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 Jun 1
badwords
She walks with grace, a quiet tide,
No need for doors; they open wide.
Her presence felt before she's seen,
A shadow cast, a space between.

Her hair a crown of chaos worn,
A tapestry of life forlorn.
Her alabaster skin aglow,
A canvas pale, the moonlight's throw.

Her voice is soft, a tender hum,
A song that calls, “Your time has come.”
Yet in her gaze, no cruel decree,
Just quiet truth and certainty.

Her steps are light, her path aligned,
No chains to bind, no wrath confined.
A necklace swings, an ankh, a key,
Unlocking what is meant to be.

She doesn't judge, she doesn't scorn,
She greets the weary, scarred, and worn.
No need for malice, force, or fire,
For all will answer her desire.

She whispers hope to those who weep,
A promise made, “Forever sleep.”
For in her arms, there lies release,
A final breath, a quiet peace.

Yet in her wake, some still resist,
Clutching life with trembling fist.
But even they will one day learn,
All roads will lead to her return.

Death is not the end they fear,
But a companion, always near.
With gentle hand, she clears the way,
And guides the lost to night from day.
I rescue abandoned dogs
like my abandoned kids
dissapear in the rear view
and I close my eyelids.
 Jun 1
Eshwara Prasad
I prayed and called out
those who had left long ago,
some returned,
God, within me stays
and hears me.
 Jun 1
Renee C
Precocious baby, tempered to a china-blue hue, you
Had not been ripe as a morning glory
Before riots mongered in the plasma of your shapeless head.

Haunting as an omen, you
Had drank from the cord of my cold-blooded artery.
Turned my insides out like a shimmering dime bag
As we fell to the earth.
5 months clean from ice
 Jun 1
Anais Vionet
(Maddy’s Music challenge:
“Write a poem based on three words from a song.”
Song: 'Words of love' by the Beatles 1964
)

I’m the harshest critic,
the truest of nonbelievers,
when words of love are used.
Soapy words will not deliver
so please stop trying to be smooth.

Don’t compare me to a summer’s day!
I know that’s from some Broadway play.

Waste not flattery’s rose
praise not my grace,
at least not to my face,
you’re better off praising my clothes.

Forgo sweetness, promise nothing
then you may be onto something
say it, straight up, I won’t faint
trust me, sir, I am no saint.
.
.
A song for this:
Words of love by the Beatles
 May 31
Blueberry Ice
One night, I lay on the roof of my uncle’s car,
the hush of metal beneath my back,
the sky a cathedral of stars above me.
I was ten—
barefoot, breathless,
a soft creature still untouched by the weight of knowing.

I gazed upward,
as if the constellations could answer questions
I didn’t yet know how to ask.

And a strange thought drifted through the dark:
Will I remember this?
This stillness, this smallness,
this girl stretched across a car roof
believing the stars were close enough to touch.

Now I wonder—
how odd it is to know someone so well
who knows nothing of me.
She lives in my marrow,
but I am a ghost to her.
A whisper never spoken.
A future never imagined.

She couldn’t have foreseen
the weight I would carry,
the cracks I’d survive,
the nights I would look up,
but no longer feel wonder.

Did she know
we would be alright?
Or that “alright” would mean enduring
a thousand quiet heartbreaks
before finding the strength
to reach for the stars again?

If I could fold the sky and speak through time,
I’d tell her—
You made it. You did so well.
Thank you for holding on when it was hardest.
Thank you for dreaming when the world was still kind.
You planted the seeds.
I only grew from your light.

And to the woman I am yet to meet—
the future self still waiting in the wings of time—
I don’t know your face,
only the shimmer of your possibility.

But I promise you this:
I will keep going.
For you.
Through every storm,
every silence,
every starless night.

Know me
as the girl who stayed.
Who bore the weight.
Who held on.

And when it's your turn—
fly.
 May 31
badwords
they said the clown was sorrow-shaped.
so I looped up in greasepaint—
swallowed a sunbeam,
coughed out a smirk,
and called the ache comedy.

somebody whispered
i fear the bruise.
nah,
i catalogue it.
line breaks for scars,
syntax for shame,
run the hurt through a voice modulator
’til even god can’t tell if i’m praying or riffing.

i’m not dodging the wreckage.
i just built a couch in it.
named the crater: “home?”
drank laughter from a cracked thermos
and kept warm in the glow of a rerun i never starred in.

i’ll play the ghost
if the script pays in quiet.
but don’t staple my name to your healing
and call it holy.

the truth?
clowns rot too.

some nights
i wanna peel off the latex,
lose the joke,
shave the wig,
and just exist—
not perform pain
in a dialect
you can quote later.
 May 31
Todd Sommerville
I love to walk through cemeteries
reading all the stones.

Not the names so much
as the stories that are told.

I really like the old ones
where the live oaks grow.

And the dead lie in shaded
gardens planted all in rows.

Marble angels look towards heaven,
with weathered wings and robes.

stone cherubs represent nameless babies
from a hundred years ago.

Fine cut pillars of the hardest stone,
mark graves of rich men who died alone.

and in the farthest corners
the small cement stones.

barely readable names
of people no one knows.

But the soil is no worse
here than it is over there.

And the angel in the center
just pretends to cry.

Honestly, she doesn't care.
There is a tiny cemetery across the street from my driveway it's a family cemetery. the family owned a plantation years ago most of the stones are the same last name except for a few in the corner which are just unmarked pieces of slate.  I was told these were graves of some of the house slaves.
Servant and Master all share the same place in the end!
 May 31
Kurt Philip Behm
Wrap your poem
around nothing
its bow mocked
in relief
Each word
but a gesture
of empty
deceit

Wrap your verse
in a vacuum
where all speech
is abhorred
The power
of emptiness
alone
— and unscored

(Dreamsleep: May, 2025)
 May 31
badwords
i wrote the ache down,
filed it under temp/data/emotions_v27/
and still—
it boots at startup.

don’t ask me where it hurts.
it’s in the whitespace.
it’s in the semicolon i forgot to place
between “i’m fine”
and “but.”

you think this is poetry?
nah.
this is me
trying to make the silence less slippery.

i’ve been laughing in sans-serif
so nobody prints me in italics.

i bury metaphors like landmines
because i don't want your sympathy—
i want your uncertainty.

this isn’t an elegy.
it’s a system restore point.

and if you’re reading this,
know:
i didn’t survive it to write about it.
i wrote about it
so i wouldn’t code myself out of the scene.
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