Shades of Blue

A Mother Roams

A mother roams with empty hands, her heart in pieces, barely stands,
through the echoes of distant cries she calls his name beneath war-torn skies.
Each step a prayer as hope defies the darkness that within her lies,
her voice a whisper in the night, a desperate plea in fading light.

In the chaos she takes flight, searching through the endless blight,
the walls of rubble loom so high, reminders of a once bright sky
where laughter turned to hollow sighs and tears are all that’s left to dry.

Through the streets of shattered dreams she wades through silent screams,
her mind a whirl of tortured schemes, searching for the light that shines.
Her heart a compass in the storm, guiding her through paths forlorn,
in every shadow a child’s form, a ghost of what was once reborn.

In the endless search she roams, calling through the wreckage’s loam,
for a voice that’s lost its home, she wanders through the endless foam.
In the silence of her cries she sees him in each child’s eyes,
the endless search where hope still flies through war’s dark and endless lies.

A Tremor in My Voice

A tremor in my voice, a tear in my eye,
but I’m not giving up, I’ll touch the sky.
Though I’m frail, I’ll never stop,
I’ll stand tall, even when I drop.

I’ll take each breath, I’ll stand my ground,
in the silence, my strength is found.
The world may tremble, the winds may roar,
but I’ll keep fighting, I’ll ask for more.

My hands are shaking, my knees are weak,
but the words I carry still find a way to speak.
Every scar I’ve earned has made me who I am,
I’m bruised and bent but I still give a damn.

Alone at the Edge

Alone at the edge
reaching out for air
silence screaming loud
stripping the nerves bare

The room went dead quiet
shadows stacking up on the floor
cold air leaking in
from the gap beneath the door

Breath coming shallow
heartbeat skipping
every other beat
fighting to stay warm
in the middle of the sheet

Words left unsaid
throat gone dry
staring at the ceiling
waiting for the sky

Aching for warmth
in a space turned stone
realizing
I am doing this part alone

Clawing through the black
looking for a spark
trying to find a doorway
in the dark

The night opens up
to swallow me whole
losing my grip
losing my control

Another Empty Room

Echoes softly bouncing, shadows holding tight,
furniture abandoned, swallowed by the night.
Photos face-down sadly, curtains drawn in shame,
another empty room, whispering your name.

Floors remember footsteps, creaking slow and deep,
promises abandoned, secrets locked to keep.
Quiet corners listening, whispers barely heard,
every silence heavier than unspoken words.

Tomorrow brings more silence, spaces filled with ache,
rooms we shared abandoned, bonds too hard to break.
Healing feels impossible, emptiness remains,
rooms become reminders, filled with quiet pains.

Maybe someday courage comes, entering again,
walking through these rooms, less haunted by then.
But tonight, each empty space whispers truths I fear,
another empty room, another fallen tear.

Anxiety and Depression

In a room where shadows creep, anxiety’s whispers never sleep,
a heart that races, breath that’s tight, trapped within an endless night.
Eyes that dart and thoughts that spin, drowning in the fears within,
every moment a silent plea, seeking escape from misery.

Depression wraps its cold embrace, stealing light from every space,
a mind that’s heavy, spirit weak, lost within the darkness bleak.
Every day a mountain high, every night a silent cry,
the weight of sorrow pressing down, in the shadows where they drown.

Hands that tremble, tears that fall, echoes in the silent hall,
a voice that’s lost its strength to speak, in the quiet, feeling weak.
The world outside a distant place, behind the mask, a hidden face,
every smile a painful lie, every breath a reason to try.

A friend’s touch, a beacon bright, in the midst of endless night,
a voice that whispers words of care, a hand to hold in deep despair.
The fight is long, the battle hard, each step a journey, every yard,
but hope remains a fragile light, guiding through the darkest night.

As daylight fades to black, they face the shadows at their back,
eyes that open, filled with tears, in the light, confront their fears.
In every breath, a silent cheer, for the courage to face their fear,
they rise again, though shadows stay, battling through another day.

Apex Star over Hollow Holiday

High above the cluttered living room where wrapping guts spill like intestines from torn boxes and the TV mutters an exhausted rerun into stale, sugared air, a star sits crooked on the fake pine needles, tilting like a drunk halo that never earned the right to be called holy in the first place.
Its edges cut the dark, metallic and unforgiving, throwing shards of hard light over every hand-me-down ornament and dust rim on picture frames, dragging old sins into focus the way a cop’s flashlight drags guilt out from under a teenager’s bed just by existing in the space.

The star hums in cheap electricity, that faint buzz you only hear when the house finally shuts up and the last aunt’s perfume has drifted out the door with her gossip.
Each filament pulse a steady, clinical heartbeat that doesn’t care about tradition, doesn’t care about carols, just flashes harsh truth over every smiling snowman and porcelain angel with chipped wings and suspiciously judgmental eyebrows.

Under its hard shine, tinsel hangs like silver entrails from limp branches, looped by kids who already forgot they did it.
The aluminum strips catch the light and toss it out in thin little razors that skim over the carpet, over the wine stain that never quite went away, over the sofa cushion where an argument sat down last year and never fully got back up.

The star sees everything; if you stare long enough you start to believe it remembers too.
It remembers the year the tree went down in a shower of glass and swearing, remembers the smashed snowman mug and the silence that fell afterward like a guilty snowfall that only landed on one person’s shoulders.
Remembers the slammed doors, the “I’m fine” that sounded like a plate you knew you’d find cracked later, remembers every secret drink poured heavy after the kids went to bed while a night-light Santa smiled with dead eyes from the plug.

Tonight the room still smells of sugar cookies and ham fat, clinging to the stale air like an overeager relative that doesn’t notice you’ve taken three steps back.
But under that, the star digs up older layers–burnt gravy from five years ago, the sharp tang of cheap whiskey and cologne, the cold metal scent of keys dropped on the floor when somebody came home too late and pretended not to notice who was pretending not to wait.

The star’s light slides over framed photographs marching across the mantle: one family posed in matching sweaters before three of them stopped talking.
In each shine you catch the ghosts: the cousin who overdosed and only lives here now in a frozen smile with a badly wrapped scarf, the grandparent whose laugh got recorded on some misplaced phone, playing back only when the battery glitch decides to resurrect them for two seconds before dying again.

Under that pointed watcher, gifts huddle in their glossy skins, stacked like colorful lies promising that this year will hit different.
Every ribbon a little noose around expectations, each tag a polite label covering deeper inscriptions: “I’m sorry I didn’t show up for you,” “Please don’t leave,” “I have no idea who you are anymore but I saw other people buying this, so it must mean something good.”

Still, there’s a twisted mercy in this metal tyrant perched at the top of synthetic branches.
It doesn’t let you hide, which means if you stay in the room long enough, you have to admit that you’re still here, breathing, eyes on the light, hand resting on the back of the couch like you own a little slice of this wreckage and haven’t given up.

You reach up, later, when everyone’s gone to bed and the house settles into its post-feast creaks, to adjust the tilt, fingers brushing the humming core.
The star bites your skin with the faint heat of overworked bulbs, nothing dramatic, just enough to remind you that this shining judge is still mortal plastic and metal, cheap wiring and slapped-on glitter–not fate, not destiny, not god, just a thing you plug in and unplug.

You straighten it anyway, aligning that harsh little sun with the room, facing it forward, daring it to watch you walk through one more calendar of chaos and half-repaired wounds.
The star blazes back, unblinking, like it already knows you will absolutely screw up again and still show up next year to hang it back in its place, offering your mistakes to its sharp light instead of hiding them in the dark.

Black Sugar Blues

She came with whiskey on her lipstick, hellfire in her smile,
said, “You ain’t my first mistake, but you’ll do for a while.”
I drank her down like poison, sweet and slow and wrong,
woke up cuffed to her shadow, where my conscience don’t belong.

She don’t pray, she don’t beg, she just smirks and breaks the rules,
got a tongue like a dagger and hips that rewrite the truth.
I followed her into sin like a preacher out of work,
she wore black sugar blues and a grin made of dirt.

Black sugar blues, crawling through my veins,
every kiss a curse, every touch leaves a stain.
I sold my soul for a high-heeled ghost,
now I’m the haunted one who needed her most.

She danced on my wreckage, lit a smoke on my pride,
said, “Baby, the devil’s just a girl in disguise.”
She bled my luck dry, took my nights and my name,
left a note in my ribs that said, “You were never my flame.”

Now I sleep in smoke and shame, with her taste stuck on my tongue,
those black sugar blues still burn like the day she begun.

Bleed Me Empty, Quietly

Bathroom tiles cold against her spine,
two pink lines ended the lie.
She folds the silence into a scream,
and drinks the pills she can’t redeem.

He’s long gone, blocked and clear,
said, “You knew the risk” in a text-shaped sneer.
She told no one, not her mom,
just clenched her jaw and played along.

The cramps come slow, like thunder in stealth–
she hugs the toilet and blames herself.
A life unlived, a love unloved,
no child, no peace, no hand, no glove.

Bleed me empty, quietly–
no protest signs, just gravity.
She won’t forget, but she’ll survive–
this choice was cruel, but kept her alive.

She doesn’t regret it.
She just mourns what it cost.

Blue Bin Gospel

Holiday’s over, floor looks like a cheap parade died in the living room light,
paper mountains, plastic bows, candy wrappers glinting like they survived a war last night.
Someone waves a trash bag open, like a mouth that wants to swallow everything we’ve done,
I grab a cardboard box instead, say, “Let’s give all this glittered nonsense one more run.”

Peeling tape off snowmen faces, stacking stars with cartoon deer in crooked lines,
saving ribbons like my grandma did, her kitchen drawer was full of second chances tied in twines.
Kids roll their eyes while I smooth creases, call me “Recycling Saint” between laughs and crumbs,
they don’t see the little storm inside me, counting every plastic halo on my thumbs.

All those years we stuffed the bags and never asked where they would go,
now the ocean coughs up bottle caps and tinsel ghosts along the shore of what we know.
I can’t rewrite the past Decembers stacked like boxes in my head,
yet I can choose which parts get buried and which ones learn to live instead.

By the time the tree stops blinking, bin is full of yesterday’s disguises pressed and thin,
trash can lighter, chest a little softer, small reform tucked under skin.
I kiss a rescued bow and slap it on my shirt like I survived this holy mess,
if the world ends in cardboard and candy cane stripes, at least I tried to wreck it less.

Holiday’s over, but the lesson’s sitting by the door in colored stacks,
recycling the wrapping, learning slowly how to carry joy without breaking both our backs.

Blue Screen Skies

It was the kind of morning that made you question memory.
The sky didn’t look wrong, just recompiled. Every pixel sharpened.
No atmosphere. No distance. Just a flat, infinite blue–too clean to be natural, too symmetrical to be safe.

People squinted at their reflections in car windows, noticing the lag between blink and mirror.
Clouds hovered in perfect grid formation. Birds flew in loops, seamless, identical.
A dog barked in reverse. Someone laughed, and the sound echoed as code.

Screens didn’t crash–they paused.
Traffic lights froze on green. Airplanes held position like suspended thoughts.
Time didn’t stop, it just forgot how to move forward.

Then the messages started–fragmented text across every surface:
SYSTEM INSTABILITY DETECTED
REBOOT INITIATED
REALITY BACKUP: NOT FOUND

The sky pulsed. Not lightning. Not weather.
Just the color blue collapsing inward, like the screen had tried to close itself, but got stuck mid-blink.

People reached for their phones–no signal, no service, no touchscreen to touch.
Just a flicker of recognition in the face of every machine they ever trusted.
The world had been running on a program and no one read the terms.

You could feel it–that moment right before a computer crashes,
when everything slows, but nothing responds. That was the air now.
Frozen. Waiting.

Someone asked, “Is this still real?”
And no one answered.

The last update had already started installing.
Reality was being overwritten.
And somewhere behind that blue, something was watching the progress bar.

Blue Thread Where Skin Once Touched

The sheets still fold to your shape when I turn in my sleep, like the ghost of your spine stitched deep in the cotton,
and there’s lipstick on the pillow I won’t wash off, though the stain dried months ago, maybe longer, maybe never,
and I talk out loud to the air where your voice would cut me, call me out, crawl inside my lies and leave me raw.

There’s no shame in the weight of your hand still bruising my memory, no shame in the way I let you,
even begged for it, even when I said I hated how you owned me, how your name fit my mouth better than food or breath.

You wore your love like a knife tucked under your tongue, waiting to flash the second I got close enough to kiss you.
Every promise we made had a crack in it–either yours, or mine, or both–but we kept building towers on fracture lines,
and maybe that’s why I still dream of the fall more than the climb, more than the view from your chest when I exhaled.

You never looked at me like I was whole, you looked at me like I was worth burning, worth wrecking,
like if you hurt me enough, I’d finally feel something clean. And I did. God, I did.

Nights with you weren’t comfort, they were confession, every gasp a sin spelled backward,
and we prayed in whispers, knuckles biting into backs, hips dragging each other down like anchors learning to swim.
Love meant never hiding, and I showed you everything–every scar, every lie, every fucked-up piece I’d carved from myself.
You said “good,” and kissed me so hard I forgot who I was before I met you, before shame was a coat I took off and burned.

I don’t want the good days back. I want the ugly ones, the ones where we broke each other down like addicts sharing the last vein.
There’s beauty in that kind of surrender, in the war of skin and breath, in knowing no one else ever got that close to the fire.

We were fucked up, but we were honest, and in a world of polished smiles and polite exits, that’s holy.
There’s no shrine for the kind of love we made–just cracked mirrors, unwashed sheets, blood on the back of a ringless hand.

I carry you still, not in forgiveness, but in truth–in the muscle memory of how you held me,
in the way I don’t flinch when the lights go off, since the dark never scared me–only the silence after your voice left.
And I’ll never call that shame again.

Blue, White, and Crimson on the Bedspread

It starts with the rattle–a careless clatter, half a bottle spilled across tangled sheets,
colors bleeding into cotton, blue pressed against white, red rolling away to the edge.
You’re naked, face-down, mouth parted in a gasp, hair wild across the pillow like an oil slick,
I follow the trail with hungry fingers, gathering each capsule like forbidden fruit.

Every pill a new lie swallowed, a secret dissolved under tongue.
You arch when I kiss the small of your back, taste the sweat that sticks and never asks forgiveness.
My lips drag a path through wreckage, poppy-red tablets stuck to my tongue,
you moan when my hand closes on your hip, squeeze until my own knuckles ache–
is it pain, or some bastard child of desire, or just the aftertaste of whatever you just let dissolve?

We shiver together, chemical heat burning through veins,
I fuck you slow–long, mean strokes, hips grinding to the syncopation of your half-whispered curses.
All the things we can’t say, pressed between skin and poison.
The world outside fades to a memory, a dim ache, a hospital waiting room full of old ghosts.

You clutch my shoulder, nails sharp, pupils blown wide as the universe,
every thrust an answer to some question neither of us can phrase.
Capsules crunch underfoot, plastic and powder ground to dust.
You beg for something real, anything to outlast the morning.
I try to give it, or maybe I just want to bleed into you.

Tongue between your teeth, bruises flaring up like fireworks–red, then purple, then black.
We shake through it, ride the chemical tide.
There’s no love here, just the promise of release, of oblivion in borrowed heat.

The sheets grow stained with sweat and regret, crushed petals of color ground into the weave.
After, we lie in a tangle of limbs, sweat drying, the taste of copper and sugar on my lips.
You stare at the ceiling, eyes vacant, and I know you’re counting pills left in the bottle.
I gather what’s left, line them on your spine, blue-white-red.

Every pill a question, every pill a dare, every pill a promise I’m too weak to keep.
We fall asleep to the whisper of plastic rattling in the dark,
bodies spent, wounds open, color leaking across the bedspread–
no closure, no hope, only the pulse of what we swallowed to make us forget.

Cracked Pastels and Hollow Hunts

Out in the churchyard field behind the old brick chapel where the grass grows patchy and the stones lean like they’re tired of remembering names, the Sunday school crowd spills out with plastic baskets and squeals, chasing pastel bait tossed by adults who never notice how wrong the air feels, how off the sky seems in its faded frame.
Somebody’s mom is laughing too loud, already filming the chaos in vertical blur, while the pastor stands with his paper cup of coffee, talking about resurrection and hope, not bothering to look down and see the way the ground itself seems restless, seams cracking softly.

The plastic eggs shine like cheap gemstones scattered through the brittle green, pink and blue and yellow shells winking from the roots of gravestones, the whole scene trying too hard to look clean.
But there are others, tucked closer to the shadows by the iron fence, not quite the store-bought sort–painted in shades that don’t show up on any craft aisle, colors that make your eyes tense.
Their surfaces are just a little too smooth, a little too cold when fingers close around them with that greedy little thrill, and when you shake them, they answer with a weight that doesn’t sound like candy, more like something that’s been grinding its teeth still.

Little Tommy dives behind the angel statue with the chipped wing, spots a strange egg tucked in the crook of a root like it grew there from the tree’s regret, painted a faint, sickly lavender with hairline veins running through, as if it remembers every secret this yard won’t forget.
He laughs, calls dibs, holds it up like a trophy, expecting chocolate coins or gummy worms that dye his tongue, but the thing vibrates against his palm in a low, steady hum, like a throat warming up a song it has no business being sung.

Down near the rusted gate, Ellie finds a robin’s egg blue shell split along one side. Inside, not jellybeans, but a fleck of something dark and wet that smells like burned soil and formaldehyde.
She frowns, wipes it on her dress, pretending it’s just dirt, just mold, just some weird old bug nest, but when she blinks, she swears she sees tiny faces pressed against the plastic from the inside, begging the shell not to rest.

At midnight, the shells that weren’t found split open without hands, spilling, not candy, but fragments of whispered prayers, fingernail scratches, scraps of burial bands.
Each pastel dome cracks like a rotten tooth, releasing flickers of faces, fragments of youth.

Out crawl small shapes that aren’t quite bones and not quite smoke. They gather around the places where small feet stomped earlier, sniffing scent trails like some joke.
They remember being hidden every spring, not as a game, but as a bargain, a trade.
“Let the children laugh,” the old caretaker used to mutter, “if they tread over us, maybe the digging stops, maybe the debts fade.”

But no debt really fades, it just waits beneath plastic shells and cheerful lies.
By sunrise, the field looks harmless again, dew shining on cheap grass and crooked markers.
Only a few suspicious parents notice the faint little handprints on their children’s bedsheets, darker.

The eggs go back into storage, plastic bag inside cardboard box inside church closet that always smells wrong.
Next year they’ll bring them out again, polish them with wipes, fill them with sweetness and one more venomous song.

Somewhere in the walls, the foundation creaks like a throat clearing before a sermon nobody wants to hear.
And beneath the flowerbeds, the ground hums lazily, counting down another restless year.
The dead know how holidays work; every time you bury dread in sugar and religion, you give it one more decorated shell, one more home.

Dear God… I’m Fading Now

Dear God… I’m fading now.
The pills are gone. I broke the vow.
If You won’t speak–then let me go.
I prayed my whole damn life, just to know.

Don’t Sir Me

Gut hanging heavy and the gray is colonizing what was brown,
holes wore through the boxer shorts from years of breaking down.
Mirror in the bathroom tells a chapter I don’t need narrated,
wrinkles mapping every hit and every morning I’ve debated.

Walking down the sidewalk and these feet are raising grievances,
used to eat the pavement whole, now it extracts its revenues.
Toothache from the grind of every late and horizontal night,
clock is accelerating and the end is burning bright.

Bartender pours the bourbon and the ice goes thin and slow,
nothing locks together like it used to and I don’t know which way to go.
Once a man with reasons, now just a pair of tired eyes,
youth slipped out the exit wearing somebody else’s disguise.

Every wrinkle is a story with a premium I can’t sell,
every morning just another round inside a reconfigured hell.
Don’t sir me–don’t remind me of the highway that I’ve run,
just pour another double and we’ll call this evening done.

Echoes of Sorrow

In the creak of old boards, a whisper of dread,
shadows of sorrow in each groan overhead.
The timber’s deep sighs in a muffled lament,
speak of secrets and pain in their silent descent.

In corners unseen where the dust claims its own,
the memories linger, in each crack and each moan.
The past’s cruel echo in the floorboards resounds,
in the silent dark spaces, where the heartache abounds.

Each creak is a ghost from the shadows of old,
a harbinger’s moan from the depths of the floor.
The timber betrays all the sorrows we hide,
in its groaning, it tells of our pain, far and wide.

Under the planks where the darkness has slept,
a symphony of suffering, silently kept.
The whispers of woe in the wood’s hidden core,
sing songs of our losses, from the past we abhor.

In the heart of the house where the shadows convene,
the echoes of sorrow in the dark lie unseen.
Through the corridors of memory, where pain is preserved,
the wood holds our grief, as it endlessly swerved.

The echoes of sorrow, forever they’ll stay,
in the grain of the wood, in the heart of the gray.
In each groan and each creak of the ancient, dark floor,
resides all the sorrow and loss we implore.

Echoes of the Empty Verse

Shattered syllables scatter, slipping through rain-soaked skies,
words once whispered like warnings now wane where the melody dies.
Fingers fumble for fragments, tracing truth on a tongue turned numb,
every echo evaporates early, every chorus chokes before it comes.

Verse bleeds venom in verses, vowels vanish, vision veers,
sentences splinter in shadows, swallowed by unspoken fears.
Pauses press like prisons, pacing patterns too far gone,
lyrics linger like lifeless lovers, clinging to a broken dawn.

Screaming into silence, but the silence swallows whole,
every line I write gets buried in the blackened undertow.
Chasing every phantom phrase that never takes its form,
a song that sings of nothing–lost before the sound was born.

Cadence carved from the chaos, but silence swarms and stalls.
Every letter left lifeless, syllables stripped and slain,
ink spills into the infinite, drowned inside the still refrain.

Echoes of the Hollow

Neon flickers on the pavement, fractured light in broken glass,
shadows stretch in silent warning, something here is built to last.
Figures move like rain-soaked whispers, shifting forms that blur and bend,
reaching through the cold reflection, pulling me where logic ends.

Footsteps fall in loops behind me, turning corners, sinking deep,
skies collapse in sheets of rain, voices crawl from where I sleep.
Fingers claw through empty spaces, silence burns against my skin,
I run, but gravity keeps laughing, dragging me right back again.

Trapped inside the nightmare’s hands,
breathing in what fate demands.
Every echo, every scream,
feels too real to be a dream.

I trace the symbols carved in pavement, signs I swore I’d seen before,
fractured mirrors show my shadow standing outside every door.
No escape, no faded edges, time loops back to where it came,
the nightmare isn’t chasing me, it just wants to know my name.

Edge of Insanity

I’m on the edge, the world’s in flames,
watch the shadows dance, but they don’t play fair.
Locked in my head, where the whispers crawl,
every step I take, they tear my soul.

My thoughts are a maze, but I can’t find the way,
screaming for help, but I’m trapped in the fray.
The walls are closing in, the voices grow loud,
and I’m losing the battle, but I stand up proud.

The demons are calling, they’re tempting my mind,
every twisted image, a new way to find
a path that leads deeper into the void,
a place of no mercy, where nothing’s enjoyed.

I laugh at the silence, I dance in the flames,
a twisted existence, but I love the pain.
My grip on reality is slipping away,
but I won’t give in, no matter what they say.

I hear them all laughing, but I don’t care,
their voices don’t matter, I’m already there.
The chains that bind me, they’re all in my mind,
I’m lost in the chaos, but I’m leaving them behind.

The world is a circus, the clowns are real,
but I’m the king now, I control how I feel.
I rise from the ashes, I walk through the fire,
I’m drowning in madness, but I’ve never felt higher.

I know I’m broken, I know I’m insane,
but in this world, there’s no one to blame.
The edge is my home, the darkness my friend,
I’ll keep on fighting until the very end.
Insanity’s grip, it’s all that I know,
but I’ll wear it like armor, and let my madness show.

Edge of the Fall

The world is a shadow, so hollow and cold,
chasing illusions that never grow old.
The mask that I wear keeps me trapped inside,
pretending to live but I’ve already died.

In this darkened corner, I find my release,
the chaos inside brings me no peace.
Every step forward, I feel the chains snap,
I thought I was free, but I fell in the trap.

Silence surrounds, the walls are closing in,
I search for a way out, but I can’t begin.
The lies that I told, the price I’ve paid,
in the shadows, I’ll forever be weighed.

We’re standing on the edge of the fall,
a breath away from losing it all.
The cracks in our souls, they start to show,
we’re standing on the edge, and we let it go.

Empty Bottle Symphony

Friday sparks the countdown, liquid courage calls,
spinning in a crowded room, painted laughter falls.
Bottles clinking rhythm, smiles flashing fast,
secrets spilled like whiskey, careful masks won’t last.

Dancing through denial, chaos is the key,
holding onto strangers tight, lying honestly.
Cups raised to the ceiling, toast to nothing clear,
chasing faded visions, truth we volunteer.

Morning brings reality, heads pound with regret,
coffee brewed from laughter, promises unmet.
Faces blur in daylight, stories left behind,
melodies forgotten, echoes undefined.

Empty Box

An empty box is all that’s laid in the ground for my memory,
they never found my body though they searched for a year.
Even you went to check on me, but somehow I disappeared.
I cursed you with my final breath and swore I’d get you back.

I’d be your karma and your death, I’ll stain your soul to black.
You thought you got off scot-free and dead men tell no tales,
your one mistake was choosing me, the plan destined to fail.

You thought that I was gone for good, such a silly way of thinking,
I’ve done what I never could, tell me when will it sink in?
Constant cravings fill my mind with a hunger for human flesh,
not the wasted corpses next to mine, I like my produce fresh.

So light the candle, set the plate, invite the reaper in,
I feel the hours growing late, it’s time for dinner to begin.
Call the demons home tonight with the promise of a feast,
a sickle for a carving knife, I’ll take a side of beast.

Stop saying this cannot be when I’m plainly standing here,
you really thought you were rid of me? You’re always dreaming, dear.
‘Til death do us part’s a fantasy when the devil’s by your side,
someone pass the pepper, please, I’ll take another slice.

Empty Chair

He never missed a Thursday, same stool, same time, same jokes,
always had a story ready while he lit his smokes.
Last week the seat’s empty, just a coaster and a glare,
the barroom felt like winter with that empty chair.

The bartender kept looking, out of habit, out of hope,
someone played his favorite record, we all tried to cope.
The waitress wiped the counter like she scrubbed away a dream,
that empty chair became a wound for everyone it seemed.

I keep expecting footsteps, a greeting at the door,
but there’s only quiet bar talk and the hum of neon more.
He left behind his drink, his debts, his well-worn hat,
the empty chair keeps asking where a friend like him goes at.

Empty chair at the table where a friend once held court,
laughter echoes softer, conversation comes up short.
We toast to the stories that we’ll never hear again,
empty chair reminds us how it feels when heroes end.

Empty House, Full Bottles

Curtains drawn, silence deep, shadows own this room,
drinking memories bitterly, chasing out the gloom.
Photos gathering dust, smiles frozen stiff and cold,
the house still holds you in each shadowed corner’s mold.

Echoes mocking softly, footsteps haunt the halls,
your voice whispers sadly from paint peeling off walls.
Mornings taste like loneliness, coffee laced with ache,
every night another toast to all my past mistakes.

Liquor warms, memories chill, chasing ghosts I made,
wonder if this emptiness will ever start to fade.
I’ll keep drowning silence until I feel alright,
in this empty house, full bottles, I’ll drink away tonight.

Empty Pantry Blues

The fifteenth always came at us like a slow wall grinding through the week we faced,
the money already spent before the paycheck had the time to make its place.
Mama counted quarters at the kitchen table with her back turned perfectly straight and thin,
while we pretended we were not hungry and we all learned how to hold it in.

Saltine crackers and a can of beans divided carefully into four every single night,
your brother got a little extra portion because he needed that much to be right.
She would say we are not poor son we are just running a little lean this week,
but I watched the way she looked at each of us and understood what she could not speak.

I grew up knowing which days the food bank opened its side door wide,
and I learned to walk in sideways so nobody from school could catch me inside.
Learned to tell the teacher I had already eaten before I came to class each morning there,
learned that hunger is a private wound you carry with a practiced neutral air.

There is a shame that settles into the body of a child who does not have enough to eat and know,
that no adult income or career or title can fully address or make it go.
It sits behind the sternum like a stone that knows exactly what it weighs and what it is,
a permanent reminder pressed into the muscle of everything that was and is.

Daddy worked the county plant for seventeen consecutive years of his working life spent there,
and still came home most nights with barely enough to keep us from the bare.
Some weeks the lights would cut entirely and we would do our homework by the window light,
I assumed that was just how everyone lived until I got old enough to see it right.

The thing about growing up hungry is it reshapes the architecture of how you think and feel,
it makes the world contract in ways that do not fully open past the ordeal.
You learn to be cautious with your appetite in every room you step inside and enter,
you learn to read the table and the room before you arrive at the center.

My mother canned whatever was in season every year just to get us through into the next spring,
she had a system for the pantry that was almost a professional-grade kind of thing.
I helped her in the kitchen on those long afternoons and learned the math of stretch and save,
how many jars to last how many weeks how much to keep from the grave.

You do not stop being the child who counted crackers just because you grew and earned,
you do not stop the math just because the circumstances have turned.
You carry the empty pantry in the body as a permanent archive and a weight,
a knowledge of what scarcity feels like from inside that you do not translate.

Now I am grown and I make enough that I do not have to go without at all tonight,
but I still check the refrigerator twice before I walk down the hall to the light.
Still feel a clench behind my ribs when the account drops anywhere near to low,
still wake at three in the morning from the same dream I used to know.

I am seven and I am standing at the door and someone is asking me straight why,
why I look so thin and hollow and what exactly I am waiting to reply.
I open up my mouth to answer but the words dissolve away to air,
just the echo of a hunger that was placed in me and left right there.

Empty Shelves

I wake up early, the sun’s just starting to rise,
but the pantry’s empty, nothing left to find.
The days are long, and the pressure’s getting worse,
I’m trying to stretch what little I’ve got, but I feel cursed.

I’ve worked all week, but the cupboard’s still bare,
the weight of the world, with no relief to share.
I can’t seem to get ahead, can’t find my way,
the list keeps growing, but there’s no food to stay.

I’m holding on, but I can barely breathe,
trying to keep it together, but I’m starting to grieve.
They don’t know what it’s like, fighting to make ends meet,
with empty shelves beneath my feet.

I’ve been around, seen the highs and the lows,
but this weight on my shoulders is all that I know.
The clock ticks on, and the bills pile high,
another sleepless night, with no end in sight.

I used to dream of more than just getting by,
but the weight of the world’s got me asking why.
The cupboards are bare, but my spirit’s full of hope,
I’ll keep holding on, I won’t let it go.

The world’s been cruel, but I’ll find my way,
I’ll fill these shelves, one step at a time, someday.
For now, I’ll keep fighting, and I’ll carry on,
empty shelves may come, but my heart’s still strong.

Every Shade of Lonely

Lonely isn’t simple, deeper than it seems,
different shades and colors, haunting quiet dreams.
Sometimes lonely whispers, sometimes lonely screams,
every shade of loneliness tearing at the seams.

Mornings lonely subtle, evenings deeply blue,
loneliness evolving, colors mixed in you.
Sometimes loneliness comforts, other times it stings,
every shade is different, quiet pain it brings.

Maybe someday color shifts, lonely fades away,
shades replaced with comfort, healing shades of gray.
But for now it colors deeply, sadness softly shown,
every shade of lonely painted on my own.

Learning shades more clearly, lessons loneliness taught,
healing slowly coming, colors bravely fought.
Someday maybe brighter, colors start to blend,
every shade of lonely someday finds an end.

Eyes Empty

Eyes empty,
soul she sold.
Fading dreams,
stories unfold.

Looking for comfort in the night,
chains of fate
gripping tight.

Safety in the shadows,
no light to see.
Fear her guide,
endless misery.

Hope left on the streets in stride.

Fading Eyes

Shadows stretch across the doorway, breathing heavy in the dark,
curtains swaying, something lingers, silent whispers leave their mark.
Cold hands crawling down my shoulders, tracing paths that don’t exist,
every echo pulls me deeper, haunted by a phantom kiss.

Candle flickers, dying slowly, casting figures on the wall,
footsteps pacing in the silence, yet the hallway still stands tall.
Sheets feel heavy, sinking deeper, drowning under unseen weight,
I can’t move, I can’t breathe, I am tangled up in fate.

Hands that held me once with hunger, now just linger in the air,
breath against my ear like warnings, skin still burning from a stare.
Maybe I belong to echoes, maybe I am theirs to take.

Fading eyes, frozen lips,
calling me from the abyss.
Every night, every breath,
pulling me closer to death.

Fading Frequencies
by Dawg

I wrote my name in the unchanging, but the signal slipped away,
left behind in quiet corridors where the living never stay.
Footsteps lost in shifting sands, stories swallowed by the dust,
the weight of time is pressing down, turning memories into rust.

The faces change, the voices blend, and no one turns to call my name.
The streets I walked still lead somewhere, but not a soul recalls I came.
Ink dries brittle on the pages, framed in cracks too deep to mend—
they’ll tear it down to build another, and I will break before I bend.

The clocks keep running without mercy, don’t wait for bodies left behind.
Each second steals another story, erasing proof that I was mine.
No monuments built, no chapters saved, no carved initials in the stone,
just another voice gone missing, drowned beneath the dial tone.

Fear of fading, fear of time, words unwritten, lost in rhyme.
Fingers grasp at vanishing light, whispers swallowed by the night.
Fear of silence, fear of space—just a shadow with no face.

Fading

In the dark, we whispered dreams,
of a love we couldn’t hold.
The silence filled the spaces between,
as your hands began to let go.

Your eyes no longer shone like before,
and the fire started to fade.
What happened to the plans we made?
Our love seemed strong in our dreams.

But now your touch feels cold,
a chill that cuts right through my soul.
I want to scream, but the words won’t go,
and our hearts just beat between.

We tried to mend what’s in between,
but time’s a thief that takes away.
And now your voice just sounds so old,
with words that once could steal my heart.

I wish I knew just where to go–
but love’s a fight we can’t replay.
We fade like shadows in the night,
once we burned so strong, so bright.
But dreams they fade, and hearts grow cold,
our story’s told; we’re losing hold.

Faith

In a chapel bathed in light, where shadows flee from holy might,
a man kneels with a weary heart, seeking strength to not fall apart.
Stained glass windows cast a glow, reflecting stories he’ll never know,
his faith a fragile, fleeting thing, in a world that’s lost its meaning.

He clutches tight a rosary, whispering prayers on bended knee,
eyes that search the vaulted dome, for answers that will never come.
Every word a desperate plea, seeking grace where none can be,
in the silence, doubts arise, questioning the divine skies.

A lifetime spent in holy fear, yet peace remains ever unclear,
promises of paradise, shadowed by a world’s demise.
In the pews where saints have trod, he wrestles with his faith in God,
a soul adrift in waves of doubt, crying for a way out.

The clergy speaks of heaven’s door, of peace and love forevermore,
but in his heart, a chasm grows, a void where darkness often flows.
Every sermon fuels his fears, promises that never clear,
in the church where hope should thrive, his faith struggles to survive.

Candles flicker, dim and cold, as he prays for a hand to hold,
but the silence answers back, filling him with endless lack.
In the chapel’s sacred air, he finds his faith worn thin and bare,
a soul that questions, doubts, and grieves, searching for what it believes.

Fears and Solid Ground

Fears are shadows dancing near,
guides to courage, stark and clear.
Every trembling breath you take,
leads you past the deepest ache.

In every quiver, every fright,
solid ground awaits the light.
Fear’s a map with grim allure,
showing paths both dark and pure.

With each terror you confront,
strength emerges from the blunt.
Step by step, through ghostly halls,
find the courage as it calls.

Grounded steps in murky night,
transform dread into fierce might.
Fear’s the compass, stark and grim,
turning shadows into hymn.

With each bold move, the ground resounds,
in the silence, courage found.
In every nightmare, every scream,
solid ground awaits the dream.

Fears

In the dark where shadows creep, fears awake from the depths of sleep,
a man stands with trembling hands, haunted by what he can’t withstand.
Eyes that dart with every sound, in the silence, fear is found,
every heartbeat fuels his dread, every whisper fills his head.

The past a ghost that lingers near, whispering doubts, feeding fear,
memories that twist and turn, in the night where nightmares burn.
He walks a path of endless fright, shadows chase him every night,
in every corner, every glance, fear takes hold, a darkened dance.

A child’s cry, a lover’s plea, echo in his memory,
the weight of guilt, the heavy cost, in the shadows, all is lost.
His fears a cage of iron bars, trapping him beneath the stars,
in every breath, a silent scream, seeking escape from fear’s regime.

Hands that shake with every tear, eyes that reflect a haunted leer,
the world outside a place of dread, in his mind where fears are fed.
Every shadow, every sound, a reminder of fear’s bound,
in the dark where he does dwell, his fears become a living hell.

As the night gives way to grey, his fears remain, they never stray,
in the dawn’s uncertain light, he faces yet another fight.

Hollow Echoes

The walls are closing, can’t breathe, can’t run,
reality’s bending, I’m coming undone.
The silence is deafening, so loud it screams,
this fractured mind tearing at seams.

I see their faces, but they’re not real,
phantoms of thought that I can’t conceal.
Tied to the chains that I made with my lies,
trapped in a maze where the exit’s disguised.

I’m clawing at darkness, but it pulls me back,
my thoughts are the poison, the heart of the crack.
Memories fracture, they slip through my hands,
I try to remember, but I can’t understand.

Every step feels like I’m sinking in sand,
a prisoner in chains, a ghost on demand.
The mirrors are shattered, no face to find,
just the hollow echoes of a broken mind.

I scream for freedom, but there’s no reply,
my soul’s in pieces, lost to the sky.
The world keeps turning, but I’m standing still,
in this cage of my thoughts, trapped in the chill.

The light is fading, I’m losing my grip,
the echoes are louder, they make me slip.
I don’t know who I am, I don’t know who to trust,
every thought is a demon, turning to dust.

Nothing but whispers in the dark.
Hollow echoes, hollow echoes.
The madness has left its mark.

Hospital Chair

I’ve memorized the pattern in these vinyl cushions where I sleep,
the rhythm of machines that breathe for her and measure every beat.
My spine’s forgotten what a bed feels like, what comfort used to mean,
but I won’t leave this chair beside her while she fights for everything.

The nurses know me now, they bring me coffee, don’t ask me to go home,
they understand that loving someone means you claim the space they’re shown.
That marriage isn’t just the good times, isn’t just the wedding vows,
it’s sleeping upright in a chair while sickness tries to take her down.

The doctors speak in percentages, in probabilities and risk,
while I translate their clinical distance into hope I can’t dismiss.
Her hand is cold but still it’s hers, still fits inside my palm,
and I squeeze gently, tell her stories while the IV does its calm.

I’ve watched her sleep for seven nights now, counting every breath,
afraid that if I close my eyes I’ll miss her choosing death.
Afraid that if I’m not here watching, keeping vigil through the dark,
something will slip through my attention, leave a permanent mark.

We joked about till death do part but never really thought
about what that would mean in practice, what the dying part would cost.
In sleep, in sanity, in watching someone suffer day by day,
while holding on to memories of who she was before this changed the way
her body works, her mind connects, the future that we planned.

But none of that matters more than simply holding tight her hand,
and being here and staying here and choosing her again,
every minute that I don’t leave, every hour that I spend.

Morning comes again and I’m still here, my back is screaming pain,
but she opened up her eyes today and whispered out my name.

Introvert with a side of Awkward

I walk into the room like I’ve got something to prove, except all I’ve got is a pocket full of social anxiety and a brain that short-circuits when small talk starts,
smiling like I rehearsed this in the mirror, but forgot the script halfway through and now I’m stuck on the loading screen,
nodding too much, laughing at jokes that weren’t funny, and praying no one notices I’m just here for the snacks and the exit sign.

I’m the kind of person who overthinks saying hi like it’s a diplomatic negotiation,
calculating eye contact like it’s a bomb timer–too little and I’m cold, too much and I’m a psycho,
so I settle for awkward glances at the floor like maybe it’ll swallow me whole if I stare hard enough.

Conversations feel like walking a tightrope over a pit of oh fuck, why did I say that?,
every word tumbling out of my mouth like I’m juggling knives with buttered fingers,
and the silence afterward? That’s just the universe’s way of letting me marinate in regret.

I’m the king of leaving early,
master of I’ll just sneak out before anyone notices I was here,
but someone always does, and then I’ve got to fake another smile,
another yeah, I’m good, just tired,
because I hate people doesn’t really fly in polite conversation.

Crowds feel like walls closing in,
each voice another brick in a fortress I didn’t ask to be trapped in,
and the worst part?
Half of them probably feel the same,
but we’re all too busy pretending we’re fine to admit
we’re just a bunch of awkward introverts
hoping someone else will make the first move.

But I’ll keep showing up,
fumbling through the chaos with a crooked grin,
because even if I’m a disaster in a room full of people,
it beats being a disaster alone in the dark.

And maybe that’s the trick–
owning the awkward,
wearing it like armor,
because if I’m going down,
I’m taking my weird with me.

Losing Your Faith in People

I trusted hands that looked like mine, skin mapped with the same scars–
for years I let their laughter build scaffolds in my head,
thinking maybe this was how you heal, how you build a shelter out of broken glass,
blind to the way they pocketed shards, how every “I’ll always be here”
was a stone they stacked behind their backs, for throwing when the sun went down.

They smiled like thieves at the feast, teeth polished with borrowed secrets,
I wore my insides on the outside, nerves raw, wide open, hoping
someone would call it bravery instead of stupidity.
Shared my last cigarette with a girl who promised she’d never run,
watched her vanish with the match still burning in her palm.

It starts slow, the rot in the beams,
a missed call, a lie dressed up for the weekend,
excuses that sound like lullabies until you wake up,
and realize lullabies are just lies set to music.

I carried their pain like it was my rent,
paying in patience, trading my own hunger for a seat at their table,
learning late that some tables are just altars for sacrifice,
and the knife you fear is already pressed beneath your ribs.

I’ve seen apologies used as currency,
the richest ones are always the best liars–
forgiveness hanging off their lips like counterfeit gold,
melting under the faintest heat.

I stopped writing names on the inside of my wrist,
stopped counting the times I tried to stitch trust into my own shadow.
Every echo a warning: they’re coming, they’re coming,
but it’s just my own voice, hoarse and wild,
warning me about the ones who already walked away.

Is this cynicism or self-preservation?
Does it matter when you can taste betrayal in the water,
when you see the hands behind the curtain,
pulling every string, cutting every cord?

I remember when I believed love was something you could plant–
something that would grow if you just bled enough,
if you just stayed through the storms.
But all I got were roots that pulled me under,
bloomed into hunger that would never be fed.

We become our own monsters,
sharpened by the things we let go,
by the doors we locked too late,
by the comfort we gave to those who only wanted to feed.

Now when I speak, I measure every word,
every secret another nail in the coffin of my old self.
I trust like a wounded animal, circling the fire,
knowing there’s nothing in the dark but more of the same–
a thousand hands reaching for your throat,
a thousand lips whispering “I love you,”
and every one just waiting for you to blink.

Tonight, I light my last candle,
burn down the names,
let the smoke curl up with the ghosts–
and I walk away empty,
but at least I know this emptiness is honest.

Lost Faith

Faith’s tomb, where hope’s consumed,
faith’s assumed but never bloomed.
Heart’s ache, dreams decayed,
hope starts to fade, hearts swayed.

Prayers lost, faith’s cost,
lost in darkness, dreams tossed, faith’s exhaust.
Hope shattered, tears cried,
hope starts to hide, hearts divide.

Dreams decay, faith’s sway,
can’t stay, fades away.
Faith lost, hope’s shattered,
no sight, lose the fight.

Hands raised, a prayer’s cry, faith will try.
Hope in darkness, faith won’t die.
Eyes closed, spirits soar, faith restores.
In the storm, we implore, faith’s light, forever more.

Lost Horizon

Through the mist, I see a distant light,
but it fades before I can reach the heights.
The air is cold, my heart is hollow,
every step forward leads to sorrow.

The walls close in, the world’s a lie,
I hear the whispers, but I don’t know why.
The silence screams, it pulls me deep
into the void, where darkness sleeps.

I see myself but it’s not me,
trapped inside a broken dream.
The world is fading, turning gray,
lost horizon, I can’t stay.

The fire burns, but I’m so cold,
my mind’s a prison, my soul sold.
With every step, I fall apart,
lost horizon, I’ve lost my heart.

Lost horizon, forever alone,
in the dark, I’ll never be known.

Mental Civilized

I’m feeling mental,
these days.
Not insane. Cerebral.
Not losing my mind.
Lost, within it.

These are the glory days.
No more need for war.
No more hunger anywhere.
Salvation is falling onto us.
We are civilized.

These are the glory days.
Nuclear deterrents.
Chemical enhancements.
Salvation is failing around us.
We are sterilized.

The human being, obsolete.
Walking stem cell farms,
harvested when organs are needed.
Conformity imploded.
We are neutralized.

These are the glory days.
Doomsday prophecy fulfilled
to cheers from the crowd.
No humans being anymore.
We are sanitized.

I’m feeling mental,
these days.
Not clean. Sterilized.
Not losing my mind.
Homogenized.
We are civilized.

Old Sweatshirt

November cold seeps through the windows while I’m wrapped in cotton worn thin from years of Sundays,
this sweatshirt’s lost its shape, its color faded gray from navy, but it fits me like belonging.
The sleeves are stretched, the cuffs unraveling, the fabric soft from countless washings,
and I’m horizontal on the couch with nothing planned, no obligations pressing,
just me and faded clothes and afternoon that stretches lazy into evening.

She’s wearing my old flannel over nothing else, reading something on her phone,
and there’s an intimacy in this domestic stillness, in this unremarkable zone
where neither of us needs performing, needs presenting, needs to be anything but worn.

The radiator clicks and hums its ancient rhythm through the floor,
a sound I’ve heard ten thousand times and I’ll hear ten thousand more.
And honestly the rattle’s comforting, familiar like the fraying on these sleeves,
like the knowledge that perfection isn’t what contentment needs.

I could get up, I could shower, I could put on actual clothes,
but why disturb this equilibrium, this balance that we’ve chose
between ambition and surrender, between doing and just being here,
in sweatshirts that have history, that have seen us disappear.

She shifts her weight, her bare leg brushing mine, and neither of us moves,
just acknowledges the contact with a laziness that proves
volumes about how safe this is, how unremarkable, how real,
wearing clothes that tell the truth
about bodies that aren’t perfect, about fading distant youth,
about choosing this reality over some imagined better day,
about staying here together in our faded threadbare way.

Tomorrow we’ll put on our work clothes, return to being functional.
Tonight we’re just worn cotton and November cold and comfortable.

Running on Rust

The joints are getting creaky and the engine’s running rough,
the years of steady grinding have been doing enough
to take the edge off everything that used to have an edge–
now the man runs on rust and momentum and a ledge
that keeps him just above the floor where stopped things go to stop,
not climbing and not falling, just existing at the top
of barely, just above the bottom, keeping the lights on–
running on rust from the first light till the last light’s gone.

The morning takes longer than it used to take to navigate–
the mirror shows the inventory that the years accumulate,
the geography of getting through and getting by and getting on–
a man who’s running on rust at the arrival of the dawn.

The coffee does its chemical best to animate the machine,
gets the operational minimum to something like a scene
of a man who’s approximately present and approximately there–
running on rust in the morning on the coffee and the stare.

The work requires a kind of forward motion he provides,
the body goes through all the required and the obliged,
the conversation and the meeting and the task and the report–
running on rust is running, and the running is a sort
of living, technically, with all the boxes being checked.

She asked him how he’s doing and he gave the standard read–
“fine, good, all right, getting by”–the vocabulary of need
reduced to its shorthand, quick and disposable,
the language of a man whose depths are no longer accessible.

The rust has its own aesthetic, its own textured grace–
a man who runs on rust has got the lines upon his face
of something that has been and has continued past the being–
the rust is not decay, it’s the evidence of seeing.

He doesn’t want the new engine’s clean and brand-new running,
doesn’t want the young man’s lubrication
of a mechanism that hasn’t met the road in any serious way–
the rust is the record, and the record is the day.

Running on rust is its own kind of reliable, its own guarantee–
the rust keeps him in motion and the motion keeps him free.

Service Blues

Another call, another complaint,
they’re screaming loud, but I ain’t no saint.
Smile through the bullshit, nod and grin,
in this customer service hell, no one wins.

They want it now, they want it free,
but empathy died in their raging spree.
Press one for anger, two for hate,
but where’s the button for a clean slate?

I’ve memorized the script, I know my lines,
but the voice in my head says quit nine times.
The hold music loops like a funeral dirge,
and I’m one bad caller from the edge and the verge.

Every damn day the headset digs in,
leaving a groove where my patience has been.
I used to care, I used to try,
now I just watch the minutes die.

Shades of Blue

Verse OneI remember that kitchen light flickering like a dying promise
the way we left dishes in the sink as though leaving things unfinished was our shared language of exhaustion and yearning
the quiet between us thicker than smoke and just as choking
I kept saying I was fine while my voice cracked like paint peeling from an abandoned church wall where lovers carved initials that never meant forever but pretended anyway under too-bright moons that never asked who hurt first or who would hurt last
You leaned on the counter with your tired eyes looking a hundred miles past me
trying not to shake, trying not to break
trying not to be the one who said what we already knew

Our hearts beating out of rhythm, mine stumbling
yours sprinting
both of us pretending we could outrun the echo of every word we didn’t say
every touch we denied ourselves just to stay strong for the structure that had already collapsed.
ChorusAnd I swear I tried to hold the line without unraveling
without clawing or pleading or screaming your name in the doorway like a ghost that refuses to leave
I kept my hands steady, my voice firm, my breath slow

like a soldier walking off the battlefield pretending the wounds don’t bleed until they do
You thought I was burning up with rage
that I wanted to scorch everything down to embers and ash
show my fury like a wildfire tearing through the last of something precious
No I wasn’t seeing red, …. Just shades of blue
Verse TwoWe wrote our history in apologies and almosts
in long nights where silence felt safer than truth

where wanting you felt like swallowing razor wire and calling it honey
I replayed every doorway I could have stood in
every time I could have reached for your hand but let gravity drag me into myself instead
folding inward like a dying star
Your laughter once lived in the rooms of my chest
bright and loud
now replaced by hollow corridors where footsteps echo like unanswered prayers

We grew distant not in miles but in inches
the small spaces between our fingertips expanding until we felt like strangers wearing familiar skin
trying not to tremble at the memory of how close we once fit.
ChorusAnd I swear I tried to hold the line without unraveling
without clawing or pleading or screaming your name in the doorway like a ghost that refuses to leave
I kept my hands steady, my voice firm, my breath slow
like a soldier walking off the battlefield pretending the wounds don’t bleed until they do

You thought I was burning up with rage
that I wanted to scorch everything down to embers and ash
show my fury like a wildfire tearing through the last of something precious
No I wasn’t seeing red, …. Just shades of blue
Verse ThreeNow I sleep with the lights low and the windows cracked
letting the cold cut me awake to remind myself I still feel something under all this numb grit
Your absence hangs heavy on my ribs like wet denim

dragging me down every time I try to stand tall
forcing me to learn balance in new, unwelcome ways
Some nights I talk to the ceiling like it’s you
like maybe the air remembers your voice and will answer back if I ache correctly
if I shape my longing just right
And I keep trying to forgive myself for not fighting harder
for not holding you tighter

for not knowing how to bleed in a way that didn’t look like surrender.
ChorusAnd I swear I tried to hold the line without unraveling
without clawing or pleading or screaming your name in the doorway like a ghost that refuses to leave
I kept my hands steady, my voice firm, my breath slow
like a soldier walking off the battlefield pretending the wounds don’t bleed until they do
You thought I was burning up with rage
that I wanted to scorch everything down to embers and ash

show my fury like a wildfire tearing through the last of something precious
No I wasn’t seeing red, …. Just shades of blue
BridgeIf I could go back
I wouldn’t rewrite us to be perfect
I’d rewrite us to be honest
I’d let myself break open sooner
spill the truth unfiltered and trembling

I’d tell you that love doesn’t always roar
sometimes it whispers
sometimes it sinks low and shakes quietly in the dark waiting to be held
And maybe we would have stayed
or maybe leaving would have hurt less
But I’d have let you see me bleed.

Chorus (Final)And I swear I tried to hold the line without unraveling
without clawing or pleading or screaming your name in the doorway like a ghost that refuses to leave
I kept my hands steady, my voice firm, my breath slow
like a soldier walking off the battlefield pretending the wounds don’t bleed until they do
You thought I was burning up with rage
that I wanted to scorch everything down to embers and ash
show my fury like a wildfire tearing through the last of something precious

No I wasn’t seeing red, …. Just shades of blue

The Body Dysmorphia Nobody Diagnosed

I’ve been at war with mirrors since I learned to recognize my face,
convinced the glass was lying, showing someone else misplaced
inside the body I inhabit like a tenant in a cage,
where every surface tells a story I’ve been trying to erase.

At twelve I started counting flaws the way accountants balance books,
documented every failure, every angle, every look
that proved I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t worthy of attention,
wasn’t built correctly, wasn’t worth the world’s retention.

I declined invitations, turned down dates, avoided cameras,
built my life around the project of remaining anonymous.
Wore clothes designed to hide me, makeup meant to fix
what I’d decided couldn’t be redeemed, just covered up with tricks.

I studied other women, catalogued what made them beautiful,
then used that data as a weapon, proving I was unsuitable.
My thighs were wrong, my nose was wrong, my stomach was catastrophe,
my breasts too small, my hips too wide, my face asymmetry.

I had entire theories about which angles to avoid,
which lighting would expose me, which positions would destroy
whatever fragile confidence I’d managed to construct
from compliments I didn’t trust, from evidence I’d reconstructed.

The photos show a woman who looks fine, looks normal, even pretty,
but I can’t see her, can’t connect her to my interior committee
of critics who’ve been cataloguing failures since my teens,
who’ve convinced me that the mirror shows exactly what it means–
that I’m deformed, disgusting, fundamentally unworthy
of being seen, of taking space, of existing here at thirty
or forty or whatever age I’ve reached while hating skin
that’s kept me functioning, kept me alive, kept holding damage in.

I’ve missed opportunities, turned down promotions, avoided beaches,
couldn’t let myself be vulnerable, couldn’t risk what being seen teaches
about intimacy, about connection, about allowing others close
when you’re convinced your body is the thing they’ll hate the most.

This is vanity inverted, pride that eats itself alive,
when self-perception warps and twists until you can’t survive
the disconnect between the mirror and what everyone else sees.
I’ve spent forty years imprisoned by distorted certainties,
believing I was hideous when I was only human,
treating flesh like evidence of some profound confusion.

I’m trying now to see myself the way that others claim they do,
but decades of distortion don’t dissolve because you want them to.

The Grey Heart

Somebody cracked a clean little joke, and the room took the bait with obedient art,
they shook out their laughter like coins from a pocket, each bright little chime playing its part.
I watched their faces uncurl into mercy, then felt nothing answer inside of my chest,
my mouth stayed shut like a boarded-up window, my pulse stayed flat, unimpressed.

A man in a tie slapped the table, a woman wiped tears from the corners of her eyes,
I stared at the punchline like paperwork, filed it away, let it die where it lies.
I used to laugh like a sinner forgiven, loud enough to disturb the polite,
now humor arrives like a stranger at midnight, and I leave it alone in the light.

They call me controlled, they call me composed, like I chose this frost for my skin,
truth is I’m tired of being a puppet, truth is I’m tired of pretending to win.
Every laugh in that room felt rented, like comfort on credit with interest and shame,
they laughed like it proved they were holy, then went right back to the grind and the blame.

I’ve heard too many jokes used as cover, soft smoke that hides a hard knife,
I’ve seen men grin while they take what they want, then claim it was “just” life.
A cheap wisecrack can grease a betrayal, make theft feel friendly and light,
I learned to keep my face unreadable, learned to keep my teeth out of sight.

Some kid with a loud voice and clean shoes leaned in like he owned the whole floor,
he said I must be fun at parties, said it with pity, said it once more.
I wanted to tell him my laughter got buried under years of small losses and costs,
under phone calls that go to silence, under birthdays that turn into frost,
under love that asked for a promise, then mocked me for bleeding it true,
under bosses who sell you a ladder, then kick at your fingers when you climb into view.

Let them laugh, let them clap, let them spin their bright circles on cue,
I’ll sit with my blank little weather and measure what laughter can’t do.
If joy is a mask, I won’t wear it, not for their comfort, not for their show,
I’m not cruel, I’m not holy, I’m just empty where a grin used to grow.

And if one day a joke cuts clean through me, not sweet, not safe, not polite,
I’ll laugh like a man resurrected, I’ll laugh like a fist finds a fight.
Till then I keep my face in order, keep my voice in its narrow lane,
grey heart, hard start, dull art, and a mind that remembers pain.

The Guilt

There’s a guilt that comes with some of the wanting,
a guilt that wasn’t earned but still haunting
every corner of the desire, the guilt
that somebody sewed into the quilt
of my upbringing, the guilt
that was taught not grown, but built.

The guilt doesn’t serve the desire or the truth,
the guilt is just the residue of youth
being taught to carry it, and I work
at putting it down, at the attempt to shirk
the guilt that doesn’t belong to the desire,
the guilt is not mine but it lives in the fire.

I’m working on the guilt as a project of mine,
I’m undoing the guilt that crossed the line
into my desire without any right.
I’m taking the guilt out of the night
of the physical, one small piece at a time.
The guilt doesn’t belong in this rhyme.

The guilt in the wanting, the uninvited guest,
the guilt in the wanting, it won’t let me rest.
The guilt in the wanting comes without cause,
the guilt in the wanting is somebody else’s laws.

The Phantom of Hollow Hill

In the quiet town of Hollow Hill, where secrets linger in the air,
a phantom roams the misty nights, a specter of despair.
Long ago he lost his life, betrayed by those he held so dear,
and now his spirit haunts the town, spreading whispers of his fear.

The townsfolk speak in hushed tones, of the ghost who walks the streets at night,
his hollow eyes and ghastly form, a figure lost to endless fright.
He searches for the ones who lied, who sealed his fate with cruel deceit,
and those who cross his haunted path, feel the chill of death’s cold heat.

Beware the Phantom of Hollow Hill, whose vengeance knows no end,
a ghostly wail that chills the night, a curse that will not bend.
At midnight’s chime he takes his walk, through streets that whisper with his name,
a reminder of the past’s dark deeds, and of the phantom’s endless shame.

When Tomorrow
Dawg

There’s a haunting in my head.
The memories are stalking me,
all the things I’ve done and said.
I don’t know how to block it out.
I just want to be left alone.
I never knew I’d be like this.
There’s so much I didn’t know.

I see teapots smashed to smithereens,
pottery shards scattered on the floor —
fragments of memories
I don’t want inside me anymore.

The memories are killing me.
It’s not some sunny day nostalgia.
It tears apart my mind
like a cancerous dementia,
filling every memory,
inhibiting all of my hindsight.
These thoughts all feel so terminal.
Memories a parasite.

I swore that I could handle it.
I said I’d make it all go away.
I smiled when I talked to you
and said it’d be alright.
I felt my heart die out,
my body dropping into numb.
The ghosts are always talking to me
about when tomorrow comes.

I remember every detail with such crystal clarity —
when I was just a little boy
and you’d take those hits for me.
My father fueled by alcohol,
righteous and self-empowered with his gin.
All those times you sat and cried.
Tore you down within.

I remember you lying silently
in our old and dirty living room.
The world had become too much for you,
your mind shutting off too soon.
The nervous breakdown changed you.
I never saw you quite the same again.
I lived afraid that next time
would really be the end.

The cancer moved through his body
and weakened out his heart.
The day that it stopped beating
tore your world apart.
I hear the crackle of your voice
when you asked if I was staying home.
Everything was scaring you.
You just didn’t want to be alone.

A few more years and then you hid
a pain in the bottom of your toe.
You swore everyone to secrecy
because you didn’t want me to know.

Diabetic complications.
Gangrene spread throughout your infected limb.
They decided to amputate your leg.
You knew you’d never walk again.
Then your heart gave out after surgery,
but you didn’t give up the fight.
Two weeks of recovery
and you came home for just two nights.

Four days home and then your kidneys
started to shut down.
Your eyes were pleading with them
when you begged don’t let me die.

Seven months from a foot ache,
I had barely seen my bed.
You were refusing to eat anything,
so I just stayed in that hospital instead.
I argued with you and told you
if you didn’t eat, I’d leave you there alone.

I had no way of knowing
you really couldn’t eat anything if you had tried.
Till the doctors told me
your body was just shutting down inside.

They needed me to decide
if you were going to be a “do not resuscitate.”
I wanted to ask you about it,
see what you wanted me to do.
But you never could answer me.
It wouldn’t be up to you.

You said that you were tired,
and we’d talk about tomorrow
when tomorrow comes.

The doctors said they had medicine
that would ease the pain,
but it would make it harder to even breathe.
They needed me to choose right then —
let you suffer or let you go,
because the thing that would take the pain away
would make your heart beat slow.

I had to decide right then.
Make you live or let you die.
My entire mind just quit.

I saw the tears on your cheek.
The blisters on your skin.
I made the call. I asked them
when the medication could begin.

I walked away. I made the calls.
The family gathered around.
For a full week after that,
you said nothing.
Only a low gurgling sound.

I stood beside your hospital bed that night,
the room hot and air muggy,
pulling the oxygen tube away
and clearing away all the drugs.

With every breath you took, you were more aware.
Finally, I heard you say
you knew that I would be right there.

You reached out a trembling hand
to say a final goodbye.
And finally, I heard you say the words:
“I’m ready for the end.”

You gave a breath,
and then you fell asleep.
And I felt my heart just simply snap.

The ghosts have stopped their talking now.
There’s no more need for me to act.