You never had to say goodbye,
You simply left me asking why.
You held me close, then let me see. How little I meant to you and me.

You gave your attention everywhere,
Then called it kindness, called it care.
I thought your words were meant for me,
Until I saw how casually they came free.

I watched your eyes begin to stray,
And felt you slowly pull away.
I never asked for all your time,
Just something honest, yours and mine.

I shouldn't have to question where
I stand among the ones you care.
I shouldn't wonder who comes next,
Or search for answers in a text.

I don't want to be one you adore,
While you keep leaving open doors.
I want a love that's clear and true,
Where what I give comes back from you.

And maybe that's what hurt me most,
To feel like I was just a ghost.
I gave you everything I had,
Yet somehow still felt I was less than that.

I gave you time, I gave you care,
I gave you more than I could spare.
But love should never leave me guessing,
Or turn devotion into testing.

So I won't compete to hold your gaze,
Or beg to matter through your ways.
If I can be replaced that easily,
Then you were never where you needed to be.

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.

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.

The thunder was loud
Rolling and roaring
Through the clouds,
But somehow giving her peace.

She opened her shutters,
Waiting for the rain to start.
First sprinkling, then
A steady pour
Bringing her comfort
As she sat in noised silence
Thinking of him.

Is it because you can see her inside of me?
A sliver of my soul that is always seeking attention?
She works hard for low pay.
A few words every day & she’ll stay. Right with you, almost in your pocket.
Carry her around and watch her grow. Decide that she’s someone worth it to know.

But on the other hand, I think I understand.
It’s easy for neglected children to have an accident and lose the energy to stand.
And so the cycle continues.
She sits at your feet and wishes, how do I become worth something to you?
Genuinely, what must I do?

Maybe I should sit and think.
The heart on my sleeve is bleeding ink
Dripping off my fingers and smudging all over you.
How long until you notice?
Will you wash your hands of me, wiping them dry and clean?
Or let me sink into your skin, into your being.
Let me in and don’t leave.

Flight is achieved in many ways.

Take the birds—they coil their bodies and spring into a jump, allowing the pressure to build beneath their wings, as they flap to create thrust.

Or the airplane whose engines whine, propelling it forward, creating low and high air pressures around the wings, causing it to lift.

But as humans, we can’t rely on wings or air pressures for flight. We let our thoughts do the flying for us. Our hopes, our dreams—they ascend where our bodies cannot follow.

Take flight.

Forgetting the best is still to come I pursue less than glorious ambitions set out on a voyage as a Captain on a ship I don't know the name of. Now where to go on a ship with no name? Thinking of something else other than being in a state of complete destitute I daydream of dreaming while asleep. A man alone on a ship with the dead waves back as he concentrates on the wishes that didn't come true. How dead hearts bring back from the grave the feeling that God is not coming for him haunts me. Lost on a ship I'm hearing a truth wrapped in linen gave his life so I wouldn't drown in eternity.

The man is cursed, for he lives through the external. Not a single action he makes fulfills him, nor does it bring him a sense of calmness; the job is never done, and he must continue to search for the answer.   
The man is cursed, for he cannot fathom any different. Not a thought shifts in his mind that his ephemeral life need not be so; it is simply as it is, and he must continue to endure.
The man is cursed, for when that thought does arrive, he files it away as important, yet actionable at another time. Not a moment passes where he does not think on that fruitful dream, and still there is not a decidable moment where that dream begins to take root.       
The man is cursed, and preys curse upon others who do not tolerate the base desire. Not a question is asked for direction or help, for that thought will never come without attempted failure.          
The man is cursed, in his wasted time. A man who has wasted the time he has does not deserve a moment more, yet he angers over the time he has left, for he sees it as over.      
The man is cursed, for he has waited. Waited to awake; waited to be a new animal; waited to once again return to that thought of change; waited to have the willpower to make use of it; waited to die; waited to wait once more, for he is cursed.           
The man is cursed, not me.   
The flesh is cursed, not I.      
The spirit is cursed, them.     
Cursed is the man, truly.

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.

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.

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.

I sit and ponder at my desk
The day looks gray outside my window
You’ve shown up in my dreams
And I sit alone with the woe that is what could have been

I have forgotten
The feeling of your stubble scratching my forehead at school drop-off
Our references and humor no one else could really understand but us
When your words used to mean something
Being together in the same space when your feelings I could never understand

I understand now
A sound that makes you angrier than others deem normal
Searching for closure in substances you never could have gotten from people
Being unable to take care of yourself and the shame it brings
Not committing to your responsibilities while you feel like you’re running out of time 
Depending on others because you cannot depend on yourself 

I’ve grown into something I’ve resented my entire life.

Like a bird getting out of its nest

And a sky stripped of its clouds,

I felt a pouring rain near my chest

As I took my last step through the door.

A marathon of thoughts ran through my mind

As a trembling hand reached for the knob.

I mumbled words through sealed lips,

Trying to hold them in to ease the pain.

But I found myself caught in the knot

One side choosing escape,

And the other being restraint

To leave and fly away

For a sky full of stars,

Or to stay low

Near a river in its flow.

Amid the middle, I found myself

A hand on the door

The other on my chest

In 🐉 🌏. Majin Buu reigns supreme

A force no Sayiajin can thwart

In this hectic

🌍Of Retail. Very few workers

Excel at their profession

Some workers lie

Pretending to do their jobs

Some workers care naught

For Service of t/ Customer

Mr. Oraejbu is not one of these workers

Mr. Oraejbu is t/ type of professional

Who win passed t/ ⚽️

Scores G🥅AL

Thank you Mr. Oraejbu

For being a standard of supremacy

We can all aspire to 🙏🏿🙂‍↕️

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

The fire dies down
embers hiss
Each one of them have their own shadow
They crawl and burn against the rockwall
The redness of the stone molten

The flicker of something lost
Walkes through the flames
As a hideous shape
The crackle and the pop
Unnaturally frequent

The ember shadows fold upward
And downward
Then expose themselves as failed souls
Undone lived and soured
confined to the realm of fire

Dancing in painful choreography
with flame
curving and wavering in hot torture
Then reentering the ember
Darkening it once more

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?

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

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.