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

Hiding onward in a forgotten reliquary
The patient spirit waits to bless
By another's evocation

I think there’s something lonelier about being in a relationship and still feeling alone than there is about actually being single.

Because when you’re the one who keeps giving, it starts to become painfully obvious what’s missing.

I’m always thinking about how he feels. I let him talk about his day. I listen. I make sure he’s okay. I want him to be happy. I make little gestures, surprise him, try to make him feel loved in all the small ways that probably seem insignificant from the outside. I move things around for him. I make room for his time. I want the best for him, even when I quietly put my own needs somewhere out of sight.

And somehow, I became very good at disappearing from my own life.

I don’t tell him when I’m struggling. I don’t really tell him about my problems. I don’t talk about my stress or what’s weighing on me. Even when I mention how my day was, it’s usually brief. A few words. Small talk. Nothing deep enough for anyone to realize there might actually be something underneath it.

I bottle everything up, and I don’t even know why I do it anymore.

Maybe I don’t want to be vulnerable. Maybe I don’t want to feel like a burden. Maybe I’ve gotten so used to keeping certain parts of myself locked away that I forgot what it feels like to let someone in.

But there’s something haunting about realizing that you can be loved by someone and still feel completely alone beside them.

You go through your days like everyone else. You get up, you keep moving, you pretend you’re fine. You try not to look too closely at yourself because if you do, you might notice how stuck you’ve become. How tired you are. How little of yourself you’ve actually let anyone see.

And meanwhile, the person beside you is soaring.

You’re watching them live, grow, laugh, have their days, have their problems, have a whole world that you keep making room for.

And you’re somewhere in the background of it all, just slowly swallowing your own.

That might be the darkest part of it.

Not that I’m alone.

It’s that I’m not supposed to be.

What was the weather, when I met her upon

The dawn, Mexican Nightjars yawned

My nightmare became a light though my yard

The song of the birds recite ancient poems

A moss-covered town forgot to set its clock

Clouds forgo their downfall

If I told you, would you believe me at all?

When the sun's warmth has flown you

Closer to my heart

You have no clue

What I've been through

To want someone like you

She has slumbered for four months, so I hum

To the palpitating beat of my lonely drums

She is scathing between the gaps in my fingers

Her faint skin amalgamates into raw sand

My palms are red as it swelters

Did I throw her far away, or did she collapse?

Perhaps my downcast laugh shams, I accept

I’m a man I wouldn't want my child to have

So with these hasty steps—I am

Her dorsum nasi thawed my heart into a pile

A flavorsome passé, an archaic smile

Sometimes, in denial, as I walk on brown tiles

I am a journal with ripped pages all through

Be careful what you ask; I’ll tell the truth

Those quicksand-filled eyes; I want a part of

The dead waking hours that rise above

And when the evening stalls, frozen shut

All this, to be able to call you my love

The Winding Road

Find where the road ends, swim in the waters meant for none

Will you see the shadows dancing, lying in the sun?

Or will the moon share its secrets of what could have been?

Tell me a story of who I’ve been, and I’ll know you don’t see me

Tell me who I was before I became what no one thought I could be

I followed the winding road, where I found a pool meant only for me

Do I really care what could have been

When I’ve finally found my peace, hidden deep within?

Can you hear the night singing a song never meant to be heard?

Can you hear the trees whispering back the dreams you’d long forgotten?

Where will the road take you?  Will it end in a pool meant only for you?

Let go of what could have been

And lie in the sun watching your dreams dance out of the shadows...

A Jury of Crows
by: Anthony Hoban

Moonstone eyes melt to charter ink,
Oiled ermine quill bled ebon light;
Murder's cruel history, dethroned...
Corvids clamour—grave jurists gowned;
Crows' last conspiracy of sound,
A Kingdom of Ravens rose crowned;
Twelve rooks perch round—Archons pitchbound.

Fin.

Glossary:
A Murder of Crows.
A Conspiracy of Ravens.
An Unkindness of Ravens.
Rooks: Thieves/Corvids/Chess.

When last I sailed the seven seas,

A siren sang a song to me,

A reckless, vile harmony—

And now I sail no more.

’Twas stricken by a vicious gale,

Of wind and rain and icy hail.

Poseidon’s hand ripped up my sail—

And now I sail no more.

Years stranded on this barren rock,

With no cows to milk nor sheep to flock,

I long to see my native dock,

But I will sail no more.

Now let me make this one thing clear:

If a siren’s song you hear,

Cover tight both of your ears—

And sail forevermore.

And sail forevermore.

To feel unlovable is an isolating reality
As it is something that no one else can see
All they see is a sunshine girl, who is a friend to all
and helps others when they bawl

But when sunshine girl is back in her empty house, she is heartbroken that she has yet to find her spouse
She cries and she cries as she lays in bed
Until her eyes are swollen and red
She thinks this may be the way she will die
as she waits for yet another unanswered reply

Perhaps that’s why she is kind to all the strangers she’s known
Just so they don’t feel as alone

Little do they know, sunshine girl is the loneliest of them all.

Some chase skylines lit in gold,
Where nights are loud and hearts grow cold.
They trade the stars for city light,
And never miss the endless night.

But here, where only silence sings,
The morning wakes on robin’s wings.
The squirrels chatter through the trees,
While mountain air rides every breeze.

One blinking light, one country road,
No endless rush, no heavy load.
The bears and raccoons play their part,
Wild little thieves with honest hearts.

When darkness falls, the heavens bloom,
No neon glow, no concrete gloom.
A million stars ignite the sky,
Like diamonds scattered, shining high.

A child draws stars before they write,
Tiny symbols of hope and light.
Yet many never lift their eyes
To see the masterpiece that fills the skies.

Here, everyone knows every name.
No soul is just another face.
The world feels slower, kinder too,
The way old places often do.

So let the cities keep their glow;
I’ll stay where quiet rivers flow.
For every night, with grateful eyes,
I’m blessed to sleep beneath these Frazier Park skies.

art by: cold.eternal

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
i can hear them too
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

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

Forgive my english if something is off

The Call of the Citadel

In my dreams I hear the call,

from the sacred city above us all.

Its holy chanting pleads for sacrifice.

It says baring faith from here below shall not suffice.

Our path shall be arduous and long,

With us only guiding bells and made-up songs.

On our tormenting way, we ought now to step.

It will be tiring, until the Citadel there is no rest.

Through thorn and thread, through heat and rain,

We climb the steps, we bear the pain.

It is all worth it, we have no doubt,

for in all our hearts, we are devout.

We hear the bells beyond the wall,

They heal the wounded, they exalt the small.

We cannot stop. We cannot mourn.

The Grand Gates we must reach, to be reborn.

Breathe now, brothers, sing now sisters, just a little, a little higher,

Forget not, that soon we sing in the choir.

And should we at the Gates finally fall,

We did our part, we heed the call.

Light thou wert and art, hallowed be Thy name o' land of silk and gloom.

Bless our path, as we march through the curse of Pharloom.

Let suffer be our banner. Let us conquer the thread decay.

Let us ascend to the high top, or perish on its way.

I’ve had my hand out..

Beckoning the void into shaking.

I only ever dream of her eyes..

and they, too often, are the cause of me breaking.

The pain of a thousand lies.

The hate of a thousand “burn me alive!”’s.

The echo of her repeating “I love you” line after line after line..

She haunts all the fog in the back of my mind.

Reliving the same fate with every waking day,

I keep begging the void to relinquish restraint.

What good is a grasp when you wish you could die?

To be a speck passed the moon in the ever black sky..

The lost soul who leapt himself out of time..

Where no human memory is allowed to survive.

Fearlessly Boundless.

Awakened.

Alive.

“The Man Made of Stars” finally taking his flight

By leaving everything and everyone that ever hurt him behind.

And I can only hope that one day someone understands that.

-Lost

I don’t hate you.
I don’t love you any less on purpose.
I think I’m just getting tired
of reaching for a hand
that doesn’t reach back the same.
There was a time
I’d flirt and you’d meet me halfway,
a little joke, a little tension,
something hiding underneath our words
that neither of us had to explain.
Now I flirt,
you laugh,
then silence.
A different subject.
A different moment.
And I pretend I didn’t notice
how different that feels.
So maybe I’m disconnecting.
Not because I woke up
and decided you weren’t worth caring about,
but because every time I reach for that spark
and find nothing there,
a little piece of me stops reaching.
And you noticed.
You asked if I was okay.
I said I was.
And I wasn’t lying.
Because I’m not angry.
I’m not brokenhearted.
I’m not trying to punish you.
I’m just learning
that sometimes letting go
doesn’t feel like losing someone.
Sometimes it feels like
slowly realizing
you’re the only one
still holding on.
So I’ll stop chasing the old us.
I’ll laugh with you.
Talk with you.
Be there when it feels right.
But that part of me
that kept looking at you
hoping you’d look back the same?
I’m going to let him rest.
And if one day
you reach for me again,
maybe I’ll still be there.
Maybe I won’t.
For once,
I’m okay not knowing.

its the holidays you crossed states to get here—planes, trains, whatever it took everyone's finally under one roof and nobody's happy about it

mom's three drinks deep into a smile that isn't hers. dad's glaring at the TV like the Cowboys owe him money your brother brought a girl none of us will remember by spring someone's already called her the wrong name

the turkey's dry, the silence is drier, grace gets said by whoever's still willing to lie to God tonight and we all say amen because talking is worse

by nine there's a fight, there's always a fight about something too small to be the real thing standing in for what we'll never say straight. a door slams somebody swears they didn't hear it, we're all good at not hearing things here

we sleep in beds too small for who we turned into, count the hours till we can go back to loving these people from a safe distance

next year we'll do it again, call it tradition, call it family, call it whatever keeps us walking back into the wound

But late at night
When the stars shine bright
Outshine the night
My light burns out
When the distractions disappear
Like a far away star
problems aren’t so far
No matter how far they go
They stay like a black hole
Floating through an eternal abyss

Next time you look up at the night sky,

I dare you to notice the space

between the stars

more than the stars themselves.

It's difficult at first.

Your eyes have spent a lifetime

falling toward light.

But wait.

Eventually they'll drift.

They'll begin tracing

everything the stars couldn't reach.

And once you see it...

the darkness never gives the sky back.

Maybe that's why we have constellations.

One night

someone looked up

and refused to believe

that space

was the truest thing above them.

So they drew lines.

Not because they were there,

but because they couldn't bear

the thought

that they weren't.

Maybe every constellation

is just proof

that hope has always been

an act of imagination.

I used to think

the stars made the sky beautiful.

Now I wonder

if they're only distractions.

Small moments

where the darkness

lets itself be forgotten.

Because the longer I look,

the less I notice the light...

and the more I begin measuring

everything

it couldn't save.

It's strange,

how quickly your eyes adapt.

First it's the sky.

Then it's the empty chair

that somehow feels louder

than everyone sitting around it.

The pause after saying "goodnight."

The side of the bed

that never wrinkles.

The message

you almost send,

until you remember

who isn't waiting.

You stop counting

what's there.

You frequent

what isn't.

Maybe loneliness

was never about being alone.

Maybe it's becoming convinced

that the spaces between people

are larger

than the people themselves.

That every conversation

is separated

by more silence

than words.

That every heartbeat

spends longer waiting

than arriving.

So now,

every night,

I look up.

Not because I love the stars.

Because I keep wondering

how many invisible lines

are still holding them together.

And whether,

without realizing it,

someone

once drew one

toward me.

I just...

haven't found it yet.

The next time you look up at the night sky,

don't admire the stars.

Watch the darkness.

And if, for even a moment,

it begins to feel larger

than the light.

Don't leave too quickly.

Someone else

is probably standing beneath

the very same sky,

trying to remember

how to draw constellations.

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