She never loved the rain  
not like those stories tell it.  
It wasn’t some whimsical dance;  
it was cold,  
and she had enough weight on her shoulders  
without the sky adding more.

But inside her,  
something still flickered
not loudly,  
not for show  
a kind of warmth that only revealed itself  
when the world wasn’t looking.

She didn’t chase illusions.  
Her dreams had roots,  
not wings
and when she imagined,  
it was with intention,  
as if even wonder  
deserved to be held carefully.

She bore her burdens  
not like armor  
but like roots  
tangled, deep,  
invisible to most  
but shaping everything above the surface.

She was not light-hearted.  
She was deep-hearted.

And the world  
impatient with stillness  
often mistook her silence for absence,  
her softness for retreat.  
But I saw the truth:

she was waiting to be seen
the way stars are:
recognized
for the light they’ve always given.

I grow,  
like rivers do
not knowing where the ocean ends,  
only that I must keep moving.

Each sunrise asks more of me  
to be wiser,  
braver,  
less like who I was.

But what if this never stops?  
What if peace  
is just a carrot on a string,  
dangling from the hand of time?

I run,  
even when I long to rest  
my own breath  
a ghost chasing me.

The road shifts beneath my feet  
stone turns to sand,  
and still I press forward,  
scared of stopping,  
scared of never arriving.

But what if the finish line
was never meant for me?
What if all this running,
all this becoming,
leads nowhere
but further from stillness?

What if I spend my whole life
searching for a place
where meaning and peace
finally hold each other
and never find it?

What if I grow
into a thousand versions of myself
but never into the one
who can just
be?

I’ve tried to paint you  
on canvases stretched by dreams,  
mixing colors borrowed from sunsets,  
oceans, and moonlit whispers.  

Yet each stroke feels incomplete,  
the hues too faint, too still,  
unable to breathe  
your magic into life.  

How can I capture  
a spirit lighter than air,  
a soul like hidden music,  
in a static frame?  

Your essence eludes  
brushes and palettes,  
like trying to bottle lightning,  
or hold starlight in my palm.  

Each painting falls short,  
though I chase perfection endlessly
because art can’t contain  
what makes you beautifully alive.  

Maybe perfection lies  
in the failing, the yearning,  
knowing no color or canvas  
could ever truly hold you.

In the quiet of this room,
your gift breathes softly,
a music box spinning
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,
turning each note
into whispers of your laughter,
echoes of your fingertips
that touched this very tune.

How strange,
this tiny thing, delicate as porcelain,
holds worlds within
the gentle way you smiled
as you placed it in my palm,
like handing over
a key to forever,
wrapped in melody and grace.

It spins,
and the air fills with you,
like starlight caught in sound,
reminding me of thing
you painted gold
and nights wrapped
in whispers and warmth.

This box, small enough
to hold in my hand,
vast enough
to cradle galaxies of you,
has become
more than every Christmas
and every birthday
it holds the only gift
I’ve ever needed:
your presence,
lingering, infinite,
in every note,
in every breath.

There’s a sailboat moored in my chest
anchored gently in quiet waters,
its hull shaped by storms weathered long ago,
wood now polished by waves
of solitude and strength.

Its sails breathe gratitude,
lifting gently with the dawn’s soft breath
a breeze scented with fresh coffee
and quiet laughter of birds.
It’s in these moments I understand
happiness isn’t a distant shore,
but the ocean beneath me now,
vast, patient, and alive.

Twilight brings gentle echoes
reminders of storms that guided me here,
waves born from childhood tides,
currents flowing from quiet lessons learned,
moments of struggle transformed into wisdom.

I used to fear drifting
beneath moonlit skies,
believing safety lay only
in charted lands unseen.
But now, drifting feels beautiful
trusting the currents of inner knowing,
guided by constellations of growth,
and quiet whispers of the past.

And when the night grows still,
when no wind fills these sails,
I sit gently in silence,
embracing peace like an old friend
to listen deeply to the ocean inside.

Now I sail gently,
through tranquil mornings and thoughtful evenings,
grateful for every breeze and calm wave,
navigating by life’s quiet miracles
morning coffee, painted canvases,
soft rain tapping gently on a car roof,
conversations nourishing my soul,
a sky wide open, full of stars.

This boat isn’t seeking
faraway lands for promised happiness;
instead, it savors joy
in every wave beneath it,
in each breath of salt-filled air,
every heartbeat a gentle reminder.

I’ve been chasing the spark in the taste of the unfamiliar
asking the wind for courage each time I stand on a board,
letting hunger guide me to flavors
my past self would have refused.
Growth, I’m learning, isn’t loud
it’s in small risks:
in letting myself want more,
in saying yes to the unknown,
in reaching for another language,
another home.

France is more than a place
it’s the promise of another self.
A world of beach mornings and briny air,
where volleyball echoes across open sand
and every meal is a prayer
to the simple, the good,
the slow miracle of sharing laughter and bread.

I want to live by the ocean,
to surf into the sun’s slow descent,
to let friendship tangle through every evening,
to eat, move, love
simply and completely.

Every new thing is an awakening:
a proof that I am here,
not just surviving,
but stretching
feeling alive,
discovering happiness in the gentle unfolding
of a life that belongs to me.

I’ve learned to love myself,
to face what was broken and turn it into something strong.
Healing hasn’t always been easy,
but it’s given me a respect for my own journey
that no one else can define.

Through this, I’ve realized that I don’t need to change
just because others can’t see who I truly am.
People might not always understand me,
but I know in my heart I’m becoming someone I can be proud of
and I love the person I’m still growing into.

There’s a quiet confidence that comes from being true to myself.
I don’t need to fit the mold,
or hide the parts of me that make me different.
Being myself gives me strength in a world
where so many trade their truth for approval.

Nobody can take away what I’ve built inside
the self-respect, the pride, the love I have for who I am.
This is my foundation.
And I live by this:
“I’d rather be hated for who I am
than loved for who I am not.”

I watched other children from windows,
Their parents pointing at butterflies,
Explaining why the sky turns purple at dusk,
Answering "why" with patience, not sighs.

My questions echoed in empty rooms,
Bounced off walls, returned to me unanswered.
I learned to swallow them down like stones,
Heavy in a belly already hungry for more than food.

At night, I'd whisper to dust motes dancing
In the single beam of hallway light that slipped beneath my door.
They became my first science lesson,
The universe's smallest planets orbiting in my personal dark.

I pressed my small palms against encyclopedias,
Pages stuck together from disuse,
And taught myself words too big for my mouth,
Because no one was there to simplify them.

When I found a dead sparrow in the yard,
There was no one to explain death or grief.
I buried it alone with questions as its gravestone,
And learned that curiosity is sometimes paired with pain.

The other children learned wonder sitting on shoulders,
Seeing farther from the height of love.
I learned it on my knees, gathering shards of broken things,
Trying to understand what held them together before.

My curiosity wasn't nurtured it was necessary,
A rope I braided myself to climb out of the silence.
Each question formed another knot to grip,
When small hands had nothing else to hold.

At night,
when my mind won't stop
and every thought feels loud
I picture you next to me.

I see your face clearly
like you're actually here.
Your breathing steady,
your warmth beside me
and suddenly,
everything just stops.

It's quiet.
Calm.

I close my eyes,
feeling safe,
believing for a moment
you're really here,
lying next to me,
telling me it’s okay
to let go,
to sleep.

And somehow,
just imagining you
is enough.

One day I want to paint with you
brush to canvas, worlds aligned;
to follow colors as they bloom,
a vector deep into your mind.

Your art a quiet revelation,
depths unseen, yet clear to me;
every stroke a conversation,
glimpses of infinity.

Teach me how your colors speak
subtle hues your soul invents;
guide my hand when lines grow weak,
show me shades that silence meant.

In art we’ll bridge the space between,
where minds meet beyond the known,
capturing truths the heart has seen,
painting worlds that feel like home.

And when my palette mirrors yours,
I’ll understand your silent grace,
drawing closer, opening doors,
to paint reflections of your space.

You drift back softly,  
like the memory of a song  
I once knew by heart
and just as I begin to sing again,  
you disappear into silence.

Each hello feels like sunlight  
breaking through storm clouds
warm enough to believe  
the storm is finally over,  
but fleeting enough to remind me  
I’m still caught in the rain.

It’s like something calls you away  
right when your laughter  
begins to sound familiar,  
just when your smile  
feels safe again.

I reach for you,  
hands trembling with hope,  
but my fingers close on shadows,  
empty air left colder  
by your absence.

You're always free to leave,  
yet each quiet withdrawal  
cuts deeper than words could  
a wound invisible, yet felt  
in every moment you’re not here.

But even if I don't understand  
the tides that pull you away,  
I accept this part of you,  
the hidden currents,  
the silence you need to breathe.

Because caring for you means  
loving even the spaces between us,  
holding gently  
the mysteries you keep  
just beyond my reach.

Love me with chaos,
whisper poison into kisses,
a taste of honey masking venom
my sweet ruin,
my favorite destruction.

Hate me gently,
wrap bitterness in velvet promises;
your touch is fire,
a warmth I crave
though it burns me raw,
leaving scars I wear proudly.

Keep me addicted,
always searching for that rush
the dizzying high
of your stormy eyes,
your distant voice,
your fleeting approval
that keeps me begging,
breathless at the altar
of my own undoing.

I know you’re danger,
yet danger feels like home.
Your love’s a fever,
and I shiver willingly,
caught between
the poison and paradise
of loving and hating you.

I move through days like ancient streams,  
Each moment caught in amber light
The sacred grace in mundane things,  
The beauty hiding plain from sight.

I pause where others only rush
To touch the fragile, intricate art  
Of ordinary miracles,  
Each one a softly beating heart.

They chase the glittering, hollow dreams,  
The ceaseless noise that fills the air,  
While in my hallowed solitude,  
I breathe a deeper, quieter prayer.

I walk apart, but never lone,  
My world a constellation vast;  
The quiet truths I hold like stars,  
My steady steps, unhurried, cast.

I rarely speak the language shared  
By those who dance the crowded floor,  
Yet freedom blooms within this choice  
To value stillness, seeking more.

Though hurried shadows flicker past,  
Their vision blurred by constant pace,  
I stand within my own true light  
It's more than fine to claim this space.

For somewhere else, kindred souls  
Are breathing slow in time with mine,  
Other hearts who dare to pause,  
Embracing life's unhurried design.

Together, distant yet aligned,  
In quiet truth we find our way
Not common, no, but wholly free,  
And that is sacred, come what may.

When the world turns heavy, and silence is loud,
when shadows find you, alone in the crowd,
know there's a corner reserved for your peace
a quiet place where your burdens release.

I promise you softly, without words or sound,
in every chaos, my heart will be found.
Not as a whisper or faded farewell,
but as strength you can hold, as truth you can tell.

In midnight moments, when sorrow is deep,
I'll be your comfort, your guardian of sleep.
Even if you can't see or hear me there,
my love surrounds you, my heart fully aware.

For some bonds, defy time and space
unfading, unyielding, impossible to erase.
If ever you fall, lost and unsure,
my soul will remind you of all you endure.

So when life feels cold, when your strength wears thin,
remember my heart, always rooting within.
Forever in your corner beyond distance, above fear,
my soul stands quietly, unwaveringly here.

There’s an old house
at the edge of my memory,
paint faded to whispers,
roof weathered
by quiet storms
no one else sees.

I still walk past
each evening,
pausing where roses
once bloomed,
petals lost gently
to seasons
we didn’t notice
were changing.

Windows darkened,
but reflections remain
ghosts of laughter,
voices that felt
like candles
in empty rooms,
glowing softly
with something
I still can’t name.

Inside, silence
gathers like dust
over tables set
for conversations
we never finished,
chairs waiting
patiently
for someone
to come home.

And though doors
have quietly closed,
I keep a single key
pressed against my chest
a quiet promise
never broken,
held softly
in the hollow
between missing
and letting go.

Maybe someday
you’ll pass this way,
notice curtains
move slightly
like breath,
and wonder
who lives
in the spaces
we left empty

only then realizing
it was you.

I used to think greatness
was about being smart
razor-edged minds,
clever systems,
the fastest path to the top.

But I see it differently now.
The ones who rise
aren’t always the brightest
they’re the ones
who stayed
when it stopped being exciting.
Who worked when no one clapped.
Who chose belief
when progress felt invisible.

Mastery has no shortcuts.
You can’t cram depth,
or download meaning.
People waste years
searching for the fastest way in
as if greatness is a door
you can trick open.
But the truth is:
the long road is the only one that lasts.

But that’s not enough.

Because if what you’re doing
drains your spirit,
if you wake up each day
dreading the hours ahead
then that’s not life.
That’s just survival
with a timecard.

We’re told to endure,
to push through jobs we hate,
to wear misery like it’s noble.
But I don’t believe in building a life
on a foundation of quiet despair.

You don’t owe anyone
your peace.

This is your one life.
One.

Not a rehearsal.
Not a test.
Not some endless wait
for later.

You were not born
to be efficient.
You were born
to feel sunlight on your skin,
to taste things slowly,
to lose yourself in a moment
so fully
you forget to check the time.

Work hard yes.
Struggle when you must.
But only for something
that brings you closer
to who you really are.
To what matters.

Because life isn’t about
titles, deadlines, or clocks.
It’s about meaning.
It’s about experience.
It’s about the feeling of being here,
with your soul intact.

So pick wisely.
And if you’ve picked wrong,
change.
It’s not too late.

Just don’t trade your only life
for someone else’s version
of success.

Oh, how I long to float,
to drift forever high
above whispers,
above hauntings
of voices that never sleep,
tethered to midnight's heavy breath.

Suki's voice spills softly,
like honey dripping
through the cracks
in my splintered walls,
her melodies a gentle ghost
that cradles my aching bones
in velvet lullabies,
each lyric pulling me deeper
into a sweet, nostalgic hurt.

I wish to run
wild, reckless, untethered,
like Lana del rey racing
down endless highways,
hair tangled by freedom,
fluttering in moonlit wind,
eyes blurred with tears and starlight.
Even if she's running
from shadows of herself,
in that fleeting escape,
she becomes poetry,
untouchable, eternal, beautifully lost.

Yet the night always finds me,
bringing whispers that know my name,
aching, relentless, familiar
a voice that is mine,
yet feels stolen,
trapped inside
a skin I never chose.

As music fades
into echoes of longing,
I'm left wondering
does freedom ever come
without running away?

Last night,  
in sleep's strange sanctuary,  
I saw you running  
through shadows,  
your silhouette threaded  
with quiet fear
darkness chasing your heels,  
like the hidden truths  
we never spoke aloud.

Instinctively,  
my arms lifted you  
from the tangled paths,  
your breath quick  
against my neck,  
as the world behind us blurred,  
fading softly  
into echoes and mist.

Together, we climbed  
a mountain cloaked  
in velvet night
familiar, yet unknown  
the ascent steep and endless,  
each step carrying  
a silent language  
only our hearts understood.

I felt the gravity  
of every unspoken word,  
the questions hanging  
between us like stars  
in an uncertain sky.  
Yet still, we rose
above the voices,  
above the darkness,  
into quiet air  
that held only  
our shared truth.

When I woke,  
I wondered  
if mountains hold meaning  
beyond dreams
if there's something  
we still climb,  
separately, silently,  
longing to understand  
why our paths  
remain intertwined.

Of all the things I carry with me
the dreams outgrown,
the moments lost in time
the one that lingers most
is the wish
to have been there
on the days you needed
nothing more
than a quiet hug
to soften the world.

Not because you were hard to reach
you never were.
You were a soul
seeking stillness,
a place to unfold
without asking for permission
to just be.

It was never a mystery,
what you needed.
Never once did your heart
feel foreign to mine.
Even in silence,
I understood you.
Your presence was a kind of music
gentle, aching,
beautifully human.

And though life swept us in its tide,
though I couldn’t always stand beside you
when the thoughts raced louder
than your voice could quiet
I want you to know:
I saw you.
I felt the weight you carried.

You only wanted to feel safe
being exactly who you were.
And in every corner of me,
there’s a soft echo
of how deeply
I wanted to be
that place.

There’s a quiet ache inside me not the sharpness of sorrow,
but a weight gathering in the hollow places
the cost of carrying myself so long, so well
that even silence feels heavy in my hands.

I’ve evolved.
I’ve rebuilt the ground beneath my feet,
crafted a beautiful, disciplined life
honest in its architecture,
but still, every night closes in solitude.

This is not sadness that asks to be comforted,
not grief that breaks me open with sobs.
it's the emptiness that evolution could not erase.

I stand in my own world,
the only witness to the quiet, daily heroism
of showing up, of becoming
wondering why, after everything,
hollowness remains.

I feel it:
a subtle tension behind my ribs,
a hollow ache in my gut,
the slow, tired heaviness in my eyes
the sensation of standing at a distance,
even while present and awake.

Spiritually, I whisper:
I’m proud of my growth,
but I never meant to grow alone.
I’m not sad just tired
of being the only one who knows
how far I’ve come.

This is the invisible cost of self-growth
the soft strength of waiting
without bitterness,
the loneliness of having no one
to witness the transformation.

Still, I carry on..........

The stomach knows what the mind forgets
a hollow vessel curved to hold
all we've swallowed but cannot speak:
grief folded into itself like origami,
words collapsed to fit inside the body's vault.

We carry silence there, dense as stone.
The unspoken grows heavier
settles deeper beneath the ribs,
becomes the ghost that haunts our hunger.

And in the chest, breath hesitates,
draws itself thin and trembling,
afraid to disturb what's settled below.
Each inhalation measured and cautious,
each exhale holding back its full release

as if the body understands
that to breathe completely
might dislodge the carefully packed archive
of everything we couldn't bear to name.

At night, when silence softly breathes,
I’ve quieted storms, calmed the waves,
Yet shadows stir beneath the ease
Whispers rise from hidden graves.

Daylight sees me chasing bliss,
Sunlit smiles hide the cost,
But moonlight speaks of all I miss
Echoes sacred, treasures lost.

When darkness blooms behind closed eyes,
The heart recounts each stolen scene;
Tender moments, fading ties
Ghosts of all that might have been.

Sleepless, bound by quiet chains,
Haunted gently, endless ache;
Memories pulse in muted veins,
Dreaming wide while wide awake.

Night unveils what daylight veils,
Sacred sorrows left to grow,
Silence sings of unseen trails
Paths I wander, but can’t let go.

I sit at the summit where silence begins,
on the edge of a whisper the forest sends in
the hush of green breath cradling my frame,
as if the Earth knows me by name.

Above, the sky yawns wide with grace,
a cathedral of blue where I lose my face
no more the boy who hides his ache,
just a soul the breeze dares not break.

Below me, roots entwine like arms
gentle with my weight, immune to harm.
They don’t ask why I can’t stay still,
why rest feels like a swallow of pills.

Because motion motion is mercy to me.
In steps and sprints, I am finally free.
Each forward breath, a sacred escape
from thoughts that linger in shadows’ shape.

But in the stillness, in this quiet wood,
grief presses its face to my pulse and blood.
Memories ungrieved, like ghosts unmet,
pull up chairs in my chest and do not forget.

Stillness does not ask if I am ready
it enters like dusk, quiet and steady.
It holds me hostage in fields of thought,
where every loss I’ve buried is caught.

It was a gray winter day
sky low like it wanted to crush me,
the trees stiff and bloodless.
I was walking with my friend,
boots crunching dead leaves,
when the bullet cracked the silence.

It screamed past my ear,
a wasp of metal and ******.
I didn’t see the gun,
just felt the world split
air sliced like skin,
reality flayed open.

The shot missed.
But it hit something inside me
struck the boy who thought the world was safe,
buried itself where no one could pull it out.

I woke before the sun
not because I had to
because I wanted to.
Tied my shoes like it mattered.
Because it did.

Eight hours in the gym,
Every shot had rhythm,
every move, precision.
I wasn’t just good.
I was gifted.
I knew it.

No one saw me fold into crossovers
like breath folding into wind.
No one saw the nets whisper
my name back to me after each swish.
No one said keep going.
No one said I believe in you.
So I stopped.
At thirteen, maybe fourteen,
I unlaced the dream.

Not because I lacked fire
but because I got tired
of carrying it alone.

I think of that boy now
not the one who quit,
but the one who could’ve gone all the way
and it stings.

Because greatness
isn’t always lost in defeat.
Sometimes, it’s buried
under silence.

Some days, I face myself
in the quiet glass
eyes meeting eyes,
yet the gaze returns from years ago,
a child drowning silently
beneath an unbroken surface.

Hands reaching upward,
begging invisible arms to save him,
lungs aching for air
in an ocean he never chose,
and I'm trapped here, helpless,
watching through the mirror.

How cruel it is
to be prisoner and warden,
to hold the keys yet remain locked,
bound by fears I never planted,
haunted by waters
I was never taught to swim.

The anxiety pools heavy
like lead beneath my chest,
sinking deeper
into memories that grip tightly,
asking myself endlessly,
"How do I save the child I still am?"

And the nausea rises
it knows the truth:
I’ve been victim to my reflection,
punished by ghosts of a past
where control slipped through my small fingers,
like water through open hands.

Yet, still, I return to this mirror,
hoping someday to find
not a child desperate to survive,
but one held safely above water,
breathing freely,
and no longer captive to myself.

I've been pondering the quiet erosion
of learning, watching knowledge fray
like ancient cloth, threads pulled
from a fabric we once wore proudly
a cloak woven by sacrifice, sewn in dreams
of equality, of freedom.
They died believing
in the sanctuary of thought,
the solemn power of a mind awakened,
chains broken by ideas sharper
than swords, heavier than gold.

Education was their quiet revolution,
a rebellion of ink against silence,
a whisper that echoed into freedom’s shout.
Knowledge, they knew, was the threat
to thrones of ignorance
a path lit brightly toward liberation,
a human right etched into
the marrow of democracy.

Yet today, I watch the lights dim
in classrooms turned battlefields
truth blurred with convenience,
minds tangled in easy deceit.
When we cease to question,
we become puppets pulled
by hidden strings, the tools
of tyrants who fear
the clarity of thought.

Books censored, voices hushed,
because a mind once expanded
cannot shrink back quietly.
They know this
those who ban ideas,
silence women,
block the path of minorities
to enlightenment’s door.

But education remains our guardian,
the quiet strength
the pulse of progress
that pushes society forward.
It gives us eyes to discern,
hands to heal,
voices to create
and hearts to understand.

I confess I wasn't always a seeker,
lost in classrooms that spoke
but never reached me.
Yet life became my greatest lesson
every book turned page,
every conversation exchanged
built a bridge to my own understanding.

Education found me beyond the walls,
gifted me clarity,
gave me purpose.
Through the prism of learning
I discovered my value
my freedom, my quiet revolution,
my awakening.

I was born knowing love as my first language,
a soul that ached when others ached,
eyes that saw through to the tender places
where we all carry our hidden wounds.

But the world taught me to close
scar upon scar of learned distance,
mask upon mask until I became
a stranger lost in my own story.

I practiced forgetting how to feel,
perfected the art of looking through people,
built walls so high I couldn't remember
what it felt like to truly see another.

Years passed like forgotten conversations,
and everything felt hollow,
connections became transactions,
love became a word I'd forgotten how to mean.

Until one day I felt something crack
in the fortress I'd built around my heart,
and through it came the voice
I had silenced so long ago

This isn't who you are.

The journey back was everything at once
terror and relief, breakdown and breakthrough.
I had to feel every emotion I'd buried,
remember every dream I'd abandoned,
forgive every way I'd betrayed myself.

But when I found him again
that boy who believed in goodness,
who saw the light hiding in everyone,
who knew that caring was courage

The world exploded back into color.

Now I understand the cruel irony:
when I silence the deepest part of me,
when I ignore what makes me most human,
everything turns to ash in my hands.

But when I honor him
this child who loves without conditions,
who feels the weight of every heart,
who believes we're all walking each other home

Every stranger becomes a story,
every conversation a chance for grace,
every moment of connection
proof that we're not alone.

I am learning to trust
the part of me that never learned
to stop believing in people,
to honor the sacred act of feeling deeply

in a world so numb.

This is who we all are,
beneath the armor:
souls desperate to be seen,
hearts longing to remember
that love is not weakness
it's the only thing that's ever been real.

I'm still learning
still learning what makes me happy,
what makes life feel
like more than survival.

I'm learning how to smile without apology,
how to sit with silence and not call it loneliness.

Some days,
I catch glimpses
of what could be peace:
the way sunlight spills
on kitchen tile,
the sound of leaves
chattering with the wind,
small, magnificent miracles
dressed as ordinary things.

But even then,
there’s a knife inside me
Not violent,
but present.
A slow ache,
a sharp truth
lodged deep,
like something sacred
and unbearable at once.

It doesn’t twist,
but it doesn’t leave.

Some days,
I barely feel it.
Others,
it sings through my bones.
A weight
no one else can see,
but I carry it
like breath.

And still,
I keep learning.
How to mend,
how to carry joy and pain
in the same breath.

How to look at the world,
even through tears,
and still see
something holy.

I am not finished.
I am not broken.
I am still becoming
thread by thread,
light by light,
breath by breath.

I hope one day
I can look back on this version of me
with softness,
with pride not because I endured,
but because I finally broke free.

Free from the need
to fight for my worth.
Free from the ache
of proving I deserve to be loved.

I hope one day
it’s just given.
Offered like sunlight,
like breath.
Given because I exist,
not because I performed,
not because I fought.

It exhausts me
this daily battle
between who I know I am
and what the world
makes me beg for.

I love myself.
But that doesn’t erase the ache.
That doesn’t make the nights less quiet,
or the waiting less long.

One day,
I want to look at myself
and see someone loved
without question,
without condition
not earned, not explained.
Just known.

I want to know how it feels
for love to feel like home,
not like war.

And until then,
I will keep moving forward,
even tired,
even aching,
carrying the quiet hope
that one day,
it won’t feel this hard.

That one day
will come.

I walk in light now,  
stronger, steadier,  
yet sometimes
I miss the rain.  

There was a strange, aching beauty  
in the way sadness wrapped around me,  
a soft, invisible hand  
pressing me deeper into myself.  

When the world cracked open,  
so did I
and in that breaking,  
I touched something pure,  
something even joy could not unveil.  

Sadness made every moment vivid:  
the weight of breath,  
the tremor of hands,  
the way a single tear  
could baptize an entire memory.  

It was not despair I loved,  
but the doorway it left ajar
the invitation to strip away everything false,  
and find, at the center,  
a tenderness so raw it almost sang.  

Even now,  
as I build, as I rise,  
there are nights I long  
for the blessed unraveling,  
for the heavy, holy ache  
that once taught me  
how much meaning lives  
in the quiet places pain touches  
and makes beautiful.

There’s a part of me
that only breathes
when the world blurs
into a window view,
and the sky
feels like it’s calling me
by name.

I was made for motion
for narrow streets lined with stories,
for bridges that hum with centuries,
for foreign tongues
that sound like poetry
to a soul aching for wonder.

Adventure isn't an escape
it's a return
to the parts of me
that feel most awake.
To sip wine under French balconies,
to lose myself in the alleys of Prague,
to let Florence teach me how
to see again.

One day, I’ll go.
Not to take photos,
not to check boxes
but to feel the cobblestones beneath my feet,
to breathe in the spices of open-air markets,
to meet strangers who feel
like old friends.

I don’t want a life
that repeats.
I want one that unfolds,
city by city,
until I’m old enough
to know I’ve truly lived.

Some nights I am not running
I am still.
Not happy, not sad,
just not hungry for more
because for a moment
I forget what I don’t have.

I make a home out of this silence,
lay down my fears like coats
on the cold floor of my heart,
and sit.

But then comes the boy.

The one with dust in his lungs
from screaming into pillows,
with hands too small to hold
the reasons no one stayed.

Even when I dress him
in the things I’ve earned
he still stares at me
with those ******* eyes,
asking why it still hurts
to be.

He doesn’t care
that I built something from fire.
He only asks
why the fire’s still inside me.

And some nights
I want to take a blade of thought
and cut that voice out,
carve away the part of me
that says I’ll never be whole,
never be worth the air I breathe.

But I get up.

I build again.
I shake hands, send emails, lift weights,
try to sculpt a man
from the ache of not being valued.

Every win is a window
I climb through
just to see if he’s still there.
And he always is
barefoot, bleeding
on the glass I left behind.

What no one tells you
about childhood trauma
is that it isn’t a story
you grow out of
it’s a script your bones memorize,
reciting it silently
even as you sing of peace.

Even with everything,
the boy survives.
And maybe just maybe
he’s waiting not to be fixed,
but to be heard.

Each day I move with purpose
not to become someone new,
but to return
to who I’ve always been.

We grow up thinking we’re flawed,
like something’s missing.
But no one is broken
some just started farther from the line,
had to climb a little more,
push a little harder.

Still, the choice is ours.
Growth is a habit,
a quiet decision made in the mirror,
in every rep, every breath,
every moment we decide to show up.

I’m not chasing perfection
I’m stepping into alignment.
Not fixing,
but remembering.

This is what freedom feels like:
living each day
as a reflection of your truth.

Peace isn’t passive
it’s earned
in motion,
in effort,
in choosing the path
that builds you.

And every day,
I choose it again.

On golden shores I dream of building,
a home where sunlight softly spills,
where lavender skies kiss turquoise waters,
and whispers dance on windowsills.

In southern France, where oceans breathe,
my house will rise from sand and sea,
yet its heart won’t beat in timber beams,
but in quiet peace, inside of me.

This home, no fortress carved from stone,
but woven from serenity’s thread
no voices raised, no stormy echoes,
only harmony gently spread.

For I've known walls that trapped my shadows,
corridors haunted by younger pains;
rooms where childhood's wounded whispers
painted darkness in cold refrains.

My lowest self still walks those hallways,
a ghost imprisoned in yesterday’s gloom.
But now I dream of doors wide open,
air scented softly by jasmine bloom.

In rooms adorned by tranquil silence,
curtains stirred by a tender breeze,
every space is filled with kindness,
each breath a note of calm release.

I’ll stand, in highest being,
bathed in sunrise, pure and clear
my spirit dancing, unafraid,
safe and whole, untouched by fear.

For homes aren't merely walls and rafters,
nor roofs to shelter from the rain;
they are sanctuaries we carry inward,
hearts where peace can bloom again.

So by the sea, I'll lay foundations,
a sanctuary true and free,
where my highest self awakens,
finding home at last in me.

I am a prism that only reflects one color at a time.
Obsession my god, my gravity
pulls all else into its orbit.

I’ve seen weeks dissolve like sugar in water,
all for a single pulse of focus,
a voice in my head saying more.

The devil is not separate from me
it is the whisper I cannot unhear,
the flick of a tongue inside my skull,
telling me I am powerful
only when I burn.

As a child, I threw fire just to feel seen.
Chaos raised me, and I mistook
its screaming for music.

Now I chase purpose like a vein
that never opens deep enough.

And when it breaks
when the high exhales
the silence is infinite.

Emptiness like a cathedral
where I kneel before no god,
just my own echo.

I am trying to be the angel on my own shoulder,
but the war never stops.

I need not one flame,
but many small fires.
Let balance be a kind of heat,
enough to keep me warm
without devouring the room.

When I was young,
I ran because I didn’t know how to stay.
The ball, the pavement, the open sky
they were my way of praying
without using words.
I’d play until the sun collapsed into dusk,
as if motion could soften
what love never reached.

No one noticed back then
that I was running toward feeling alive.
It was the only time
my heart beat for something
other than escape.

Those were the only memories that didn’t hurt.

And then, the other day
your voice came back to me:
“Do what makes you happy.”
So I ran again.
Not away this time,
but toward a boy I’d forgotten
the one who used to believe
freedom lived in his legs,
and hope waited just beyond
the next breathless stride.

It hit me
you were always like that.
Simple words,
but they stayed in me
long after the moment passed.

You never tried to be a savior.
You just were one.
Quietly.
Without needing credit.

Everything you gave
was laced with some kind of healing
you didn’t even realize you were offering.
Even your silences felt safe.
Even your laughter
felt like a door opening to the sun.

I think I’m just now realizing
I wasn’t only remembering how to run.
I was remembering you.

And how, even now,
it’s still your voice
pulling me back
to the parts of myself
that once felt too small to matter.

You always knew the way.
You were healing
not because you tried,
but because you lived
like love was still possible.

At seven, my heart learned sadness
a quiet theft of innocence,
the gentle pulse of life against my chest,
teaching me how fragile
forever truly is.

Days shrank to precious minutes,
as if holding you closer
could somehow slow time,
your warmth a whisper
I begged to keep hearing.

The morning arrived uninvited,
unfair in its sunrise,
forcing goodbye from lips
too young to speak such words,
a child waving softly,
unaware how final
goodbyes could be.

Years stretch now behind me,
but that day remains
pressed inside my chest
like an old, familiar ache
the sting of tears fresh
as if you’d left this morning,
not a lifetime ago.

I can still feel
your fur beneath my fingers,
your small body breathing gently,
the world unfair in ways
I learned too soon
and never forgot.

After all this time,
that first sorrow lingers,
unsoftened by age,
unfaded by memories,
the heart of a child
still grieving, still holding on
to what it never learned
how to let go.

I remember laying on the cold earth as a child,
watching a sky heavy with secrets,
when the first snow flurry brushed my cheek
a hush so soft I could have drifted away,
wrapped warm in my jacket,
the world outside fading
until only comfort remained.

At my grandparents’ house,
sunlight spilled across the kitchen floor in the morning,
and my grandmother’s sandwiches arrived like small miracles,
each bite a kind of promise
that the world was gentle here.
Every hug with them was an anchor,
every moment of excitement a burst of belonging
my heart at ease, my nervous system quietly humming
in the certainty of love.

But it was France,
in a tucked-away little room on the first floor of a strange house,
where I discovered what peace could feel like
for my body and soul.
There, the bed waited beneath white curtains,
the windows open to a gentle wind
that made the curtains dance,
soft as dreams.
I lay down, weightless,
a soft blanket pulled to my chin,
and drifted into the kind of nap
where anything felt possible
the world stilled, my mind a blank canvas,
filled only by the magic of being safe.

Now I understand
Peace is more than memory,
it’s the calm that fills my chest when the world is gentle,
the ease that settles in my bones,
the safety that softens every breath.
It’s a nervous system at rest,
a body unburdened,
a quiet mind that finally trusts where it is.

Wherever I find this stillness
in winter’s hush,
in sunlit kitchens,
in the sway of white curtains,
I know I am home.
Peace lives inside me now,
teaching me that calm and safety are not places,
but a way my whole self can feel
when I let the world be soft
and trust that I am safe.

I watch him now
the little boy I once was,
arms wide open, spinning beneath
his first snowfall,
eyes lit with uncontainable wonder.
Snowflakes kissing his cheeks,
melting into laughter,
nothing more precious
than the delicate miracle
falling softly from the sky.

There he is,
pure and weightless,
untouched by the gravity
of worthiness and achievement.
No goals set, no mountains yet to climb
just a gentle whisper from the clouds,
telling him it's beautiful
simply to exist.

How did I lose him?
Where along this winding path
did I trade wonder for worth,
presence for purpose,
and quiet joy
for the endless hunger
to prove I belong?

I’m here,
watching a video of innocence
that feels worlds away.
I miss that child
who knew no moment
was ever wasted,
that happiness was not
earned, but given freely
like snow.

Let me find him again
in gentle silence,
to hold the falling flakes
in palms not burdened by ambition,
to taste the air
without guilt or shame,
to breathe deeply
and remember that
before everything else,
I am allowed
to simply be.

I still speak to you,
because you're that close
a part of the air between thoughts,
a presence soft as breath.

Sometimes I catch myself
smiling mid-thought,
because I know exactly
what you’d say.
And it’s perfect.
It always is.

You never needed a map
to find where I was.
You just showed up there
a quiet knowing in your eyes,
a warmth that told me
I never had to translate myself.

You were the only one
who understood
my spirals, my quiet corners,
my unspoken questions.
You met them like old friends.

I think of you
when I create,
when I overthink,
when I see something small
and beautiful
that most people would miss.

You
the one who held belief like fire,
who wore empathy like armor,
who stood rooted in her knowing
like the world couldn’t shake her.

When I imagine the future,
the life I am shaping slowly,
with hands patient as earth and time,
I dream not of grandeur,
but of something tender:

Of sitting beneath a willow tree in the hush of autumn
leaves trembling like small prayers before they fall,
the air steeped in gold and quiet.
A notebook open in my lap,
ink flowing like breath turned visible.

I picture painting without perfection,
colors bleeding softly into one another,
or reading words that do not demand solving
only feeling.
Only wonder.

The breeze threads itself through my hair
with the gentleness of old love,
and the sun lowers itself with reverence,
laying its tired light upon the horizon’s tender curve.

In this dream I am lifted by nothing but presence,
the hum of creation moving quietly through my veins,
rooted wholly in what I know is sacred:

That I am no longer running.
Not from sorrow, not from longing,
not from the aching tenderness of simply being alive.

Instead, I am living
whole, unfinished, at peace.
And in that soft, unhurried hour beneath the willow tree,
this life I have found,
is finally enough.
More than enough.

There are days when I wake up
and the blueprint of my life
has redrawn itself overnight,
walls I thought were solid
turning to mist, doors gone missing,
the rooms I once called mine
now echo with questions,
my hands tired from trying to build
and rebuild a future out of shifting ground.

I keep searching for a foundation
that won’t crack beneath my feet,
somewhere I can set down
my dreams and know they’ll stay
but the map keeps folding itself
in new directions, every corner
asking me to become someone new.

It’s exhausting to keep losing
what I’ve barely begun to love,
to watch the colors I painted fade
before I can step back and call it home.
Sometimes all I want is a quiet space
where nothing needs to change,
where I can let time gather
like soft dust on windowsills,
proving that I was here, that something stayed.

Maybe someday, the blueprints
will settle and let me rest,
letting me believe in forever,
even if only for a little while
I hold hope
like a hidden key in my pocket,
and keep building, even as the ground moves,
knowing that what I truly long for
might be the most human thing of all.

I press my palm against the bark of ancient oak
and feel the pulse of centuries I'll never know
each ring a secret whispered in the dark,
each leaf a letter written in a language
that dies before I learn to read it.

The sky bleeds gold at evening's edge,
and I am small beneath its vastness,
a child with cupped hands
trying to catch the ocean.
Light travels ninety-three million miles
just to break against my retina,
for reasons I cannot name.

Why must we ache for answers
that crumble like autumn leaves
the moment we think we've grasped them?

I watch a sparrow build a nest
with such fierce certainty,
while I armed with all my questions,
all my telescopes and theories
still cannot fathom
why my heart beats
in rhythm with the tides,
why my breath follows
the same ancient pattern
as wind through wheat.

There is a mathematics to mourning,
a physics to the way grief bends light,
but no equation for the way
morning glory vines
know exactly when to open,
or why their purple faces
look like prayers.

I am haunted by the elegance
of things I'll never understand:
how photons dance themselves
into the green of summer grass,
how my grandmother's eyes
still live in mine.

The universe keeps its counsel
while dropping breadcrumbs
of beauty at our feet
a cardinal's call at dawn,
the perfect spiral of a shell,
the way rain sounds different
on every kind of pain.

We are archaeologists of wonder,
digging through the layers
of what we think we know,
only to find beneath each answer
ten thousand more questions,
each one more tender
than the last.

And maybe that's the point
not to solve the mystery
but to be worthy of it,
to let it break us open
again and again
until we are nothing
but grateful light
scattered across
the infinite dark.

Through silver mist, my paddle dips,
A gentle glide where silence slips,
My canoe whispers secrets to the lake
Chasing echoes your ghostly wake.

Veiled in fog, my path unclear,
Yet drawn forward, I feel you near.
Each Paddle a question softly cast,
Through waters calm, beyond the past.

Your presence, magic woven thin,
Guides my heart, this trance I'm in.
The pond breathes slow beneath my hand,
Pulling gently toward unknown land.

I chase the shadow of your glow,
Where lilies dream and whispers flow.
Through misty worlds my soul aligns
In fog, your memory intertwines.

No rush, just peace, a calm embrace,
I paddle toward your gentle trace.
The mystery holds no fear for me,
For in this fog, you're all I see.

Beneath the hush, I'm safely led,
By ghostly trails your spirit’s shed.

Sometimes I sit and stare into the sky
and wonder:
Does anything ever truly last,
or do all things leave quietly
with the changing seasons?

I look to the clouds with gratitude
because I know one day
I won’t be able to see them again.

There’s a tenderness in their passing.
A softness in knowing
that beauty visits briefly,
then disappears like breath into air.

I sometimes find myself
caught between wonder and distance
watching something magical
while dissociating in my own mind,
aware, even as it unfolds,
that I may never feel this exact moment again.

That thought makes things sharper.
Makes them more fragile, more precious.
I don’t hold them tighter.
I just watch.
And let them pass through me
like light through glass,
leaving a trace,
but never staying.

Maybe that’s what it means to live:
to witness beauty,
to feel the ache of its leaving,
and to still look up at the sky,
thankful for what remains.

All my dreams feel real.
So vivid, so precise,
I cannot tell
whether I am waking,
or wandering through some secret doorway.

Everything is perfect,
one to one,
every color the exact hue it should be,
every shadow falling just as it does
in the world I call my own.

It’s like Inception,
where I can’t tell what’s real
and you’re still here,
and everything is perfect.
I hold onto it because I want to believe
this is the world we belong to.

Sometimes,
even within the dream,
I ask myself aloud:
Is this real?
Am I dreaming?
And some soft voice,
sometimes mine, sometimes not,
answers quietly:
Does it matter?

Because in those moments,
the sky holds its breath for me.
The ground feels no different beneath my feet.
The faces I meet
smile as if they’ve known me always.

But toward the end,
when the dream begins to unravel,
the walls grow thin,
and I feel it slipping
all of it
you, the light, the warmth.
I lose everything.
And somehow it hurts even more
when I wake up

I wake
carrying fragments
a street I’ve never walked,
a scent that fades too fast,
the echo of my own voice
saying things I didn’t know I needed to hear.

What is real, after all,
but the places our hearts linger,
and the worlds we can’t quite leave behind
when morning comes.

I stand at the edge of memory's clearing,
watching my childhood home consumed
by flame, by the cruel erosion of time,
each beam of laughter crackling,
each wall of safety collapsing inward
like a prayer spoken backwards.

The wildfire sweeps through everything:
Saturday mornings thick with pancake steam,
the way sunlight used to pool
in the corner where I built my kingdoms
from cardboard boxes and infinite dreams.

I am paralyzed, a child again,
hands pressed against invisible glass,
screaming at the inferno
that devours the sanctuary I called home.

Smoke fills my lungs with the bitter taste
of all I cannot save:
the creaking floorboard that announced my midnight wanderings,
the kitchen table scarred with homework tears
and birthday cake celebrations.

But listen
in the crackling of loss,
in the hiss of vanishing,
something else stirs.

From the white-hot core of grief,
wings unfurl like broken prayers
learning to fly again.
I am the ember that refused to die,
the stubborn spark,
to the hungry flames of forgetting.

What rises from these ashes
is not the home I lost
it is me, transformed,
carrying the warmth of every moment
that mattered enough to burn eternal,
my heart a furnace where love
learned to make itself immortal.

The phoenix knows this truth:
some things must be consumed
before they can become holy,
before they can learn to soar
on wings made of everything
we thought we'd lost forever.

I am both the fire and the rising,
both the child who watched it burn
and the child who learned to fly.

Every day I wake with a question inside,
drifting between mirrors,
searching for the face behind the fog
who am I,
who am I becoming,
where will my wandering take me?

I carry an ancient ache,
wisdom worn smooth by lifetimes
hidden beneath my skin,
yet inside my chest a child still clings
to simple joys, old wounds,
and the trembling hush of being seen.

There’s a fracture I trace with gentle fingers,
lines of distortion only I can feel,
shapes and shadows swirling
where sense and sensation refuse to meet.
Sometimes, a thing will turn my stomach
I recoil,
not from logic
but from something wordless,
old as fear.

It’s strange to hold so much knowing
and so much confusion
in the same gentle hands.
Strange to despise what reason allows,
to stand at the crossroads of intuition and thought,
lost in the silent argument between them.

Still, I keep walking,
willing to meet the parts of myself
that make no sense at all
letting questions bloom like wildflowers
in the fields between
who I was
and who I might yet become.

All night, the brushes bristle
with unsteady prayers,
oil and terror in every sweep,
each canvas a battlefield
between memory and madness,
between longing and loss.

He paints in fever,
his trembling hand chasing ghosts
across gessoed plains,
trying to mend the world
with color and chaos
a smudge for each regret,
a highlight for every hope
he’s drowned in turpentine.

The house groans and blurs
behind him,
rooms melting into each other
like faces on the page,
shapes that won’t hold still,
voices splintering in the walls
they whisper, paint,
paint,
paint,
until there is nothing left
but cracked varnish
and the echo of “almost.”

He paints what he lost:
her laughter in morning light,
the gentle reach of hands
he can’t recall in detail
only the ache,
the hollow,
the unfinished lines
he keeps returning to.

Perfection dangles, just out of reach,
each stroke carving him hollow
as his world frays at the edges
canvas peeling back
to reveal the wound
he cannot heal.

He whispers to the silence,
to the shadows gathering thick as oil
Finish it for me.
His plea stains the air,
weightless as dust,
hoping someone
even in the next room,
or the next life
will take the brush
and find the shape
of what he could not complete.

In the end,
he paints and paints,
chasing the ghost of a masterpiece,
painting himself out of the world,
leaving behind
one trembling signature,
unfinished
waiting
for a gentler hand
to finish it for him.