my heart feels heavy
not like the metaphors
breathy
but it really does
I lay my hand
where it’s supposed
to be
it feels weak
almost
not beating

my lungs
breathing deep

my eyes tired
blurry

my throat
full of weird soft shivers
like my heart silently beats there
weak

my brother's music playing
in the background
my ears on sharp
listening

my hands...
sweaty

my legs
heavy

overwhelmed

The days are spent in quiet chase,
A steady march, a changing pace,
I wander through the shifting streams,
The echoes of my fractured dreams.

I used to know exactly where,
The road would lead me, how I'd fare.
But now the map is worn and torn,
Still, I walk though I've been worn.

There’s strength in letting go, I’ve learned,
In fading lights, in bridges burned.
Yet in the dark, I still might see
A glimmer of who I used to be.

So here I stand, with both my hands,
I’ll write my future from the sands.
The past is never far away,
It guides the steps I take today.

I’m not who I was, but I still strive,
The heart that once felt dead is alive.
And though it’s me who shapes the way,
I am reborn in each new day.

My dreams are not soft things
They do not whisper or drift
They crash into me
Like memory
Like loss I never earned but still carry

I see faces I’ve never touched
Eyes that look through me like they’ve known me for lifetimes
Hands that reach
Just as I begin to fall

I wake with stories still unfolding
Mouth half-formed around names that vanish
Chest aching with love
for people I’ve never met outside my sleep

Sometimes I lie still
Eyes open
But not here
Not ready to belong to this body
this room
this gravity

Reality waits
with its empty inboxes and worn-out clocks
It doesn’t ask if I’m okay
It just goes on
as if I didn’t just leave a world that almost felt like home

But I keep waking
Even when it hurts
Even when the dream begs me to stay
Because somewhere in the quiet ache of morning
There’s a sliver of light
A whisper that maybe
what I dream
is a map
not a mistake

And maybe one day
I’ll follow it back
not to sleep
but to something real
that finally feels
like dreaming with my eyes open

I try my best to hide what I find unattractive because I want people to love me I’ve realized I need to learn to love myself before I love others I don’t need to change for anyone but myself I want boys to notice I’m attractive but no one talks to me and I talk to no one the more I sit in my classes wondering if that boy I know and love likes me back I sit there with my head low and zoning out unless I see them my brain works when i know they see me too my heart wants to confess but knows the reality of it most times every boy will reject you it’s happened to me twice that’s why I try and try again to make myself look pretty I wash my face do my makeup put perfume on but no one seems to notice me but my crave for love makes it hard not to hide what I find unattractive

Writing my life away-
Like a play-
That won't stay-
Although it may-
Feel like that for now
I know deep down,
I'll be okay

my dad taught me English

just one time
I was at the age of nine
or maybe six
three
or two
I have no clue
it’s his first language
or something close to it
from Cuba, China, Canada,
to college in the Netherlands
and meeting Belgium for the first
not only for thirst
but because it’s a place
called home
for my grandparents
cause at the end
you always come back
to what you’ve had
I guess that doesn't rhyme
but It's fine

when I was twelve
I had to go to language camp
trying to learn
the language that has burned
on the soul of my dad
don't get mad
I came crying home
practice was needed
one week
not enough

so after summer turned
school returned
English I learned
while I sat on that chair
in the seat over there
pen and book
it was terrible too
but after three years
I could finally say
"How are you today?”

not special for sure
just studying this
everyone can do it
but I hope someday
I can make him proud
when he won't shout
when I make…
a misssteaaacke


I'm sorry