Hello ? hello ? hello ?
Anyone out there ? anyone out there ? there’s nobody out there.

This house doesn’t echo ‘cause it’s empty —
It echoes ‘cause I talk to the walls,
and they talk back
with everything my mother,
my father,
my brothers and sisters,
my friends,
and my lovers
never said.

You see, recently, I’ve been sleeping like I’m training for death,
my breathing’s been shallow,
my dreams have been hollow,
waking up just to forget
why I even went to bed… in the first place.

The silence claps, filling the room, — applause for my pain,
and I swear:
even my shadow’s been walking away.
My bed’s a grave I visit nightly,
only to wake up and
restitch my smile nice and tightly,
just so everyone can see
just how happy I can be.

The other day, I wrote a list of reasons to live —
ran out of ink after two.
Wrote “sunsets” and “maybe,”
then scratched 'em both through.
Every “I love you” I’ve heard
was a debt disguised,
a loan with interest
that never arrived.
For them, I know it was just empty breath:
no heart,
no soul,
no vow,
no truth.
Always less, and never more —
just echoes behind this closed door.
As they left me alone,
blindly deciding
it’d be okay for me to love myself
on my own.

They yelled out behind that door:
“James you’re not alone,”
“We’ll always be here for you!”
but no one ever knocked.
Only ghosts with names like Almost,
and clocks that tick and tock in Morse code
for stop.
Tick tick tick—
Tock.
And now even my watch
has begun to mock
the very bitterness…
that resides within these walls.

My chest’s a locked box
where light doesn’t get.
My thoughts?
Wet matches.
That can’t spark—
just create ash.
I choose not to water my plants
like I’m praying they die,
just so something else understands
what it feels like
to try
and try
and try
and still…
not be remembered.

I’ve screamed into the universe
like voicemail—
begging for anyone or anything
to give me the recognition I needed.
No return.
I lit myself on fire for warmth,
and watched
the cold not burn.
This ain’t poetry.
It’s my farewell in rehearsal,
a symphony of silence
in a one-man circle.

I don’t want to die.
I never wanted to,
and I never will.
But I can’t keep living like this—
half death,
half plea.
So when you hear this:
Don’t cry.
Don’t clap.
Just breathe.
Because that breath
represents more love
than I ever believed
was for me.

I only ever needed three things:
I. love. you.
You could have saved me.

You made me soft, then mocked the mess,
Treated love like a game, now confess the stress.
I was loyal like a knight, you were jesterin’ lies,
Fed me gaslight meals while I starved for replies.

You called love “too much,” like deep's a disease,
Now you cry on your feed like I broke your peace?
Nah, girl  . I begged for bare effort, got less,
Now you flaunt change like a thrift-store dress.

"New era"  cute. “New me”  cap.
Still the same fake vibes in a recycled trap.
You wanna be deep? You post some quotes?
Cool , I wrote novels while you choked on notes.

You ghosted real. You coasted chill.
Now I’m the ghost that haunts you still.
Sayin’ “I miss you”  you miss control,
But I ain’t your puppet  I burned that role.

I held you up, when you held me down,
Now I wear the crown while you chase this town.
I gave you soul  you gave me stress,
Now I’m blessed and you’re just pressed.

So don’t act sad, like love just died,
You watched it bleed, girl you let it slide.
You had the keys to a heart that roared,
But you chose silence, now hear this chord:


“I could destroy you in one line flat,
But I’m healed now and you ain’t worth that.”
So I’ll leave this beat with one last hit:
You lost a real one.

Read that. Sit.

Do you ever wish,
you could redo it
all
over
again?

Go back to when
there were no problems,
or at least
no real problems.

A time I can’t even remember anymore
let alone imagine,
No pressure or worries?
back to a flowing, carefree entity…

All the what ifs?
they will always gnaw at me,
would I like to satiate them,
or are they better off starved?

Although, I know
the future doesn’t wait,
so some time or another
it will arrive.

And there will always be
more bad things to happen,
more good things to happen,
more losses than wins

So would I try to escape or
accept what I cannot change
and keep going
anyway?

I feel like those old abandoned factories-

My heart, a shattered window
My legs, crumbling bricks
My thoughts, muddled graffiti
My whole body, rusted and broken down

But I still stand.
Like that dilapidated factory,
through suffering, it also stands
even in its ruined state.

But then, suddenly,
shards of light
cast a spectral play
through fractured panes,
an almost ethereal experience
it is so rare.

Still, hope glimmers,
and after a while,
wildflowers bloom,
stretching across the span,
reclaiming the ruins,
growing over the brokenness,
not in spite of it
but because of it.

I never know
the right thing to say, or do
but you don’t either
so it’s okay.

Maybe I talk too much sometimes,
and I freeze
when you look at me,
like that.

We’re not like a movie couple,
our love is raw and messy,
but it’s true
and that’s what counts.

And maybe one day
we’ll go our separate ways—
but what we have now
is something.
And I’ll always,
love you.

A musician strums a sorrowful song
chords ringing loud enough
for his little girl,
who sleeps in the earths embrace,
six feet deep.

A woman files paperwork,
answers relentless emails,
and even stacks her grief in neat piles,
but it’s only her distraction
from nine to five…

A girl avoids mirrors
because it hurts to see
how she traced pain
along forearms and thighs
‘damaged’ ‘ugly’ ‘ruined’, she thinks,

A mother screams
about clothes on the floor
and unwashed dishes
because the silence of her broken home
scares her more than feigned anger.

A writer spends endless nights
scrawling lovesick thoughts,
and morose notes
on scrappy, tear stained paper
no one will ever see.

A teenage boy, never at home
swallows pills like promises
whilst he loses himself
in the haze
of a swirling smoke room

An old man looks out the window
of his care home
and names clouds after the ones he loved
while he waits for someone
who will never come.

If you look close enough-
Everyone is in pain.
And that’s the truth,
the real, visceral truth,
but we carry on.