(a tribute to C.S. Pacat)

on a bed
of white flowers,
etched on my wrist,
I wear it as a vow,
above the place
my pulse
tenderly blooms,
forgetting to lie.

her soft handwriting
is a reminder of a journey
I had once taken
between the lines,
forgiveness forming,
from lashes to petals,
on bruised pages.

I carry her with me,
their story, her essence,
kingdoms folding into skin,
her words marking
not only a change,
but a becoming —
the slow-burn
of identity
I can finally place.

beneath the frog’s soft belly
i found you —
not grand, not loud,
but cracked open
like a peach too ripe with truth.

the city spun on,
drunk on ruin bars and ghosts,
but we stayed low,
where quiet grows —
thick like moss —
and hearts speak
without permission.

i didn’t say it back:
i love you.
as though feeling was a crime.
but i regret it now.
baby, i’d serve
a thousand sentences
for something so divine.

your heart
didn’t pour —
it flooded.
and now mine —
is finally open,
mouth full of your name.

i’ll let the fog burn
bright above us,
and we’ll watch
from our underworld
of whispering soil —
wine-warm,
thinly worn,
relentlessly soft.

on the sun-soaked terrace,
with the stem
cold against my fingers,
I raise my glass to your laughter
and the wind tousling my hair.
we are gleaming golden,
fermenting a quiet kind
of sweetness.

your presence
slips past my guard,
softening the stains
of our past,
like sunlight
through old glass,
faintly blooming still.

you’re a risk to me,
to my sanity.
asking me to walk
barefoot through hell —
not to escape it,
but to understand.

i’ll happily drink to the fire,
to this dauntless
absurdity
building a shrine
in shades of dangerous red,
stirring the fallen ashes
our burnt-out flickers
once left.

she calls me by my name,
and i answer without words—
only an offering:
a silent prayer,
bare skin,
a breath held,
a promise kept sacred,
to worship her.

she calls,
and i answer with stillness.
like dusk slipping
into the night—
utterly, completely—
pulling me apart
under the tears
of moonlight.

she calls
even as i soak
in her waves,
as they kiss my collarbone,
make heaven blush
when i fall to my knees,
laced around her soul.

her intention to claim me
was there from the start.
written in her whispers
******* my thoughts.
she never asked
what broke me.
only reached with rippled hands
to take my weight,
press it into the riverbed
like something malevolent,
already forgiven.

the peasant girl
who once brought water
from the well
in cracked hands
has returned.
she didn’t mean to
leave her home behind —
it was just to escape
the silence between
what she needed
and would be never given.
she left with nothing
but a hunger for life,
so she started living,
and never apologised.

a ring of embers—
with my heart
gently dancing around it.
my face is flushed,
damp with tears,
as if they’ve started
boiling in the mist.
I miss you—
but you know that
already.

in my mind,
I’m still running
through the churchyard,
over stone paths,
stepping on yellowed leaves
that gave up weeks ago.
inside me:
homesickness, awe,
anger, grief—
a hundred hands,
all pulling.

you’re a morsel of bread,
bird-snatched, half-left—
carried home in my satchel,
like a labourer
at the day’s end.
you are what you say you are.
and more.
a frame around my soul
I can’t keep building.

I cannot call you mine.
I have a homeland.
you gave the exile shelter—
but she, the other,
birthed me, shields me,
and one day
will cover me with earth.
I cannot betray her.

for what you made
and left behind,
I owe you still.
I’ll bury your legacy
like treasure
in the quietest parts.
it’s mine to guard.

and maybe one day,
when time has vanished,
I can return to you—
shed a tear for us
on a rainy evening,
wipe you clean
like an old photograph,
and place you gently
back into
a quiet corner
of the past.

I find it unnerving,
hearing my voice out loud,
after being branded, growing up
the quiet one, who’s a bit too shy.
small talk is pointless.
the weather is the same—
too sunny, too windy,
everyone’s always
baffled by rain.

we exchange ‘y’alrights’
to seem polite
when no one really cares.
but where i come from,
we ask, dig deep,
we share.

talking is personal.
intimate and sacred.
we ask how your day’s been
with space designated
for your words.
we don’t pretend
sharing doesn’t hurt.

it does.
standing on a stage
fearing becoming
too repetitive, too boring,
running out of stories
to share.
i focus on the words in front,
not on the people who stare.

but it still wrecks me—
and my voice does tremble.
i’m not used to strangers
in moments so tender,
it fills me with dread.
but instead of rotting away,
i’m finding i shed.

i shed the heaviness from inside,
and beneath the words,
i’m fuelled by fire
outweighing the hurt
rubbed reeling.

i’m using it in lanterns
on my journey of healing—
however long it takes.
it is my becoming,
it’s never been a phase.

sometimes it gets dark,
but do witness every line,
observe every spark.
i’ll be here standing—
voice trembling or not.