8 years since you moved on
It's still so hard to believe, you're gone
I want to know how you're doing,
I want to believe you're somehow around me

The child inside me, often bangs on my heart
She always thought someday we'd restart.
Fate is such a strange thing
I don't know what you were here to teach me, if anything

Maybe it was to hold onto love even, if it's scary
Or to fall into change, I should be more daring?
I could ponder for longer, but I'll leave it at that for now.
I'll never forget you Ossie.

The stains won't leave me,
Cracked paint against the drywall
Of my childhood bedroom.
The ****** t-shirt,
Dyed a brown-red to hide the stains.
Spilled paint from a failed project
On the knee of my jeans,
Covered with a pretty floral patch.
They like how it looks,
The new color I had to choose,
Only one that would cover the failures.
It's so pretty and unique,
So nice to look at isn't it?
I add patches that others like.
I'm not so sure that I like them.
At least not as much as they do,
The ones who gave me the stains.

the colors were still bright
and i could hear the sun
and draw my deepest thoughts with chalk
i didn't want for anyone
hop-scotch on the driveway
chasing runaway ***** down the hill
hide-and-seek 'til we got called in for lunch
then right back outside to chase a thrill
the most i feared
in my younger years
was being kissed by bumble bees
mixing potions with the berries
we picked from climbing trees
if we missed a knot and skipped a step
a cartooned bandaid would pay our debt
or a push-pop from the freeze
we were reckless with our hearts
and our minds got off with ease
the worst of it
that we might get
was strawberries on our knees

remember
the days spent under the sun
nestled between the boughs of the oaks
disturbing the woods
with our cries of joy?
you'd brandish a stick
call it a sword
and we'd dance our dance
to the tune of competition.
we'd skip to the creek
I'd tell you not to sit on the log
that rested precariously on the banks.
you'd laugh
and to show off you'd make me worry.
we'd skip stones,
flat ones,
pretty ones,
that I'd stow away in my pockets,
until mother made us throw them away.
dusk and dawn we'd live in the woods,
a pair of ragtag kids with nothing to do

Once upon a time
a father with his belt –
(with black shiny paint
and a steel which is melt)

And a son, a pen in his hand
A book by his side
A lamp blowing light
Tears in his eyes
The fear in his veins
With his wimped tiny mole

(A cry in his neck and
a gulp in his bones)

Whimp whimp strikes the ground
Wipes the tears,picks up his pen
Shakes up his head,
Gives him a cloth,
to blow up his nose

(A smile on the boy's face
The fallen tear on the page's lace
It dried his shake on hand and
moved him a pace)

Whimp, whimp, whimp – strikes again
(A posed fear on son's face)
Whimp, and he strikes again
(The clueless child, shakes with his pain )

The blats on the floor
and its black remains
The years of slaps
which slashed up cement

(He comes back..
drops his belt   )

A relief in boy's breath

The steel fallen,
relief is felt

The father with his red hands
(Blood flows out at a spot's end )
Smiles at the son

Dark is his eyes like year's repent

(A strung in his mind
He shakes only once,
As he picks up his belt)

He sits on his couch and
acts as he had a father –
with a belt-
(with its black shiny paint and
a steel which is melt.)

Children wonder what

it would be like to be dead --


but not: to be old.

Sometimes a child walks

in the hallway during class --


wearing the *** chain.

i was “born” without lungs
gasping for air
and while they grieved for me
i pushed air throughout my body.

june 20, 2024, 6pm.
you did the bare minimum
and i have been obsessed with you.
months. you, of all people.
and when i have told my friends they said
“him, of all people?”

april 29, 2025 and many days before that
my friends called me a *****.
that word is red and bold and ****** and italic and underlined and highlighted and- *****.
im 14.?
to all the mothers out there- god(?) bless your hearts,
how would you imagine
your daughter
a *****? (i know im not, but what am i if not society’s opinions?)

…November (?) 2021 until now (every moment every second of my waking and sleeping being)
i think about it.
i think about him.
he should be in jail
and he probably has a girlfriend
a wife
kids
by now.
i’ll never forget what that “man” ( if you can even call him that ) did to me
and i wonder if i told my friends
*****-callers!
what he did to me
i wonder what their faces would say
i want to see them shocked and cry and apologize for calling me a ***** (because i am not a ******* *****!!)

…the things which i held in my palm
as a young child (was i a ***** then, did i come out of the womb “asking for it?”)
always seemed so large
but they are specks of sparkling stardust in my hands now
they seem so small. (were they always?)

I AM SICK AND TIRED (only a ***** would be tired) OF EVERYONE ELSE GETTING WHATEVER THE **** THEY WANT BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE HAS DETERMINED THAT THEY DESERVE THAT.
i wonder how many of our lives are determined by how others think of us
i wonder how many of us are others
society is not a singular being but something that is inside all of us
we are all society
(so you can all be ****** too.)
(or maybe just me.)
(just me.)
(me.)
-

-a something-year-old *****.