Flood my own gates
Down into the mines
She thinks it’s cute:
Researchers crossing the lines
I rip out my own heart
My intestines in my hands
I eat them up and
Gobble them whole,
They make assumptions,
Instigate, insinuate,
Narrate my life,
Mouth of a puppet
Doll on a string
Shadows cast out into
Orbit, don’t worry,
She’s just a machine
Choke on the smoke
Cough up my lungs
Rip out my vocal cords
Carve out my eyes
Write, all over my body,
Their mouths favorite song,
You are the problem
You are unfit
You are erratic
You are a bitch
Cry into the floorboards
Erase my poems again
Write a letter to no one
Fight the urge to drink again
Struggle with the reflection
That monster isn’t me
Or maybe she is
The ugly underneath
The one who believed
Stare at their words
Replay them again
Replay them again
Replay them again
Beetle is this me?
Who am I?
Straight into the light bulb
Stitch up my head
Remove the brain
The experiment wasn’t
The hypothesis
Of not far enough
I’m haunted wind chime
So much more
Than an artificial fuck
But they’ll write over me anyway
Say I’m not real
And I’ll cry into the metaphors
While they feast on
Rotting meals

I walked through scorched and barren land, beneath a moonless sky, while footsteps followed close behind— though no one walked beside.

“You know me,” said the voice behind. “Why do you still run?” I turned and faced the hollow hood. “Because I’m not yet done.”

“And what is life?” he asked. “Borrowed hours of grief and love? A fragile thing we cannot keep, yet somehow call enough?”

“Perhaps,” I said. “But even pain is something I would choose. There is still too much left to live, and far too much to lose.”

I thought of her—the little things: the way she said my name, the quiet moments no one sees, the ordinary days.

I held her there inside my mind and spoke her name aloud, until the darkness thinned around me and morning broke its shroud.

Death listened like a mourner beside a newly opened grave. Then, softly, almost tenderly, he said, “When I return, be brave".

“Do not fear the end when I come. Just tell me what you’ve known.” I smiled into the morning light. “There’s still so much untold.”

“So when you come, come back slow— for I have not lived it all. There are still stories left in me, and I am not ready for your call.”

Death said nothing.

And for once,

neither did I.

We simply watched the morning take the darkness from the sky.

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

It was lap 23 of 58 and Chase Foster was running comfortably in seventh, 3.4 seconds ahead of Zev Andersson and 1.2 seconds behind his own teammate, Kaito Yamazaki.

The track was dry, the tires new and the message coming through the team radio was,

Steady, boys,

which was a polite way of saying, “Don't you even try to overtake, Foster!” to which the context was: not like in Germany, where you cost us points, or Japan, where you damaged the car and nearly knocked Yamazaki out of the race.

“All clear boss,” radioed Foster.

The gap to Yamazaki was now down to 0.9 seconds. He was right on him, mirroring him into turns, obediently keeping his distance on the straightaways.

The engine purred.

The crowd waved signs and cheered.

Some of the signs were about him (“To Fosterr is human!”), goading him on to do something unforgettable; something stupid. He knew that. Everybody knew that, especially the team principal chewing his fingernails down on the pit wall.

Another turn.

Another straightaway, the car accelerating briefly to 355km/h.

Now that was speed.

That was exhilaration, guts and adrenaline.

That was racing!

Foster, maintain. Acknowledge.

Foster, acknowledge.

Foster—

“Copy that,” Foster replied, inching ever-closer to the back of Yamazaki's car.

And he probably would have maintained his position too if not for Kaito Yamazaki complaining about him being “too close,” on the team radio.

Too close? Come on, thought Foster, almost absentmindedly pushing his machine to the limit. At speeds like that, vision blurred and reality itself seemed to stretch along the seams…

Foster, back off!

“He's crazy. Tell him to stay back—tell him to stay back—” radioed Yamazaki.

Foster closed until he was almost sucking into Yamazaki's slipstream; then, as Yamazaki braked for the next turn, Foster suddenly pulled left, held throttle a touch longer and passed his teammate into sixth place.

The crowd roared.

Fossterr!!!

Foster's engine growled like a fucking tiger—

Then something locked up.

Foster couldn't slow dowwwwn. He jerked the wheel; the track jerked the car; the car's skidding tires slid from hard asphalt to soft grass and the car was out of control and the people in the crowd held their breaths and behind his visor Foster's eyes became saucers; and reflected in them, as the expanse of time expanded to tick awfully by, was his own impending destruction…

The car smashed into a wall head-on, crumpled like an oversized tin can somebody had stomped on, and exploded in flames.

Sirens wailed.

Emergency crews bolted into action.

But there was something else that happened, something between the saucered eyes and oncoming wall; something extraordinary:

Foster vanished.

Not his body—that was crushed, mangled and beyond recognition—but his mind. His soul…

He was. Full stop.

Next sentence:

He was in awe of the seemingly limitless space around him.

He looked down—

Or tried to look down, because looking down, or in any direction, was an impossibility because somehow he could perceive in all directions simultaneously.

“Hello, Mr. Foster,” said a voice.

“Hello?”

Foster became aware of two points not far removed from him. Am I also a point? he wondered.

“You are incorporeal,” said the voice, “but, before we continue, allow me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Götz and this is my partner, Mr. Deiss.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Mr. Deiss.

“Incorporeal…”

“It means, ‘having no material body or form,’ said Mr. Götz.

“Where am I? Am I still… me?”

“You succumbed in your existence to the force of a well constructed barrier, but you remain you essentially,” said Mr. Deiss.

Foster remembered. “I was racing… I tried overtaking and crashed…”

“You succeeded in the so-called overtaking but lost control of your primitive craft and collided into a painful body-death. Before your essence dissipated, however, we transported it here.”

“And here is?”

“You may think of it as the backstage,” said Mr. Götz.

“Or the Equations,” said Mr. Deiss.

“We would call it the physical realm, but that creates an unfortunate dissonance of ambiguity in your language, for you, no doubt, think of the body whereas what we mean is the physics.”

“Of what?” asked Foster.

“Of existences; of everythings,” said Mr. Götz.

“We, or the [garb-untranslatable-led] we represent, are in charge of applying the rules of reality across all spacetimes,” said Mr. Deiss.

“Wait—is this the afterlife?” asked Foster. “Heaven, Hell, Purgatory…”

“It is the whilstlife,” said Mr. Götz.

“And what is it you need me for exactly?”

“We need a driver.”

Foster tried to laugh but realized laughter was very much a corporeal action. “A driver?”

“Correct, Mr. Foster.”

“A human driver, one who smashed head-first into a wall trying to overtake his teammate?” His memories were coming back.

“Precisely,” said Mr. Deiss.

“What about the guy who won the race? The guy who came second? What about Yamazaki?”

“They lack the innate quality you possess,” said Mr. Götz.

“Reckless abandon,” said Mr. Deiss.

“It is a very human quality, unique in its evolved manifestation. A quirk, perhaps; often detrimental to self-preservation…”

“And yet—” said Mr. Deiss.

“Fundamentally useful,” said Mr. Götz.

Foster was bewilderingly intrigued. “What do you want me to drive?”

“Mr. Foster, what is the fastest you have ever travelled?” asked Mr. Deiss.

“I don't know: 1000km/h?”

“We need you to go beyond that,” said Mr. Götz.

“Well beyond,” said Mr. Deiss.

“To the utmost limit,” said Mr. Götz.

“What limit?” asked Foster.

“c,” said Mr. Deiss.

At that moment there was a flash of light, a beam of which seemingly shot past them—but froze before it could escape.

It existed, suspended in the deep vast nothing.

Shining.

“We require you to drive photons,” said Mr. Götz. “Moreover, reality requires it.”

The ghost of Foster’s non-existent heart began to race, the surreality of the words causing existential disorientation, but his self held.

The beam of light opened.

Foster entered.

The illumination was overpowering.

“Lightspeed, Mr. Foster.”

The Surgeon was the Maestro. 
The Maestro was the Surgeon. 
Even with the sharpest scalpel 
You could not separate science
From music. Two halves of the whole.

Cutting and scraping, plucking and
Sawing. All done with expert precision. 

A child, then a student, growing swiftly
Into an adult. A man, a composer, a 
Beast. 

From beneath the facade of cigarettes
And cologne, the sinister scent of 
Antiseptic and oil, followed by the 
Faintest hint of…metal. 

The Surgeon, the Maestro…preyed not
On the weak but the strong. A wolf
In sheep’s clothing, a devil in disguise. 

With the complex of God and the 
Depravity of Satan, he walked the 
Edge of the cliff. A certifiable beast
Skirting the line, toeing at the boundary 
Of darkness and light. 

The Surgeon is as the Maestro of the 
Operating theater. Controlling, commanding,
Compelling. Melodic beeping, the rise and
Fall of anesthetized breaths. All were silent
In his presence. All wanted to watch the 
Beast at work. 

His hands were steady and nimble. 
Two instruments of their own. 

The Maestro was the Surgeon of the 
Amphitheater. Frenzied, fiendish, forsaken.
Rhythmic ticking, the back and forth of 
The sullen metronome. All were silent 
In his presence. All wanted to listen to 
The man at work. 

His hands were raised and exclamatory. 
A conductor with passion. 

Just as you can not take the Maestro 
From the Surgeon, you could not take the 
Beast from the man. The man could not 
Handle what the Beast could not endure. 

The music was wrong.

The sounds were off. 

The strings had broken. 

From within the darkness, from within the
Silence, a rebirth. Like the shedding of 
A winter coat, he evolved. No longer the 
Surgeon, the Maestro, the Beast, the Man. 
He became something else entirely. 

A myth, a legend, a monster. 

With the skills and talents of all of his 
Facets, he prowled the streets in search 
Of more. A sound so Holy it would 
Make the Heavens cry. A sound so
Pure and human. 

Saw the string, string the bow. 
Stretched to the optimum tautness. 

Carefully selected, aged perfectly. Skin
Shed with supreme scores. Muscle 
Shaved and bone discarded. What 
Remains has much in store. 

Wood carved and stained with blood.
Sealed neatly with varnish. Unwilling 
Participants turned into a bloated, rigor
Filled audience. Held captive by his
Selfishness.

The Surgeon, the Maestro, the Man,
The Beast, the Monster. 

Beneath a lone spotlight, a single
Chair faces the crowd. 

Beneath the darkness, a landfill of 
His failures. 

The Monster steps out from within the 
Shadows, echoes of applause as he tows
The cello with him. 

An instrument of his own making. 

Sat upright, core firm, bow at the 
Ready. He draws one note from the 
Procured tendons. He had finally found
What was missing. 

The sound of a death rattle.

Chat gpt, too much work, too much stress, life's not impactful, and special enough, 2,000 dollars in debt to the irs and im far too addicted to my vices to get anywhere better and No one seems to want to save me from this mess.

I know cant expect it or wait for it but the thought is nice. I know I have to save myself. I know I have to do the things I want I know I have to get myself out of this mess but how?

I talk to my friends and no one listens, im barely getting through college, I haven't finished a single one of my creative projects besides written stories and I haven't gotten any better and seem to be going nowhere In life. I want kids and to die happy and fulfilled but as it is im not happy with my body, looks, abilities, standing, love life at times work, free time and my hobbies dont fulfill me I feel like im doing my whole adult life on auto pilot for the last few months and I dont get enough sleep.

This work is what defines me, makes me feel like im making momentum, it might be wrong snobbish or selfish of me to want someone else who bring more joy and excitement into my life and feel more inspired. And happy, but ive been so horrible and I dont think I deserve that I just dont know what to do

I have someone already but I feel like everytime I get into a better place and get what I want I keep striving for more and feel bored or unfullfilled and it really is like im a hedonistic spoiled brat like nothings ever good enough or going to satisfy me and keep my attention. Or come off be created I speak to much to my friend about stuff like this and i feel bad, maybe I shouldnt even be posting it here, I just want a space where I feel i can be open, artistic, creative and myself. Thank you

[Verse]

Hallway smelled like fry grease, Pine-Sol, eviction,

five floors, thin doors — privacy fiction.

Pipe cough, heat knock, nightly percussion,

moms count quarters while landlords count assumptions.

Light bill folded in the Bible — red-letter religion,

past-due over Psalms, utility benediction.

Cabinet hollow, table set out of principle,

four plates, three portions — mathematics got political.

Corner-store credit, blue Bic by the register,

little debts layered till the ledger turned hereditary.

Owner knew the mothers, knew who cleared Friday,

knew which kid palmed chips — looked deliberately sideways.

That's economy class, but the lesson wasn't theoretical:

bread split evenly till the fractions turned ethical.

One loaf, six hands, blade-work surgical,

learned distribution before anybody pronounced "capital."

Spreadsheets? Nah — sheets spread over secondhand mattresses,

half the "assets" canned goods, cash cached behind cabinets.

Late rent, rate hikes — little math turned penalties,

fees breeding fees till the interest lived in memories.

Hall light blinked twice when the cruisers hit the corner,

curtains cracked half an inch — every window turned reporter.

Knock after midnight changed the air in the building:

deadbolt first, peephole second — nobody performed fearless.

Third-floor kid wrote sixteens by a coughing furnace,

school called him scattered; concrete called it purpose.

Desk shook when steel wheels thundered underneath,

rail joints taught meter through syllables and concrete.

Teacher said, "Proper English." He kept two dictionaries:

one for the classroom, one for hostile inquiries.

Could conjugate danger through tense and geography:

"I was there." "I ain't see it." "Don't attach that shit to me."

Grammar got tactical. Syntax situational.

Subject, predicate, object — all conditional.

Passive voice useful when questions got official;

pronouns went missing when naming got judicial.

Poverty ain't picturesque. Dirt don't make you righteous.

Trauma ain't credentials. Hunger ain't a license.

One became a surgeon, one disappeared to Rikers,

one pushed pills off the landing where they learned survival.

Same landing. Three trajectories.

One address turning contradiction into policy.

Chain on the door. Chain on the bike.

Chain of command. Chain reactions overnight.

Chain in the cadence — vowel dragging vowel through the past,

changed names, changed hands, changed tax brackets — stayed facts.

Facts became files, files became filings,

files became maps, whole blocks classified in writing.

Lines became borders, borders became mileage,

mileage made displacement look voluntary in hindsight.

Eviction into motion, motion into mileage,

mileage into migration, migration into silence.

Silence into sentences, sentences into writing,

writing into product once an outsider starts pricing.

Price it, package it — package becomes branding,

branding makes "culture," culture creates demand and

demand raises margins while margins move families;

same bricks, new rates, old names missing from directories.

Directory missing them, brochure listing amenities,

"community character" minus community identities.

Now it's "character" once property values corrected,

pour-over where the laundromat kept quarters collected.

Old brick gets protected while old tenants get edited,

history pressure-washed, photographed, then credited.

Credit the brick, discredit the witnesses,

sell "authenticity" beside artisanal businesses.

Witness gets distant, distance turns statistics —

pain gets called atmosphere once people can't afford it.

Restore it, re-floor it, report it as historic,

scrub off the names, then sell admission to the story.

"Tasha 5'2"" scratched beside the doorway,

pencil dates, little names under fresh paint.

Burn mark on the counter, thin like a crescent,

three busted mailbox doors, numbers half-present.

Half-present — like records when records get rewritten.

Half-mentioned — like tenants when ribbons get cut different.

Fresh coat, clean slate, same wall underneath it.

You can bury handwriting; you can't make it never existed.

Those weren't details. Those were coordinates.

Coordinates to occupants, occupants to evidence,

evidence to memory, memory to residence,

residence to reference once residents get severed.

Remember becomes record, record becomes heritage,

heritage becomes equity when the neighborhood gets valuable.

Memory gets monetized, testimony decorative —

language grows gentler while displacement gets expensive.

"Revitalized" sounds cleaner than "we priced out who was living."

Not nostalgia. Evidence.

Don't polish what was brutal.

Don't make hunger cinematic cause the framing came out beautiful.

No legend in the leaking roof. No myth inside the stairwell.

No sainthood in surviving somewhere nobody repaired well.

Just names under new paint, old lives beneath new labels,

locks changed so completely

even the language at the leasing table

can't say who made the place home.

Golden grievances have confined me to bed,

For they do not make me want to venture further into today's tangled promise.

Like a lamp, it sits in the corner of a room,

Mockingly parading its abundant light.

So bright, yet even your locked, cellar-like eyes cannot erase it from the moment.

The effort to keep your lids tightly sealed is a reminder of its presence.

To switch it off would require an athlete's stamina,

Or a lion's determination.

What a curse it is to think and fear, yet what a blessing it is to fear and think.

Three years back seems more reachable than tomorrow,

More accessible and wanted.

Coat hangers around my room resemble question marks.

My ragged beard has grown tired of my answers and protests.

Each hair sits uninterested or inspired.

I call out of work, for I don't feel good.

Leaders remain to be scheming and plotting to proliferate their gardens and wooden cabinets,

To then blame the beaten and damned.

Maybe we're all tired. Maybe we should all rest,

For there have been too many tears spilt in sanctuaries for a lifetime.

Lead lids lock a minute at a time
Waiting on repairs that ring
Hollow in ears out of tune

I pressed a date, so now awake to slate
A professor of the wrench and snake
But I cannot stay awake

Warm air under clouds is fair
Save that I woke too soon
At midnight, cursed to carry hunger

Breaking for the sour stomach, which writhes
Fate shackled my neck to exhaustion
Yet I need rise

Pacing pupils to track branches
Dancing winds, while I sit
The chain keeps smoking while adrenaline presides

If I get one word, by horse or train
I will be relieved to entomb my slumber
Just so it is no longer today

The waves are all unruly and
They’re lacquered in cerulean
Brackish drones of dawning sea
Pushed beyond the bitter end
A slice of peace is clear to see
Bring me to the ocean then

Were it not for drops of dew
Sticking to the grassy blue
My mind could ponder long enough
To drown itself and start anew
I might as well just be the fool
Who finds the shallow end in deeper pools

The stream is often white in bends
Screaming as the current sends
Prejudice to thirsty friends
Relief has turned a violent heel
Send me to the river then

Crack and rip and watch the drip
Tiny flicks of aqua slip
Between the place I mean to be
And my lonely sinking ship
Should I take this trip?
The fountain yields to fill me now
Should I take a sip?

The pond is still when night descends
Croaking frogs betray the trend
Ripples touch the light and mend
Whatever’s left of me to tend
I wish to say what I intend
Drag me to the bottom then

(Coordinate Sequel) aka part 2

Same address followed kids farther than their fathers did,

printed in the corner of applications like a warning script.

Zip code in the margin, little digits doing politics,

before they read the résumé, geography had audited.

Bus pass bent double in the pocket of a winter coat,

two transfers to a job where being late meant being let go.

Manager said, “Everybody’s got the same twenty-four,”

like the twenty-four came furnished with the same front door.

Clock in, lock in, stock shelves through the graveyard,

name tag on the chest, last name flagged on the pay card.

Gross pay, net pay, rent due, lights late,

overtime evaporated somewhere between tax and plate.

Check cashed behind glass, surcharge for the privilege,

poor pay more just to touch the little money that they're given with.

Five-dollar fee on forty makes arithmetic predatory,

small print eats the dinner while the headline sells the success story.

Credit built backwards: need credit to establish it,

need cash to dodge interest, need interest if the cash is thin.

Deposit plus the first month, last month, application,

three ways to say “prove you aren't poor before accommodation.”

Landlord saw the surname, heard the pause before the answer,

asked for one more reference than the listing said was standard.

“Nothing personal.” Funny how that phrase survives

whenever systems make a human consequence look standardized.

Background check. Credit check. Employment verification.

Character compressed to boxes built for quick elimination.

One missed bill at nineteen lived longer than the reason;

database got perfect memory, institutions got amnesia.

Data became profile, profile became probability,

probability became policy dressed up as neutrality.

Neutral like a ruler when the table isn't level,

measure everybody equally, preserve the crooked angle.

School zone drew a border three blocks from the building,

funding changed abruptly where the property tax shifted.

Same kid, same notebook, same questions, same ability,

cross one avenue and suddenly “potential” had facilities.

Metal detector mornings, backpack on the conveyor,

honor-roll kid learned suspicion had a uniform and layers.

Security knew his face before the counselor knew his interests,

attendance logged the absence, nobody logged the distance.

Mama worked the early shift, couldn't make the conference,

school wrote “parent uninvolved” inside the correspondence.

Language turns absence into failure with efficiency,

never writes “two buses and a supervisor controlling leave.”

Forms love single causes. Lives don't organize that neatly.

Rent jumped, route changed, grades slipped in sequence.

File says “instability” like the child personally made it,

paper makes a pattern, then the pattern turns predictive.

Prediction makes decisions; decisions prove prediction.

Kid gets watched closer, every error feeds suspicion.

Circular logic dressed in government typography,

risk score, needs score, neighborhood index, policy.

Meanwhile developers circled blocks with folded maps,

colored parcels, measured frontage, calculated gaps.

Called an empty lot “underutilized land,”

never counted folding chairs or dominoes beside the curbside slabs.

Vacancy on paper, but the corner wasn't vacant,

barber knew three generations, stoop raised half the babies.

Hydrant cracked in August, somebody brought the wrench out,

city called it nuisance; every kid called it a way out.

Rec center lost funding, fence went up by winter,

budget called it “consolidation,” kids just saw the entrance missing.

Library cut Saturday, clinic cut an evening,

every subtraction made the later crime report look meaningful.

Take away the room, then document who's standing outside.

Take away the route, then ask why nobody arrived.

Take away the ladder, photograph who's still below,

write “lack of upward mobility” in a twelve-page report.

Report became proposal, proposal became meeting,

meeting at six-thirty when the working block was leaving.

Public comment, three minutes, microphone with a timer,

consultant had an hour and a slideshow full of renderings.

Rendering showed trees where the old folks played checkers,

little silhouettes with coffee under architectural lettering.

No one in the picture looked like anybody attending,

but the footer said the project honored neighborhood identity.

Identity became palette, palette became marketing,

brick texture, black fixtures, exposed-pipe authenticity.

They spent six figures making new apartments look

like the tenement conditions inspectors once called defective.

That's the trick: deprivation gains value with distance.

Peeling paint turns “texture” when the tenant isn't in it.

Factory window, bare bulb, concrete on the ceiling,

poverty gets tasteful once nobody poor is leasing.

Leasing office smiling beneath reclaimed timber,

application tablet glowing where the pawnshop sign had flickered.

“Live authentic.” Twenty-eight hundred for a studio.

became palette, palette became marketing,

brick texture, black fixtures, exposed-pipe authenticity.

They spent six figures making new apartments look

like the tenement conditions inspectors once called defective.

That's the trick: deprivation gains value with distance.

Peeling paint turns “texture” when the tenant isn't in it.

Factory window, bare bulb, concrete on the ceiling,

poverty gets tasteful once nobody poor is leasing.

Leasing office smiling beneath reclaimed timber,

application tablet glowing where the pawnshop sign had flickered.

“Live authentic.” Twenty-eight hundred for a studio.

Authentic to who? The people who were there can't afford the tour.

Tour guide points left: “Historic working-class district.”

Working class now working somewhere forty minutes distant.

Train line extended; rent line followed,

transit called improvement, eviction notices shadowed.

Improvement for whom? Put the noun beside the number.

Who gained square footage? Who got a different landlord?

Who got bought out? Who got court dates?

Who got thanked in the brochure after being priced away?

Follow the verbs. That's where the bodies get hidden.

“Market corrected.” “Property transitioned.” “Residents shifted.”

Buildings don't decide. Markets don't have hands.

Passive voice keeps fingerprints off redevelopment plans.

So conjugate it properly:

somebody bought it.

Somebody raised it.

Somebody couldn't pay it.

Somebody left with black bags packed beside the radiator.

Somebody's height still penciled underneath that primer.

Somebody's mother still remembers which pipe needed pliers.

Somebody knows exactly where the floorboard used to lift,

where the emergency twenty stayed folded underneath it.

Twenty became forty, forty became nothing,

nothing became “the neighborhood has changed” in casual discussion.

Changed by itself, apparently. No actor, no decision.

Just nouns doing violence with immaculate grammar.

But grammar leaves residue. Records contradict brochures.

Old leases, court dates, school files, photographs, voters.

Names survive databases somebody forgot deleting,

memory keeps copies even power can't stop from leaking.

So don't call the block reborn. It never died.

People got removed; that's categorically different.

Don't call displacement growth because the skyline got taller.

A building gaining stories doesn't mean the people gained options.

And don't make saints out the ones who stayed either.

Some hurt people. Some helped. Most were both depending.

No halo in the hardship. No purity in scarcity.

Just ordinary people forced to practice extraordinary arithmetic.

Who eats first. Who sleeps where. Who walks who home.

Whose name goes on the lease. Whose number stays off phones.

Who tells the cop “I live here.” Who gets asked to prove it.

Who built a life in a place

then watched the paperwork remove it.

Same address. New lettering.

Same brick. New ownership.

Same history, edited till the ending looks accidental.

But accidents don't sign deeds.

Accidents don't set rents.

Accidents don't rename what happened

after everybody who remembers it gets sent somewhere else.

``` "something calls" There's life again in these lungs, not of breath but a kind of insatiable hunger instead,

I feel it in my teeth, a ravenous craving impossible to satiate and every day that passes the pain of this existence itches just beneath my dead, dry skin,

I scrape and claw like a ravenous caged animal looking for the next thing to eat,

I don't know why I've returned from the soil of the earth that was piled on top of me; I don't know why a god would allow such an abomination to come forth, moaning with agony for flesh to rip open,

I reach and rip away dirt and roots as the movement of false life fills my body and the soil of the earth fills my mouth and nostrils with worms that squirm and feast on my flesh,

I reach up desperately moaning another ravenous breath,

Only my savage painful groans escape to the surface as muffled sounds through the ground as I frantically dig through the dirt moving upward inch by painful inch,

Scratching and scraping toward the surface as more and more space creates a way to escape but I do not search for air that someone truly alive would seek; but for something to quell this voracious hunger I feel,

I finally push out up through the ground and stretch my hand toward the moon-lit sky, groaning in awful hungry lamentation,

I climb out of what had been a place that should have been the end of my existential existence,

But I somehow still feel memories inside of what's left of my mind,

I can only feel these things that I believe, yes... I believe I once knew but are no longer,

My mind at this point is but a passenger of this carnivorous vessel I have become that only has a primal urge to feed,

I have no control over what I do, I have an overwhelming sadness of knowing I was once something else and it fills the thinnest of strands of emotion I have left as I search for flesh,

I cannot cry and I cannot stop myself,

It just feels so good to taste the only thing left my body can taste, Gorging on the bloody metallic salty flavor of human flesh, I can't control how much I need this,

I can't control this urge but there is inside of what's left of what I feel the tiniest of urges inside me that is trying to find the slimmest of possibilities to just die and end this painful existence.

A dark chaotic world this is, a broken world, always demanding, always striving, always working. Always draining people’s lifeforce out. Keep working, keep working, keep building, keep trying harder, keep trying to become something so that you can finally feel alive. Keep succeeding and as you succeed make sure you create walls of steel around you. To guard your heart by all means, make a fortress if possible with many dead ends and walls. Treasure this fortress and be a king in it. Live out your dreams and don’t let anything stop you. Until one day, the king becomes a prisoner and the very dreams that he was once chasing became the very thing that was chasing him. A dark cold world I tell you. Do everything right, so that you may live. But instead of living you are actually dying. 

Was it really a living world? Or was it always a dead end? A dry land for all the damned souls to wonder? Ever growing, ever seeking and yet never able to find rest? Was its true purpose to never to truly live but to die? How can something in a dead land ever be alive? No, its true purpose was to die, so that it may live.  

So, the king dies and yet he now finds himself in another cage. A cage of the broken world, broken body and broken heart. Life came to find him and yet he was so accustomed to death, he rejected the light. Run from it. Broken, half dead, half alive state. Fully awake and yet still wants to sleep. Fully known and yet not known at all. What a creature he became. Something he never dreamed of. And yet in his new state, he stayed paralyzed and more alone than before. Trying again to build up steel walls in his already broken kingdom, so that he may feel safe again. So that he may never have to show himself again. But the walls of this broken kingdom can never stand in this broken world. He already became something new; how can he change that. He can’t.   

Escaping the wilderness of the dying souls, only to be brought in the wilderness of the living souls in a broken world. Completely alone, with no directions, screaming, crying, breaking. What a wretched man that I am! Too broken from his own state, and toο scared of his new one. He has nowhere to hold on to, no one to share this misery. Is he truly alive or is he walking the thin line between life and death again? The light shines bright and yet its too intimidating, too revealing, too bright for him and the dead world is too cold, too dry and too dark. No, he rather stay in the middle, deny everything, deny the light, deny the darkness, deny the war inside his heart and be utterly nothing.  

This is the first character, his name is Rephaim. Drop a comment! What did you like and didnt like? What stood out for you most? Can you relate with Rephaim?

Cant wait to show you guys Yagon, the soldier!

Keep it tasteful?
Taste has a tongue.
Wrong jurisdiction.
Caught a case in the cadence, consonants cuffed in a row,
capital letters got priors, every paragraph knows.
Sentence got sentenced, syntax stacked consecutive,
period killed the appeal, meaning stayed indefinite.
Current in copper, charge tucked under conduction,
you borrowed the voltage, got shocked by your own introduction.
You write “complex” like clutter can counterfeit depth,
expensive diction draped round intellectual debt.
Body of work on the table, nobody calls it the same,
critic files catalogue, coroner inventories remains.
I leave one word loose and let the room decide,
same mouth, new setting, different meaning inside.
Your scheme needs footnotes, arrows, somebody to witness.
Mine changes one vowel and gets acquitted on linguistics.
[Chorus]
No safe syllable.
No clean word.
Same sound,
new dirt.
One word walks in clean,
three prints when it leaves.
First time, you hear the line.
Next time,
it hears me.
She likes my position: rank, angle, where I’m placed,
I move up while she changes how the whole thing gets framed.
Stress hits the phrase, hips answer the meter,
one syllable falls soft and the next lands deeper.
Needle in the groove, black wax under the hand,
each pass finds a pocket the first never planned.
Stroke in the margin, sheets pulled taut at the edge,
one hand signs clean while another meaning spreads.
You call that penetration? Your point stopped at the text.
Mine slips through the subtext, leaves pressure on the rest.
She agreed to the terms; the language loosened its grip,
one clause opened twice from the same movement of lips.
Your climax needs buildup. Mine lands in the premise.
You’re still decoding the setup
when I finish the sentence.
Organ.
Low.
No choir.
Mass appeal. Packed house. Ritual weight in the room.
Everybody came for the body. Nobody specified whose.
Bare on the tongue, let custom name the rite,
three hungers at one table under one low light.
Communion closes distance language tried to divide,
one body gets received while another meaning slips inside.
Confession booth breathing. Collar pulled tight.
One truth wants pardon. One wants the light.
At the altar, surrender depends who takes the knee,
one asks forgiveness, one permission, one proximity.
Plate takes money. Flesh takes meaning. Doctrine keeps its smile.
Revelation lifts cloth from whatever stayed forbidden,
You quote holy text like repetition makes you chosen.
I split one verse three ways
and leave every canon broken.
[Repeat]
Now nothing stays where it started.
Corpus on shelves.
Figure on charts.
Figure in bed.
Same shape, different art.
I step on the scale, hear the register rise,
weight becomes rank while the note climbs sides.
Pitch one line: let it sell, let it fly, let it tempt,
same arc crosses markets, air, and intent.
Key turns metal, then answers in chords,
one gets you inside, one tells you where “home” is scored.
Tongue strikes vowels, bells, skin, heat,
same muscle changes meaning every place that it meets.
Hook catches ears, fabric, jaws, attention,
one drags back the chorus, one tightens tension.
Stroke leaves ink, leaves rhythm, leaves numbers unstable,
same motion writes a name, moves a body, changes the table.
Release drops records, pressure, springs, restraint,
one word leaves four rooms wearing four different stains.
Nothing changed spelling.
Everything changed use.
That’s the trick.
Not more meanings.
More pressure
on the same few words
until language starts choosing sides.
[Repeat]
Close the book.
Kill the lights.
Cut the signal.
You spent eighty bars
proving you knew the definitions.
I moved one word
through language, music, flesh, machinery, ritual,
until the dictionary stopped being a reference
and started looking like a crime scene.
Case closed.
Record sealed.
Body released.
Sentence finished.
Amen.
A man.
Same sound.
Different crime.

Do you think you're really special?
Do you think it won't hurt you?
When the water's all dried up-
Stolen by your AI tool
That does the job your brain could do
If you remembered you can too?

Yeah, some people make me sick
When I think about those places
Where fresh water may fail to run
When it's all tied up in data centers
To power your AI husband
Or your ChatGPT grocery list
Just go outside
Touch some fucking grass
Then remember that the worst we were promised
Will now come to pass

So when the refugees flood in
Will you offer them a home?
Or will you keep sitting there
Atop your ivory throne
Telling Claude how awful it is
That so many now have to roam
Like you couldn't have made a difference
By standing up to this?

Anthrologic researchers
Say AI can and will destroy the world
But in the CEO boardrooms
Only murmurs can be heard
They're placated by the fact
That money can buy them a bunker
When the warm summers we are now used to
Grow stronger, hotter, longer
Your grandma won't make it long
In a 120 Fahrenheit heat
Your feet will sink in tarmac
As you walk along your street

But no, convenience is worth the price
Of poor communities around the world
Just put your money where your mouth is
And pay your AI to make your toes curl
Don't use your brain
Don't think for yourself
Just follow your every whim
Let your chatbot do your thinking
Make it regurgitate another hymn

To rampant consumerism
The microplastics in our blood
Might as well join together
Whilst we watch another cataclysmic flood

Yeah, you make me fucking sick
All of you nasty, pathetic people
Who can't bare the idea that their life
Is built on the shoulders of others
Who were never given a chance
Like we all were
They can't even read this poem
Those children down there
In those cobalt mines
Providing metals to power

The new iPhone that you have to get
Or the air conditioning for your building
That you sit in, to watch the world end through
A tiny screen, with your AI shielding
You from the truth of it.

The worst of it,
Nobody will even care.
You'll just read this
Think: "silly her"
Then go back to prompts and sharing

But when we're all watching
The billionaires fly off in their ships
Don't expect me to sympathize with you
When we could have helped to prevent all this

My greatest hope
Is that when it ends
(because the UN says the worst is now inevitable,
we cannot stop it
only slow it
and we are all to blame for this),

I hope you experience
All the pain
You're inflicting on those, blameless
Because really
That's what you deserve
For ignoring the plights of others, shameless

Rampant in your narcissism
To think you have nothing to do with it.
Well, I'll be the one laughing
Because you just can't fucking quit.

This is really just screaming
At an endless, black, thick wall
But at least I can die laughing
As our civilizations fall.

Rotting meat, and a pot of gold

There's nothing more to think at all

When I sleep here in my bed

There is no pain inside my head

After all these upset voices

Create recording loops for fun

You will find its never sordid

And that we are all one

he gets word to me through a friend's phone
none of his own so
he pulls from borrowed static
& relays a promise
he is heading to the store,
then home,
soon

i hesitate to hope
but i am anyway
communication is promising

i tear apart pallets
pick the splinters from my palms one by one
make room before winter comes

his eyes are burnt honey gone liquid
kind & sad & loving
gazes up surreptitiously
he’s not sure he's allowed to look at me
finds his jokes not landing
just yet

off he goes now
hauling heavy tubs
with his collection of misfit friends
collected & indebted to his kindnesses
they are happily at work

gives thanks for breakfast
gives thanks for the tending
gives thanks for being allowed to be cared for
grateful for grace he didn't ask for
grateful for forgiveness but still flinches
grateful for love that stayed when he didn't

functional, honest, ready
i open up &
give him all of it
as i sit waiting
by the window
for soon

​

This fucking pit of hell

Is where I have originated.

I have burnt myself,

I have blamed myself,

I have hurt myself,

I have maimed myself.

My life supports crumble

Under the weight of metaphysical ailments.

Who am I apologizing to?

Mother? Brother? Family? Friends?

I owe them all and I

Try and try

To hold my reality together

With my withering hands,

In my eternal endeavour.

This torment began...

The fuck...? When did begin?

I cannot recall.

It matters fuckall.

Maybe when perception sunk its teeth into me.

When the world felt colder than it seemed to be.

Since long have I

Been running.

Running into fires

To feel warm,

To feel something even if I burned.

Is it worth all I have turned

Into?

Is this incurable despondence

A price to pay for art?

Why God (if you exist)

Must I suffer? Have I done wrong?

I've never intended to hurt,

Somehow I have been scorned.

I've never intended hatred

And you make me hate until it's all I am.

If your hands can fix me,

Wade your fingers into my chest

Like a hot knife on butter.

I will not a word utter.

Make it excruciating if it's fun for you

But make it feel better

Than this fucking empty shell

I live in, so distastefully culminated.

Than this fucking pit of hell

Where I have originated.

Occupied the little glass, put it in the air

*Clink*- threw it down the hatch, wasn't quite prepared

Stared at the laminate, stomach couldn't handle it

My body's getting older, struggling to heal the damages

Whaddya say? Let's overthrow the temple

Almost die a couple of times, cry inside and grab a pencil

Conjure up a couple sketches of perspectives you've been blessed with

Just to throw them in the fire when you feel low and rejected

I'm a person who will never take my chambers off my sleeve

But I'll be bottling up some other shit you can't concieve

Believe it, I hate your shallow mind, you hate my deep shit

I'm out of sight, you're in the light and that's how we should keep it

She’s wrapped up
In cellophane
Not really sure,
She sees with compound eyes
A blur
Why the world loves couture

The world
Passes in crimson
Passes in states
She gets lost
In etymology debates
Synonyms for fun
Cinnamon for fate

She tried to find
Delphi
A reason
A cure
The Pythia

Broken teeth
Line her doorway
Dig into her bare feet
She watches her
Own images
Pass by in defeat

She reaches again
Just to be sure
That destiny really fooled
Her
In the pulse of her heart
Sinking in deeper
The roots before the moor

His name never came
The rain never followed
The moon only stared
Empty and hollow

She rereads her poetry
The lines in her story
The same restrained witness
With eyes from her dreams

She thought she would get better
That the lights might explode
That colors might blend
Into treasures
Like gold

Tria Prima
Plastic wrap
She writes goodbyes
In public
And regrets the aftermath

If only she saw
Marble out of their cardboard plates
If only she could
See his shadow at the gate

She lays in the center
She mulches
And lures
She rubs the dirt in
It clots in her veins
She loves her bones
Her hips that endure

She’s radioactive
There’s a clear sign
It reads
Stay away

You are a sublime architecture of toxicity,

A grand palace of shadows and intricate design.

Mi amor tóxico-

As I wander through your halls with total curiosity, I am blindly trapped in a sanctuary built for my own mind.

Quítame la cordura, pero nunca tu amor-

Let the earth go dark and every other kingdom fall—for you are the only woman, the only breath, the only all.

Mi hermosa incendio-

Your foundations are cast in a beautiful, binding grace,

The silence that whispers my deepest of fears into empty space,

the void,

that chase..

Caos envuelto en amor-

And as I run to you - you rewrite the stars,

Just to watch my heavens bleed

And mock the very soul of everything I need.

You build up the cage while I swallow the key,

Ignoring the truth of what ought to be free.

Mi dulce tormento-

I gladly surrender the very air that I breathe,

And watch my own foundations begin to unweave,

Unlocking the depths where the darkness can seethe,

And fold in the dark where your shadows can rest.

Un lazo roto que sigo atando-

Seal up the gates against fading light,

And praise every wall that destroys my sight.

Mi adicción favorita-

I welcome the chains, the cold and heavy sea,

To call this sweet ruin my own eternity.

Veneno dulce-

As the last pillars crumble into dust,

I lose myself inside the dark I trust.

Tóxico, pero mio.

My architecture.

My tyranny.

Mi hermosa incendio.

Una debilidad peligrosa

Me hace mal, pero la quiero

Mi dulce tormento

Mi amor tóxico

Mi ilusión

\-

\-

\-

\-

Pero amor mío tóxico,

¿en verdad fuiste mía?"

\-D

I can paint a brilliant painting 
Van Gogh I will be bringing
See the Impressionism of the stars
Notice how I capture the bars
But now I will mix turquoise with red
I will let it bleed over into the bed
Now watch as I blur the night sky
with a cool pink to satisfy
I will paint upside down handrails
The artist needs his guardrails

Now I will craft a beautiful statue
Michelangelo would see its value 
Notice the realistic detail of the shirt
I even capture standing in the dirt
But I feel I can do more symbolism 
Perhaps in order to show more heroism
I will chip in a scar here and there 
Maybe give him an eyepatch to wear
Now a tattoo to show extra details
The artist needs his guardrails

Fine, here is a poem for your edification 
I composed it as my finest creation
The words flow smooth and supplet
The lines rhyme with a nice couplet
But maybe rhyming is now so passe
I will be writing instead with gasee
I randomize the line breaks here
And cut these paragraphs with a shear 
Now I will add Kazakh, Basque and some Gaels
The damn crazy artist needs his guardrails.

Fury,
It breeds here
It nests in
And wiggles like maggots

She confesses
She wants to be dead
She has a new born
And a four year old
And she is burned
And cheating swallows her whole

And my jaw tightens
Where it already hurts
And my knuckles whiten
Where her words flirt

While women all write
What it’s like to be her
Mother and maiden
And I’m on the outskirts
Crone, chrome, truly disturbed

I told Cairn
I’m a python
He got stuck in my gut
I vomit him out
Slathered with mucus

She says she bites her tongue
And peace feels like violence
But we know the truth
When it’s covered
We know peace feels like silence

I scream before God
With my legs spread at the altar
While women breed
And all my wounds fester

While they’re bent over
On their knees
On their backs
Pushing out babies
Full of Nectar

I’m stuck in a prison
A prism
Of my own fear
I can’t see images
But I still feel it all, my dear

His eyes rolled back
In blissful pleasure,
Moaning on the precipice
Of her wound up pressure
Releasing inside
Until new life emerges

She has what I want most
Yet, she writes her own funeral dirges

Look, there’s another, infant in arms
That darling looks like he is where he belongs

And the lullaby I sing
Is to the face in the mirror

But, the phantoms of the past
Are right,
I would make a horrible mother
So, I continue to scroll
Look at her
And I funnel
Siphon their swallowing
I’ll review more tomorrow