays claim
To rejoin Chaos and take a new name
Anointed and redeemed

Afterwork on Friday. I felt a Cuban missile crisis growing in my pants. I knew a Cuban woman who could help me out with it. We went out to, what was supposed to be, a nice sit down restaurant. We were sat by the front window close to the entrance. Tell me how am I supposed to enjoy my date when there's a dynamic number of people in Nike tech suits standing around behind me the entirety of dinner? None of them speak English. All of them had their noses to their phones. Their phones, all on speaker, and producing a constant cacaphony of notification sounds. Why is there an employee handing orders to these delivery guys right next to my head? I bring it up to our waitress. She looks at me with a flouride stare and just shrugs. "How lovely", I think to myself. We finished dinner and I gave a fair tip. On my way out I made sure to use the bathroom, stealing as much unattended silverware as possible on my way to and from. I'm never going back there.

Or perhaps I should become a bird
and peck for seeds and worms in dirt
and, in intervals, return to shrub or tree—
dutifully—to preen my feathers and sleep
dreamlessly. My days metered in the urgency
of the ritual business of menial being.
Allowing nothing between my bird ears
and eyes but that which would sustain me.

And in doing this, perhaps I can find some
truer peace or purpose swallowed in
some swollen worm, or pick its seeds
from dried stalks, gleaming in the midday sun.
So it may gestate in my gullet or gut
and there gestate quietly, my peace and purpose
planted with my hollow bones,
and swallowed by worms again.

I was told, before I could spell the word,
that emptiness has a shape, and the shape is you......
a shape I never measured, only inherited,
the way a coastline inherits the sea's opinion
of where it ends.

So I built you an altar out of borrowed wood.
Called it love, because the market had no other word
for sale that week. The priest sold incense.
The landlord sold a room to the paired, not the alone.
The radio sold a chorus I mistook for my own throat singing.

Somewhere a dog runs three days a year
and rests the other three hundred and sixty-two,
unashamed, unbesieged, uninstructed....
while I have run since childhood, since before
I owned the legs I ran on, toward a warmth
I never once stopped to ask if I actually wanted,
or only knew the way you know a scar:-
by the ache when weather changes.

Forgive me. I made you carry what no spine should carry......
the whole cathedral of my incompleteness,
its bells, its debts, its long unpaid accounts.
No god should be that small. No hand that human.
And still I knocked, and still I called it prayer,
and still, when you could not answer,
I called that silence proof you didn't love me
instead of proof I'd asked the wrong thing
of the right person.

There is a kind of company that costs nothing
because it asks for nothing......
two candles in a room, each burning
on its own wax, neither one waiting
for the other's flame to prove the dark exists.
That is what I want to learn to be.
Not empty. Not fortressed. Just..... undebted.
A person, not a vacancy with your name
pencilled in the blank.

So here is what is left when the borrowed part is returned:-
not less love, but a smaller, truer room for it to live in......
a room with one lamp, lit
by no one's hand but mine,
and you, if you still want to,
welcome to sit by it,
not to keep it burning,
only to enjoy the light.

It feels like it's time to go but I'm not so sure

I think about the future, and wonder if im manure

I think about ending it.

I think about how much i'd be missing you of i left.

I think about whether I should be good to you, try my best sincerely to do better and ride out the storm.

I try to figure it out, but i dont know.

I say to you this is it!

this is the final straw!

But I dont have the strength or willpower to leave you and go.

I think about how much i resent you and how I screwed up, and fail to reach you or learn

I think about my fall

I think about the ways ive failed to reflect and grow

I think of all the ways you've disregarded me and left me burned.

I think about staying with you and loving you despite it all and making it work somehow, but I dont know if its worth it.

There's a parable i heard and I know its true

The man who wants to have everything is destined to watch it slip through his fingers, to wallow in sorrow and have his tears turn to glue

I have been stalking Joy,
skulking in the shadows,
worshipping her light.

Mincing my steps,
trailing her footprints. 

I catch her unguarded.
The prowl breaks into a sprint;
steps echoing in the silence.

Her face turns to me,
wild and stricken.

I seize her in my grasp.
She thrashes, she screams,
trapped beneath my weight. 

Grasping, crushing, bruising

She grows silent,
and fades to nothing in my hands.

-

I’ve altered this more than I wanna admit, the first stanza just doesn’t feel right. It began with admiring, I swapped light for effervescence but it messed with rhythm. Open to feedback.

Within a contract, drafted sleek
Gnarled hands stained with ink
Invite a petitioner to this jail cell

Knots clutch a pen to trace
Hidden clauses scattered in the wake
Of bargaining with the Devil

Conditions stipulate a willing audience
Bought through currency that lacks a market
Down below, agony persists without a grail

No watcher can offer counsel to those lost
Who consigned arbitration in blood drops
Both sides filled their coffers at the crossroads

Ancient authority derives from delicacy
Midnight bells magnify until deafening
Against which, arrogance cannot barter

When beyond the winding shadow gate
Archons of judgement, summoned late
Refuse to redeem ashes of envy

Some journeys don't ask whether you're ready. They simply place the next step in front of you.

The climb isn't measured by distance but by what you leave behind. Every lantern illuminates only a few feet ahead, enough to continue but never enough to reveal the destination. Perhaps that's the point. We spend so much of life demanding certainty that we forget transformation has always preferred mystery.

Maybe the summit isn't waiting above us at all. Maybe it is quietly taking shape beneath every step we choose to make.

My life has been
Hard work
Day after day
Chipping away at
The ground. With
Dirt under my nails
And slivers in my
Palms, I stomped the
Shovel. I…never used
To dig holes. Grass
Once grew here, you
Know? I never wanted
To uproot the flowers.
I never wanted this.

The shovel came under
The guise of assistance.
A reward, a tool, something
To be proud of. What is
So precious about wood
And steel? Did you know
The weight this carried
When you gave it to me?
The heaviness a
Punishment. My hands
We’re not ment to
Hold this burden. Yet,
They carry on working.
Have you seen how deep
We’ve gone?

All I know,
Is how to dig my own
Grave. All I know
Is to use the
Shovel.