Golden roads
call brave
      from the stillness,
      where no map shows the way
      I felt the breath of something ancient
      stir the morning’s gray.

Mountains blinked
with clouds
      and silence said aloud,
      “This doubt you feel is the gate,
      where all the great must bow.”

Every storm
tastes bitter,
       but only on the tongue;
       for those who keep on walking,
       find their spirit sung.

Watch shadows
become guides,
      when fear begins to preach.
      Let it speak, but don’t obey
      your dreams lie just out of reach.

Burn bridges
behind doubt,
      if it means you’ll finally climb
      to where the world opens wide
      and truth keeps perfect time.

No falsehood
Life holds stars,
      they shine for the brave and bold;
      and all who dare to walk fates path              
      they will feel their purpose unfold.

So leap.
Jump breath held
      Trust falling,
      into the firelight unseen.
      For doubt is but the dragon’s trick
      your path was always keen.

Don’t be sorry — that’s just noise people make when they want to look decent without changing a thing.

Don’t explain — that’s just smoke people blow when they’re hoping you’ll forget they lit the match.

Don't be sorry be careful.

When the Moon Refused the Sea
I found the night beneath my nails,
black with the silence of undone prayers.
The stars were dull coins in a wishing jar
that no god ever shook.

I planted laughter in the soil
but nothing bloomed
except a vine of sighs
and the soft decay of maybe.

The wind spoke in riddles I once knew,
before language bled from my mouth
like wine from a cracked chalice.
Now even my dreams stutter
in dialects of ash.

A mirror broke inside me
the day the moon refused the sea
left the tide to curl like smoke
and the shore to whisper, “wait.”

Where are the ones who used to sing
with oil lamps lit in their ribs?
Where are the dancers
who knew how to bleed into rhythm
and still rise?

Tonight, I carry a lantern of salt.
It burns only for those
who have loved something
that could not love them back.

And still
I walk toward morning.
Barefoot.
Unbelieving.
But burning all the same.

they don’t sleep.
they submit.
bodies boxed in concrete coffins,
ten floors high, a hundred deep
paper-thin walls where arguments
bleed through like veins under skin.

fluorescent guilt buzzes louder than breath.
no dreams.
just the dull hum of lightbulbs choking
on what they used to mean.

sky?
that’s just bruise-stained ceiling.
nobody looks up.
we already know
what’s not there.

children speak silence fluently
tongues trained in broken things.
they read eviction notices
before bedtime stories.

mothers rock infants in overdraft arms,
crooning hymns of unpaid light.
fathers vanish
not with thunder, but with rust,
names ash on window corners,
like they never learned how to stay.

the street don’t whisper,
it grinds.
the sidewalk sings in fractured teeth.
there’s gospel in the gutter,
but it’s all static,
all rust and cigarette ends.

you want salvation?
ask the liquor store.
they sell God in plastic bottles
and false hope,
2-for-1.

aisles stacked with plastic joy,
bright things for broken hands.
price tags read like ransom notes—
freedom leased in thirty months.
a sale on silence.
a discount on despair.

the rain comes through the roof again.
they call it rhythm.
we call it giving up slowly.

still, we pray.
to blue screens,
to blinking routers,
to gods that filed for bankruptcy
in '08.

and me?
I came with paper.
with policy.
with polished shoes and smiling ink.
a badge that said “Hope Officer”
but meant
“We’ll study your suffering later.”

they said uplift.
I gave speeches that tasted like chalk.
they said restore faith.
I handed them mirrors.
they shattered.

I tried.
I swear I ******* tried.
but the ceiling kept lowering
and the floor
kept giving out.

now I walk
coat tight,
head down,
the city murmuring suicide
in lightposts and passing trains.

every window a wound.
every bus stop a confessional booth.
every breath
another god that didn’t answer.

this place is a psalm of what’s left
after justice forgets your name.
after the future skips your bloodline.
after the hymns
turn hollow.

I mourned with many,
but alone
I bore the weight no tears had shown.
For they were gone
their spark, their flame,
The one who taught my soul its name.

They came when youth was raw and blind,
And etched their songs into my mind.

And now they’re gone,
but I remain
A voice shaped softly by their flame.

I struck my skin upon the barren thorn,
And life-red rose to surface, warm.
I stared into it—bubble-deep,
As from the wound, my skin did weep.

It traced a path slow to the floor,
Reminding me of days before,
And all the roads I dared to tread
Each drop, a whisper of paths I've fled.

It showed the way I made it down,
From mountain smile to valley frown.
Each fall returned me to my start,
A bleeding map of shattered heart.

The droplets fell with quiet grace,
Coating grey cement’s cold face.
At first, it seemed a wasteful spill,
Like years I'd lost against my will.

But then, with every crimson line,
I saw the tears I’d left behind
Each drop a ghost, a dried-up cry,
That never found the ground to dry.

Oh wise poet, tell me something that is true...

In life, there are two certainties:
“Death comes for all of us,
and every man pays taxes.”

There is no greater truth than this...