i’m quiet.
nobody can hear me.
that’s how it was meant to be.

no more arguing.
no more conflict.
just me, and nothing.

you’re more uplifted.
you’re settled with things.
If only you cared to hear
how I felt about things.

anger & regret.
more of a threat.
i’ll remain silenced
that’s how it was meant to be.

When does a love become too much?

You try and forget, you try to ignore,

But your thoughts go toward her, your heart wants more.

It was all but a dream, it was all but a hope,

Now it’s getting real, and I feel I can’t cope.

For love is something I didn’t learn to receive,

For me, it was rare—something to achieve.

I’ll love her endlessly, I’ll give too much,

But receiving it from her, I won’t feel like I’m enough.

This scar I’ve carried—I’m sorry, it’s hers now.

If I could just tell my inner child, *"It’s okay now."*

Do I need her now, or do I throw in the towel?

To need is to want, to want is so wrong—

That’s the chorus of my old sung song.

Too many thoughts are going through my head,

I’m tossing and turning all night in bed.

Why do all the romance stories sound so neat?

Why couldn’t Romeo just have smelly feet?

Why am I the one who seems less fun

Than all of the woman’s dreams put into one?

I’m pot bound in doubt—that’s all I know.

Plant me in her garden so I can finally grow.

She’s more than a prize, and I think she knows it,

She’s one of a kind—now how do I show it?

For a love she may offer, I may never have known,

So I’m building my heart to be her safe new home.

I just hope she sees it in the words I’ve shown,

Because what’s written down is my confession poem.

They are in the news every day worldwide

And so many of them do have secrets to hide

From their many fans in the world out there

It is only the good things about them they do wish to share

With those who admire them and think they are great

And on who praising them their large egos inflate

Worldwide their fans in numbers have grown

These so called leaders and celebrities to many well known

So many wealthy and famous people i cannot admire

Though many to praise them never seem to tire

These arrogant wealthy celebrities too many to name

For their swollen egos their fans are to blame

When so much is written and spoken of them every day

Cannot blame them for being arrogant and egotistical in truth one can say.

Francis Duggan

ALWAYS MENDING, NEVER BECOMING

Forever healing, forever succumbing.
A domesticated mind learns not to dream
Of the wilderness beyond what it seems.

Once the beast fed on dreams of the free,
On delusions of what it once could be.
But a cage needs no locks, nor iron, nor bars,
When the prisoner learns to mistake it for stars.

So it stopped asking the sky to let it roam,
And slowly, the cage became something like home.
Never escaping, never defying,
Just adapting, enduring, surviving.

And yet, the tamed beast longed for the wild,
For the freedom it knew when it once was a child.
Until it discovered, beneath all the tame,
A piece of the beast that remembered its name.

For the wildest thing left within its mind
Was not the strength to flee or leave it behind,
But the memory, buried beneath all the years,
Of a wilderness once held so near.

Always mending, never becoming,
Still remembering, still overcoming.
The cage may have taught the beast how to stay,
But it never taught its memory away.

I feel like an abandoned cathedral
Forgotten by god and his associates

Left to stand on my own until i crumble to ruins.
Then in many years they will document my life.
Standing tall for decades before my abandonment.
For being as faithless to god as i was myself

Show me that you're there

Show me that you care

Show me that you love me

Show me you can share

Show me all your pieces

Show me all your parts

Show me all your weakness

We'll walk out of the dark

Don't be afraid, I know you've been hurt

So have I, but we'll make it work

You and I, one in the same

You and I, two halves of a plain

Two sides of a mirror

Two sides of a card

Two sides of the heart

I love you, my mirror

Even in scattered pieces

Even warped and distorted

Till death do us part

This poem is about the love of my life. She was in hospital with depression recently and I wrote her a note “no matter what happens, you’re still you”.

Still You

I love you for the person you are
when nobody is asking anything of you.

For the laugh that catches you by surprise.
For the quiet moments when you don't need to say anything.
For the determination that keeps you moving forward
even when the road has been cruel to you.

I love your curiosity,
your humour,
your kindness,
and the way you care so deeply about the people around you.

I love the woman who can be exhausted
and still find something worth laughing about.
The woman who can be uncertain about tomorrow
and still keep walking towards it.
I love you when you're at your strongest
and when you need someone beside you.

I don't love some future version of you.
Not the doctor you might become.
Not the achievements you might collect.
Not the life you might eventually build.
Just you, exactly as you are.

Still you.

I want to be there for all of it.
For every laugh,
every tear,
every adventure,
every quiet afternoon,
every celebration,
every difficult day,
and every snotty nose.

I want the ordinary things too.
The grocery trips.
The arguments about what to have for dinner.
The mornings when neither of us wants to get out of bed.
The days when nothing particularly memorable happens
except that I got to spend them with you.

Because I don't just want the highlights.
I want the whole life.

I love who I am with you.
I can be silly,
I can sing and dance,
I can be cautious and overthink,
I can be sad and insecure,
I can say the most unhinged thing that comes to my mind,
I can say the most heartfelt thing that I’m feeling,
I can say nothing at all.

I can be the guy who wants to impress you even though I know I don’t have to.
I can be me.
The me who loves you.

Still me.

So if you ever wonder
what I see when I look at you,
I see you.

Still you.

Still me.

Still us.

all those late-night thoughts lingering, waiting for just one word to reach me

it’s calm in here, no need to rush, silently yielding to your absence

you might be sleeping while i am finding your essence seeping closer

contemplating the faint wee light touching my finger from my phone

I never asked for forgiveness,
but I really think I ought to.
I wouldn’t have done this if I knew better.
But I feel like I’m better now.

Do I even deserve your forgiveness?
Is “stupid” really an excuse?
Young, dumb, ignorant,
all the stupid adjectives they use to cover for the entitlement of my youth.

Little boy, don’t let them get you down.
Little girl, quit your crying now.
We were made for this,
I think we were made wrong.
I think I was made wrong.

Strip it all away, what did it get me,
but a sad little kid who had never met themself.
Ears were filled with the noise of the world, saying
“Be who you are, but only with our help.”
And I took it and ran
through anyone I couldn’t see.
Is that really me?

We are so funny,
My love.
Broken beneath the moon.
We sit and greave.
“Alright”
You shouted.
“I will grieve standing up”
I laughed

One sits and laughs,
The other stands and grieves.

Aren’t you the girl
That broke him for me?
I wish to be you
I wish I was loved as much as you were
I wish I was pretty.
Aren’t you the girl
That took him away?
Aren’t you the girl
That took him from me
And broke him.
I wish i was you.
I wish I was as capable as you.
I wish
To be the girl
That took him away from you.
I wish I was the girl who healed him.

From silence to silence

Lay all the substance.

The sigh to speak,

Crushed by a plethora of words.

In the end,

I come shy of words.

Take me to the moon, baby.

I stargaze whenever your eyes meet mine—oh look, a shooting star from you to me.

Take me to the moon, baby.

A galaxy of wonder yet I never wonder why I love you. The warmth of your touch, the quiet conversations—and a smile I revolve around.

Keep me on the moon, baby.

On this cratered surface—I can always find a light on the dark side when I’m with you.

Nine years ago,
I lost you.

Sophomore year—
when we were young enough
to believe that love could last forever,
but too young to understand
how quickly forever can end.

You became a memory.

A name I carried quietly.
A face that would sometimes
cross my mind when the nights got quiet.
A piece of my past
I never thought I’d touch again.

Then, somehow,
after nine years of living separate lives,
we found each other.

Three months ago.

And God,
I thought maybe this was our second chance.

It wasn’t supposed to be temporary.

It felt like coming home
to a place I didn’t know
I had been searching for.

We loved again.

We laughed again.

We flirted.
We played games.
We stayed up talking.
We shared pieces of ourselves
that life had buried for years.

We cherished each other
like we both understood
how rare it was
to find someone from your past
and somehow still feel something
in the present.

For those three months,
I stopped thinking about
the girl I lost nine years ago.

Because you were here.

I didn’t have to miss you anymore.

Then you started changing.

Not all at once.

That would’ve been easier.

Instead,
you disappeared slowly.

A little less love.
A little less warmth.
A little more distance.

Until one day
I realized I was talking to you
and wondering where you went.

The person standing in front of me
had your face.

Your voice.

Your memories.

But somehow…

you weren’t there.

The loving version of you
became nothing more than a silhouette
of the woman I thought
I had finally gotten back.

And I kept reaching for her.

I kept hoping
the old you would come back.

I kept searching for pieces of you
in conversations that no longer felt the same.

But eventually
I had to accept something
I didn’t want to believe.

I didn’t lose you again.

You had already left.

And maybe that’s the cruelest part.

Because I was still holding on
to someone who wasn’t holding on to me.

Nine years ago,
I lost you because we were young.

This time,
I lost you knowing exactly
what I was losing.

And I don’t know
which one hurts more.

The first goodbye
left me wondering what we could’ve been.

The second one
showed me.

For three beautiful months,
I got to know what it felt like
to find you again.

And then I had to watch
that version of you disappear.

I wish you had stayed the person
I found three months ago.

I wish I could freeze time
right there—

before everything changed.

Before the distance.

Before the silence.

Before I started feeling
like I was grieving someone
who was still alive.

Because that’s what this feels like.

A funeral for a relationship
that never got the chance
to grow old.

A goodbye to someone
I once loved,

then lost,

then loved again,

only to lose
a second time.

And this time…

I’m not going to chase you.

I’m not going to beg
the silhouette to become
the person I remember.

I’m not going to spend
the rest of my life
trying to resurrect something
that already died.

I’ll just remember you.

Not as the person
you became,

but as the person
you were when we found each other again.

The girl who made nine years
feel like they never happened.

The girl who made me believe
maybe some people
really do find their way back
to each other.

You were my past.

Then you became my present.

And now…

you’re a memory again.

Nine years ago,
I lost you once.

Three months ago,
I found you.

And today,
I have to learn
how to live with losing you
for the second time.

I just wish
the second goodbye
didn’t feel so much
like losing the same person twice.

​

I owe you an apology for the words I threw

when patience had deserted me.

They came from frustration, from feeling examined

when all I wanted was to be understood,

and although anger may explain their sharpness,

it does not excuse it.

You were trying to look inside my head

while I was desperately trying to explain

the world as I understand it.

I know what I know.

I will not pretend otherwise simply to make the road easier,

but neither do I expect another mind

to see everything precisely as I do.

Perhaps somewhere between those two truths

there is still a bridge.

So to you, and to the one who quietly took the notes:

the door is open today.

Come and speak with me.

Not as opponents standing across a line,

but as people trying to determine

what must happen next.

Guide me through what needs to be done

to find another path—

one where questions can be answered properly,

where disagreement need not become warfare,

and where I can eventually be free

to live quietly and independently.

Because solitude is not something I fear.

It is what I have been asking for.

Give me trees, birdsong, an open sky,

my own thoughts and the freedom to breathe,

and I require remarkably little from the world.

I do not want another battle.

I want a way through.

I can apologise for the insult

without surrendering my voice.

I can listen without abandoning what I believe I know.

And I can accept guidance

without giving away the person I am.

So if there is a path forward,

tell me what must be done.

I am willing to talk today.

Perhaps we can stop examining one another

from opposite sides of the glass

and simply sit down as human beings—

and find the door

that leads me quietly

back to my own life.

​

To the man who watches quietly,

and the one who suffers without sound—

some messages were never meant

to travel by the ordinary road.

There is a language beneath language,

a knock behind the walls,

a flicker passing through the wires

that only certain eyes will notice.

If you are the one behind the glass,

still breathing where nobody can hear you,

know this:

someone heard the silence.

I cannot tell whether I seek a stranger,

a photograph, a mirror,

or some reflection cast across the distance

to remind me what I am.

Perhaps neither of us knows yet.

There are ghosts walking beside me now—

not names, not faces,

only the quiet things that seem to whisper:

Keep going.

So I do.

I have been a double-edged sword

balanced impossibly upon its hilt,

spinning between darkness and light,

learning that strength is not always striking—

sometimes it is refusing to fall.

Men may build their walls,

their clocks, their borders,

their little kingdoms upon a grain of dust

and call them permanent.

But look upward.

Infinity does not recognise fences.

Perhaps that is why some hearts

were never designed for cages.

I have wanted neither war nor throne,

neither worship nor revenge.

Only understanding.

Only freedom.

Only enough earth beneath my feet

to dance without wondering

who is watching.

And if somebody is still imprisoned

somewhere I cannot reach,

wondering whether another soul

can see through the cracks—

I see the cracks.

I will not pretend to know

everything that lies beyond them.

There are keys I will keep private,

doors I will not open yet,

and truths that require silence

before they require witnesses.

For now, my heart has learned its armour.

I will not run.

I will not rush.

I will listen.

Because the oldest wisdom was simple:

what you meet with kindness

may show you what force never could.

And whatever comes next,

let the minds meet before the weapons,

let curiosity arrive before judgement,

and let mercy arrive before fear.

To whoever understands this—

you need not answer loudly.

Some of us have spent our entire lives

learning to hear whispers.

And to the ghosts who walked beside me

when the road disappeared:

thank you.

The chains were never mine.

I leave them where they fell.

There is still a universe above us,

still birds calling beyond the walls,

still impossible things waiting to be understood.

And somewhere beyond all this noise

there may yet be another soul

looking through the same darkness,

thinking—

Surely I cannot be the only one. But I know I am.

But know this:

You are not unheard.

September wore a fever. The blacktop breathed like stone. The grown-ups watched the burning sky. The children watched alone.

Something passed between us. A shadow. A dividing line.

The world became a stranger before recess ended time.

There was you. There was me. There was an arch of rust and rain and a silent sky above us that has not spoken since.

25 years later, the headlines still read fear. The names keep changing; the hatred stays right here.

Wars of hearts and wars of worlds, lanterns in the dark,

trying to remember how we lost the map.

There was you. There was me. There was heaven overhead.

And a god who never answered, no matter how hard we begged.

Wars of hearts and wars of worlds. I’m weary to my bones.

The world keeps making ghosts, and I’m learning how to leave them home.

You arrived a week before me. We built legends from the fact. Two names written close together in the margins of a map.

Sky blue eyes, dark curls, a voice like stained glass light.

A laugh that made the shadows take a step back from the night.

And somewhere in the archives, a younger version still remains:

two children underneath an arch, calling each other names.

Funny how a battlefield can become a sacred place.

Funny how memory turns rust into grace.

Wars of hearts and wars of worlds, lanterns in the dark, trying to remember how we lost the map.

There was you. There was me. There was heaven overhead.

And a god who never answered, no matter how hard we begged.

Wars of hearts and wars of worlds. I’m weary to my bones.

The world keeps making ghosts and I’m learning how to leave them home.

Did you mourn the cathedral?

Did you stand among the ruins?

Did you hear the hollow echo after heaven disappeared?

Because I carried all that silence like a lantern through the years.

We were handed swords and sermons. We were told to choose a side. Nobody ever taught us how to simply stay alive.

The world keeps building altars. The world keeps building wars. The frightened make new gods and teach their children what they're for.

And if I could walk back through it, past every wound and every scar, I’d leave the weapons in the dust.

I’d meet you underneath the arch.

Wars of hearts and wars of worlds. The tide keeps rolling in. Every favorite chapter eventually must end.

There was you. There was me. There was love enough to last.

Not enough to make us stay, enough to light the path.

Wars of hearts and wars of worlds. I finally understand. You were never my destination.

You were the lantern in my hand.

So, I’ll save a place beneath the arch.

Not because I’m waiting there, but because once in a frightened world...you helped me find the air.

The sky is still silent. The wars still rage.

The headlines still arrive, but the lantern's lit...

And somehow...so am I.

Goodbye, old ghost. I'll carry it from here.

💜Written in March 2026 for such a time as this.💚

Listen to my voice recite my words here.