I want to build a sandcastle
Sturdy and tall-
With towers and turrets
And cool shells on the walls.

A tower of books
As high as magic will grow it,
A balcony glowing
When the moonlight shows it.

I want a coral garden
Sprawling wide at the edge,
With tide pools like secrets
And starfish living along each ledge

There’d be laughter in the halls,
And windows facing the sea-
A peaceful place to live where I can exist as me

Seahorses in each stable-
Pampered and content,
Turtles everywhere happy to hear me vent

And when the tide comes and sweeps it all away
I'll have no tears to shed, I can build another the next day

Our memories are our secret,

only we can navigate their corridors,

only we bear the weight

of love that devoured and pain unspeakable.

We know the agony of unravelling two souls,

once certain they'd found home,

only to carve a void,

grasping at fragments too broken to mend.



The void remains…

I needed you to love me,

more than the numbness you drowned in.

I thought if I could piece you together,

I might somehow make myself whole.

But it was you who broke the chains,

that bound us,

pleading for my freedom,

as if I had ever wanted to be free.

Yet you never truly left, did you?



How can I grasp joy

when your absence lingers like a breath I can't

release?

Perhaps my soul remains entangled

in the silhouette of yours.

I am rich with reason to smile,

For I became the shape of your longing, moulded

my life into what you dreamt for me.

But love is never selfish,

So now I carry the weight of what was broken,

the ghost of what we almost had,

knowing love was never meant to be won,

only given, only lost.

You play a better game than me
It's fair to say, it's plain to see
In terms of distraction
You're better at pretending
That I'm not always there
A silent flare

Radio silence
We don't acknowledge
But I don't need you to
I know I'm a patient pin
Sitting just under your skin

I'm waiting for you to break
To bend, to blow
The process is slow
But the finale will be
The greatest show

How long will you last?
How long before you cave?
Resistance is futile
Give me your attention
It's all that I crave.

I am caught, in your eye,
and I drown, in your tectonic wave.
You rattle, intimately,
for me, and shake...

You shift,
minutely,
soundlessly,

collapsing, into sprawling patterns,
into formulaic strains, of madness.
Then you madden, me, as you cascade,
into beautiful, and brilliant shades:

Your Rorschach mosaics,
in prismatic hues.
Each gemlike, facet, of YOU, that is you...

Burning out my gaze,
with your radiance,
as you irradiate...

I'd give anything...to label each color,
that infuses, your face...

Scattering trickles of light,
and roseate shapes...

as if your soul,
were a treasure trove,
of the most precious jewels.

Your vibrant emeralds...
your smoky citrines...
your sapphire blues...
your ruby reds,
and your royal amethysts, too

You twist, in my hands...
and, under the light,
I turn, and return, too,
if only to seek,
a fleeting glimpse...of you.

. (or: the slow mercy of being forgotten) .

I keep the lights dim now—
not out of mood,
but because shadows are gentler
when you no longer belong to the future.

The watch still doesn’t tick.
I wear it anyway.
Not to remember time,
but to remind myself I once commanded it.

His coat is still here,
draped over the back of the chair
like an exhale that forgot to finish.

Some nights I sleep beside it.
It doesn’t smell like him anymore.

I replay our first conversation like a hymn
missing half its words.
I remember what I said.
I don’t remember if I meant it.

The bed is quieter than it should be.
Not empty—just echoing
with choices I let make themselves.

I heard he’s moved on.
Young lover, new city,
same crooked smile
twisting someone else’s orbit.

And good.
Let him become legend
in someone else's story.
I already built a temple
he burned into blueprint.

I tried to write him a letter once.
It became a list.
Then a poem.
Then silence.

I left it unfinished.
Some things are meant to haunt,
not conclude.

There’s a thunderstorm tonight.
I sit by the window with a glass of nothing
and watch the sky argue with itself.

For a second,
the lightning looks like him.

And for the briefest flicker—
just long enough to ache—

I believe I was loved.

{fin}