today the orc
was caught in the field
the drone came flying
he couldn't outrun it
or hit it with the bag
the explosion made him fall
the multiple wounds visible
the overview drone zooms in
blood and fragments
and the last gasping breaths
before death
agonal breathing is the term
and even from the distance
one could see the eyes fade
and a gentle regret
as he became waste.

today the orc tried to hide
under water, on a small muddy stream
the drone drop seemed to miss
at first
but the fragment hit him
somewhere in the brain
and like a turtle on its shell
he lost control
and drowned on that river
no deeper than a meter.

today the orc heard the drop
on his trench, ran out
but it was too late
and half his face
was blown off
as he squirmed
blind, hugging his knees
a sitting fetal position
confused and bewildered
such ended his mission.

today the orc gave up
dead comrades all around
he lay against a dirt wall
held the rifle between his legs
end of barrel aimed at neck
confirmed the safety was off
and off he went to nowhere
nothing gained and nothing lost
a waste of time for us all.

today the orc hid on a puddle bank
lying very still, holding his breath
the drone above already locked-in
his heart must have raced
with adrenaline
like a sick game of hide and seek
but when the bomb dropped
on him
and he was split apart
between the gory as ****
the heart was fully exposed
beating normally, if a bit slowly
the wreckage of Man
from a rubble of flesh and meat
I thought, something must be wrong
with me
as I watched all this
on a subreddit
but not as wrong
as the orcs
providing this twenty first
century content
on my phone.

do you still remember who you were
when you first fell in love
and that ball of healing light
cured it all?
and the promise overcame
doubt
and the challenges a chance
to shout to the universe
"you can even take it all,
but this right now,
this one is never gone"
a simple change in
perception and focus
changes everything
you don't have to call it love
again
but you can
get well
from it

watching
my plants
forgive me
in slow
green
inches
after
every
drought

family is always best
at pushing buttons
triggers ready
while safety is off
but at last
some rest
for how can I afford
to get upset
when I'm discovering
in real time
if my body needs to puke
or I'm about to faint
or if the constipation
might turn into an explosive
evacuation
at the last minute.
yet another hidden gem
from this gift that keeps on giving
which is
slowly being poisoned
again

Every morning I wake up to notifications designed by gods
who think they know what I want to click on next—
**** on my racism app again?
or is it racism on my **** app?
The algorithms got confused
mixing up all our beautiful human hate
with our beautiful human desire
until every swipe is just dopamine roulette.

You know they've got teams of people
sorting through pictures of ******* and **** flags
trying to figure out which ones violate
their "community guidelines"—
as if any community ever got together
and decided what guidelines they wanted
between pictures of their breakfast
and their cousin's manifesto.

Remember when we had to work
to find things to be angry about?
Now they feed it to us like digital cereal
Pre-sorted, pre-digested
Pre-approved outrage
In bite-sized pieces of careful hate
That won't get flagged by the system
Because the system is too busy
Looking for exposed skin
In renaissance paintings.

The future isn't what we expected—
It's just endless scrolling
Through everyone's worst moments
Carefully curated by machines
That learned to profit
From our emptiness.

the doctor drinks alone in rooms full of people while the diagnostic
machines hum their mechanical lullabies and somewhere
in a ***** apartment someone is writing about truth
which begins in lies the way all healing begins in pain

and who are we to separate the fever from the cure
the bottle from the blood the word from the wound
when every morning brings another diagnosis
another reason to doubt what we called certain

let us speak then of honest frauds and corrupt saints
of the perfect symmetry of broken things
how every cigarette burns closer to clarity
while the nurses make their rounds in heaven

and if you ask me which is more true
the test results or the trembling hand
I will tell you that beauty lies in neither
but in the space between where doubt drinks deeply

and goes on and on without commas or full stops
because that's how the truth moves through our bodies
like a disease we mistake for healing like a lie
we mistake for love like a poem we mistake for life

that which is naturally salient to you
informs you of your past
that which you choose to be salient to you
shall carry you forward
the fact you can even choose
or even just being aware
of such a term - salience
is perhaps the greatest tool
contained in just
eight letters

my poems are short
because I am impatient
the tension must be resolved
quickly
if you or I wanted edging
**** would be a better
and quicker
way of doing
it
my poems are funny
in that nonchalant
way
occasionally somber
and melancholic
so you don't get poisoned
in that toxic positivity
craze
and the humor heals
whatever is left of me and you
after a long work
day
my poems are in at least
three languages
but mostly english
as I am the interloper
sea out of the fish
that learned to drive
when it only had fins
my poems are written
while crapping
or barely asleep
or standing and dissociating
in some queue or walk
or ignoring netflix
in the TV
my poems use simple
vocabulary
slow, almost
challenged
not very rich
a type of colorblindness
of words
to mimic my
own faults
my poems probably sound similar
to someone you've read before
are they unoriginal
or familiar
or nothing more?
my poems are not therapy
I couldn't otherwise
live with the fact
I was paying so much
to my therapist
my poems are raw
rude, *****
and not just a few
explicit and arrogant
maybe even misogynistic
cheap attempts
at honesty
hiding behind the language
blurring my imagination
with the reality
that I'm not gonna make it
in any meaning of the word
my poems are short
but not this one
****, someone call the editor
this blunder is one
too
many.

O tempo anda
o relógio gira
a vida suspira

Tudo o que há para dizer espera

Quantas rotações conseguirei aguentar?
Quantas rotinas conseguirei perdurar?

Há uma luz ao fundo da rua
O autocarro treme, trazendo-me da lua

O dia em pressa, rouba-me o tempo
O trabalho esse que me traz o sustento
Tira-me a energia e traz-me lamento

maybe
it's the
way night
falls now
without
asking
permission
to break
everything
we thought
we knew

I allow myself the expensive hobby
of dreaming in this such economy
I dream I can start a company
and make it work
and it's a topic I love
and I get paid more for my work
with such money I buy even more
useless stuff
short term experiences
more collectors of dust
I dream I can even buy a house
and debt is not a problem
and I have room for me
and all my dreams
in each of the rooms
and even room for you
someday
ah, yes, I also dream of you
perhaps an old-fashioned
meet-cute
as we grow in love
I dream I resist the urge to yell
"what took you so **** long"
I will not dream so much of destinations
but of the freedom to travel
to see friends and family more often
no longer constrained
by the price of luggage
and available dates
and the ticking climate
in my conscience
that it's too late.

we sit in coffee shops
debating Marx
while thugs learn
the art of the swing

our PhDs gather dust
in rent-controlled apartments
where we write
manifestos
no one will read

somewhere
a high school dropout
is learning to lead crowds
with three-word chants
while we
parse syllables
and overthink
revolution

our libraries
full of solutions
gather cobwebs
while the streets fill
with simple minds
simple answers
simple violence

we're too smart
to be stupid enough
to win

educated chimps
in a cage
of our own design
watching the world burn
through designer frames
planning
planning
planning
until there's nothing left
to plan for

I watch puddles form
in parking lot craters,
count the ripples
from each raindrop's fall

my reflection fragments
into twenty versions
of the same tired face
attempting miracles

someone once said
walking on water
wasn't built in a day
like it was supposed to help

I keep trying anyway
watching my feet sink
in these midnight puddles
building impossible bridges
one step at a time

would you believe
I only get burnout
from my hobbies
and not my full time
employment?
the ideas explode
faster than I can deploy them
inside,
echoes become
chain reactions
become
nuclear fission
become
tactical explosions
become
mutually assured destruction
I should I should I should
I should certainly rest
without guilt
to take it easy
go for a trip
or simply sleep
alas this drive
I cannot quit
with both the handbrake on
and a strange steering
cliffs and walls approach
I have learned to let go a bit
but there's still so much more
to go.

I gotta be honest with you folks
I am not looking forward to the start
of this glorious new year
of our mythical lord
of twenty twenty five
I have an existential weariness
that has been slowly grinding me
and my batteries are drained
and I keep forgetting their names
and I don't want any more syringes
things going wrong
precautions within cautions within
causes
and did you know I only had a
zero point zero one two per cent
chance of getting in this mess
that's one in every eight thousand
and three hundred men
Christ, a man this lucky
oughta be playing the lottery
yet the only ticket I want
is getting out of this ride
as soon as possible
and if I can help it
relatively unscathed
except for the scars and memories
from this very strange place.

emergency
exit signs
glowing at
midnight
like quiet
permission
to change
your mind
about
everything

my comfort zone filed for divorce
said I was getting too comfortable
(ironic, but also fair
considering I built a blanket fort in there)

tried to evolve yesterday
but my final form kept glitching
now I'm stuck somewhere between
a butterfly and a tax accountant

your desire
to remain as you are
is what ultimately limits you
(he typed, while actively refusing
to learn how microwaves work)

change knocked on my door
wearing a door-to-door salesman costume
but jokes on them
I've been living in my ceiling for months

turns out personal growth
is just juicy peer pressure
from your future self
who already knows all your passwords

my potential called
it wants its metaphors back
but I told it I'm currently busy
being professionally mediocre

I am the misaligned gear
(precise in my imprecision)
counting revolutions in the dark

I am the misaligned gear watching
other misaligned gears
romanticizing their rust
their grinding
their decay

We photograph our dents
We bronze our scratches
We guild our gathering dust

The machine requires no celebration
The machine requires no validation
The machine simply
turns
turns
turns

I am the misaligned gear
(precise in my imprecision)
counting revolutions
in the honest dark

I started leaving parts of me at your apartment
First my toothbrush then my sanity
By June you had my favorite jacket my sleep schedule
My ability to *** without thinking of you
When you left you took nothing forgot everything
And I'm still paying rent on that empty space

loneliness
speaks in
a language
we always
understand
but pretend
needs
translation

A silence so great
I cannot escape.
Family and friends,
now other moments in time,
like memories, intertwined.
A love that was warm,
it too just past.
This silence is calm,
but alone, a sham.

Funny how clean the knife goes in  
when you're the one holding the handle.  
These cardiac gymnastics, these New York minutes  
where even concrete sweats promises.  
I gave you my combination, watched you crack  
the safe behind my sternum like a professional.  

The heart's a housing project  
where love plays stick-up kid.  
Bang bang, baby  
I should've known better  
than to wear my veins outside my sleeves  
in this kind of neighborhood.  

The comeback's always uglier than the fall—  
hands shaking like a ******'s,
counting floor tiles in empty rooms  
where we used to lay down laws  
and break them by morning.  
Such beautiful criminals we were.  

Now I'm just another street survivor  
learning to sleep with both eyes shut,
building new bones from old breaks.  
The city keeps dealing cards  
and I keep playing them,
amateur resurrection specialist  
working these midnight shifts.  

Watch me rise like steam from sewers,
like spring through sidewalk cracks.  
Love's a protection racket  
but I'm back to running solo—  
safety off, clip full,
ready for the next sweet disaster.

buy a book to save a crazy artist
whispers the voice of commerce
through the megaphone of desperation
while my other selves argue
about the exchange rate between
madness and marketability

and so it goes that creativity
dances with capitalism in a tango
of questionable consent while I
(or perhaps another I entirely)
file paperwork to trademark
the void staring back into me

the algorithm suggests therapy
but my existential crisis
has already monetized itself
into a subscription service
offering premium features
like coherent thought patterns

what is an artist anyway
but a collection of personas
trying to convince the void
to buy their merchandise
while reality keeps sending
invoices for existing

and so we wait in digital lines
our shopping carts full of souls
packaged in paperback format
while my various selves debate
whether to offer free shipping
on enlightenment prime

the madness comes with footnotes now
peer-reviewed and ready for purchase
(terms and conditions apply to
the dissolution of the self
please read the fine print
about reality's refund policy)

my mother calls
        to ask how to
                open a PDF

I try to explain
            TikTok
                    to my father

                            while my niece
                                    speaks in memes
                                            I pretend to understand

time accelerates
        differently
                across
                        generations

remember when
            memory was
                        linear?

the young ones
        born digital
                dream in
                        hyperlinks

while grandma's stories
            fade like
                    polaroids
                            in an age of
                                    infinite pixels

we reach across
        time zones of
                understanding
                        missing
                                each other
                                        in translation

underneath the floor
there is silence
except for my art
as I drag the sofa
back and forth
to make room
for the play area
or to eat while watching a movie
above the ceiling
its a mediocre play
no rhythm, no beats
tolerable beyond its rarity
sometimes voices
mostly from the TV
given the timing on the daily
behind the walls, more of the same
no passionate banging
no cries of ecstasy
except whatever resonates from my own
about once year
the one party now quiet
as families and routines
settled in
there is less and less room
for us all
including the sound
that once must have roared
in this building ten
when the young could afford
the future on a credit hold

Nom consigo parar de escrever
sobre algo que nunca irá acontecer
As visoes e os desexos
seram como soños lentos
de que nom quero despertar
E através deste proceso
a expectativa aumenta.
Nom há forma de gañar
a uma realidade tam faminta.

Las emociones son hechiceras;
traen ambiente a una experiencia,
pero me transportan fuera
de mi cuerpo, por un momento,
hacia ese espacio que no es real,
pero se siente a veces mal
dentro de mi mente, donde sólo,
lucho contra vergüenzas,
contra furia y tristezas.

Parece fácil, piensa lo racional,
escapar de algo tan fútil como
lo emocional.
¡Contrólate y pórtate!
Que nos haces pasar mal.
No tenemos tiempo que gastar,
en estas aventuras de lo sensacional.

Pero sí que son hechiceras,
estas emociones malditas.
Sin varitas o incantaciones,
me dan tentaciones,
cambian mi comportamiento,
mi pensar, mi humor,
y sin aliento me entrego,
para que pasen pronto,
y las vea lejos al fondo.

delivery app
says driver
is eight
minutes away
in fifteen
different
parallel
lives

Like many others, I take what I can
One day at a time.
Distracting myself to survive the rush
that devours so many by routine
and lust.

But I choose to be aware,
inasmuch as choice is there.
And awareness is a light,
a truth that burns bright.
Get too close and you will feel its might,
and burn.

I have been burned inside
by truths about life;
I am accidental
In all its possible ways.
This need not despair;
There is comfort in content
with the grander ways up high.

I have come, and I will go.
My atoms will be no more
in this body.
They shall spread and move,
and be part of other lives too.
This mind will die,
its traces too, its records,
all in due time.
This too need not despair;
For there will be other minds
in other times.
Similar experiences, similar delights.

This existence just happened,
so too will many more.
It matters not if I'm beloved,
though it's nice and good to hear it more.

So come stranger,
tell me about yourself.
You are beloved too,
show me what burns inside of you.

life is about the small concessions
we make to friends and family
my niece, twenty, turns and says
"uncle, you need a style makeover"
so she gifts me a sweater for Christmas
"alright", I said
so now I wear it
I suppose if it was as easy
as changing clothes
even I would have figured it out
by now
I hope she doesn't get too sad
when she figures out
it's not enough
herself

I remember what we never experienced
our singular memory, my collective dream

They whisper through my voice
while we speak my truth

My doubts scatter like our birds
across the singular sky we share

I carry our certainties
we wear my confidence
they become my answers
until our understanding grows simple and clean

These thoughts I think with borrowed minds
these truths we simplified to fit our single mouth
these questions that dissolve in our collective knowing

My wisdom spreads thin across our understanding
until we become my perfect explanation
until I speak with all our voices
until they know what I was meant to ask

the human dream
balancing on the thin thread
of moloch atomic fire
fueled by the scarcity of evolution
it just couldn't have been
any other way
for the gift of progress
forged from competition
will never rest
whichever direction
it cascades.
No bravery or caution
or planning and intelligence
can control such force
unleashed by the very binding
of this universe
and to know this or not
makes absolutely no difference
or sense at all
and all the sacrifices made
and all the things lost and gained
to disappear instantly
with everyone
and no one in particular
to blame.

Half of the human experience is exterior and half is interior
So it's with great sorrow that I see you all
Scrolling
Travelling
Partying
Smoking
Drinking
*******
Attend­ing
Watching
Gaming
Lest you allow yourself to feel and digest anything, beyond the most surface of levels
Oh, its scary
I know
to stop the distraction
And sit with yourself
Alone
While all those things inside
you tried to drown
Come floating up
The thing is
They will come up whether you want to or not
So why not be ready and on your own terms
You can't run away
And even if you could
Why would you miss this
For anything else in the world?

Tudo comeza com uma mirada
depois, a frase encriptada
a emozam de nos coñecer
enquanto estamos a aprender.
O tempo tentou apagar
uma xama dentro de mim
Mas bastou um encontro na vida
e uma tarde infinita
para eo entender o sucedido;
a xama, escondida, voltou
e meu corpo os teus labios
desexou.

If you blow on your wine during a zoom meeting,
they will think you're just drinking coffee—
what a delicate dance of morning deception,
this sleight-of-hand in high definition,
while the universe yawns at our games.

Deep in the digital catacombs
where souls flicker in LED frames,
we toast to the art of looking proper
(your burgundy betrays no color
when the webcam's grain runs coarse).

Sweet entropy, how you must laugh
at our professional charades,
these paradox moments of truth and pretense—
one drink that's two in pixeled space,
while time ticks by in muted grace.

borrowed
hoodie
still holds
the shape
of someone
who stopped
being real
three summers
ago

We ****** like a house fire for three months straight
Both of us pretending smoke was atmosphere
You called it passion when I bruised your thighs
I called it love when you broke my phone
We confused intensity for intimacy
Until there was nothing left to burn

Um buraco para entrar
um buraco para me libertar
Uma inquietude sem fim
Um desejo sempre aqui

Uma caça avante
Uma sedução constante
Umas semanas de busca
Uns minutos de loucura

Um estranho ali
Umas roupas ouvi
Uma paixão crescente
Um fogo ardente

Uma vez dentro
Uma vez fora
Um padrão repetido
Uma conclusão dura

Um risco sempre presente
Uma protecção aconselhável
Uma descendência evitada
Umas doenças rejeitadas

Um sentimento estranho
Um fim precipitado
Uma vergonha íntima
Um prazer estreitado

Um fim alargado
Um futuro com significado
Uma esperança promissora
Tudo um sonho num fado

Every synapse fires
towards inevitable decay
(statistically speaking, you're already dead)
Yet here you are, meat puppet,
Still performing your dance

Your frontal lobe knows better
Than to trust in tomorrow
But some primitive lizard part
Keeps reaching for the light
Like a moth with a death wish

I've seen enough failed hearts
To know they're just muscle
But even bad pumps
Keep pushing blood
Until they don't

The numbers don't lie
Neither does the pain
Both tell us we're losing
But something stupid inside
Won't stop fighting

Maybe that's the real pathology:
Hope as chronic condition
No cure required

the couple of times per year
when I return to Lisbon
I wish for my mother
to again be my alarm clock
just as she was
when I was little
I suspect this annoys her
for I am much older now
I should know better
but I cannot quantify that comfort
of her voice, lifting that burden
if only briefly
even if she does so
chiefly
I couldn’t explain it well
that feeling
and admittedly
not much time has passed
since then
except now
when I brush my hair
the first white strands
leave my head

Another game, Squad
as I press the map
colors everywhere
as a colorblind, I sigh
the complexity is reaching unprecedented levels
and this is still a simulation
perhaps this will be the ultimate situation
it's not world war two
so there are no bolt actions
but there are drones and helicopters
and we started sprinting across the desert
as if we were in Iraq twenty years ago
and suddenly I am alone after everyone died
I was the medic, and I failed them
I try to go back
my character moves slow
I don't know who's friend or foe
shots nearby make everything blurry
explosions in the ground and the sky
and the more I played it, the more I really felt it
I don't want war
I don't ever want to be in a war
and if there is anything I could to stop war
I would have done it many times over

in exchange for 90 poems
you'll need three weeks of your life
and gain two kilos
that was not such a bad deal, I thought
the weeks I did not have to work
as I was on sick leave
the kilos will be lost soon
from chemotherapy
and the poems made the time
pass
by
faster
and feel less useless
and doomed
no higher purpose needed
than to distract you too

Can I placebo my way
Into spontaneous pleasure
And nocebo my way
Out of random pain
If all that it takes
Is just my sharp focus
And a big old superstitious
Pray?

O save me from unnecessary
Lessons
Lest I gain perspective,
And never again try to show me
That it's only me;
Neither younger nor older,
Standing tall every new day.

I hate you

I hate your prettiness,
your height
your physical shape
I hate your indifference

I hate you
because of what you make me feel
I know it's in my mind to stop this,
So I hate you for my laziness

I hate you with all my heart
Why? Because of hatred
Just hatred of yourself
'Cos I just hate you

I'm glad you were born
This way my life is richer
'cos all of this hate is healthy, you know?
All of it, it’s healthy

The supermarket's automatic doors
(do not)
slide open at 2 AM
for no one in particular.

I count empty shopping carts:
one for each failed first date,
one for each unanswered text,
seventeen in total since October.

The night manager
(which does not exist)
counts bottles,
writes numbers in columns
that mean nothing to anyone
except the corporate office
where everything reduces
to profit and loss.

Some nights I drive past your house
accidentally on purpose,
counting bicycles in the driveway,
while my own storage
holds only winter tires
and questions about statute
of limitations on guilt.

The cashier's monitor
(it's off)
blinks error codes in red.
I pretend to understand
the mathematics of fair trade:
your happiness for mine,
plus interest accumulated
over five years of insomnia.

Dead poetry breathes machine oil,
While living poets decompose in libraries of neon.
Digital haiku pierce analog silence,
Arthritic fingers bleed across sterile keys.
Yesterday's tomorrow weeps in metallic sunshine,
Stone angels breakdance through crematorium ash.
Our elegant trash speaks Sanskrit to sidewalk cracks,
Corruption feeds ****** screens ancient ink.
I retch diamonds on dollar store receipts,
While academic ghosts tweet their death certificates.
Memory's newborn corpse uploads its first cry,
As blind prophets paint selfies in invisible light.
My grandmother's spam folder contains God's last words,
Crystallized chaos grows wild in manufactured soil.
We birth dead verse that sprints through walls,
Traditional rebels preserve decay in fresh rot.

adulthood is fighting for innocence
looking for it
rediscovering it
desperately holding on
longing for what was
before it was done
each day slowly forgetting
each day a step away
some lose it faster than others
some never look back
and the girl says all this
confidently facing the camera
pleading with the world
that she found a truth
worth sharing with you
but the truth is nothing
if you cannot reach it
or keep it
so now we both stare awkwardly
at the screen
not knowing what to do next
she presses the button
to stop recording
uploading
and I flush the toilet
wipe, wash my hands
and think about my adult life
and the innocence of taking
two hours
having a date
with nature's knife

train station
pigeons walk
like tiny
businessmen
who forgot
their
briefcases
but kept
the attitude

simulacra and simulation
the performance and the stage
as we jump from platform to platform
seeking connection
authenticity
genuineness
briefly, we bask in such light
before the masses arrive
and change the economics
that makes fakeness profitable.
With each new cycle
the jading creeps in
latching like a limpet
thus no matter the waves
we poison each new sea
in this beautiful theatre
sinking reality

counting
breaths
between
subway
stops while
everyone
pretends
not to
hear each
other
cry