Gather around me, point and laugh,
Watch me dance with a broken half.
How easy pain can be disguised—
Just hide your face, then mask the mask.

Come and try to comprehend
How a broken leg pretends
To find footing amidst torment,
Beneath the stares of a thousand eyes

Everyone has a broken half—
Half hearts, half brains, half short-stretched hands.
Try as you may to refuse and defend
Your half pride and half lies and their
Sickening stench.

Never thought a man could confess,
Or even have the courage to explain himself,
How bad and awful can be dismay,
Or even realize his closing end.

Instead, we stumble around and shout—
To forget it all, we shout loud and proud.
And if we still hear whispers of reason,
Our throats are ready to smother it out.

My dear,
              you’re a lime. I’m a cherry.
My dear,
             & I like your chest hairy…
My dear,
           I’ve got sand in my throat…
My dear,
         Would you take this poem home?
My dear,
          Your tan skin and warm eyes….
                          
      (He’s mine, and I think I’m gonna die)

My dear,
            I’ve got years left to grow….

Oh dear,
            I think I got your email wrong.

                Subject: Please disregard!

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.

Time and tide waits for none.
I wish I wasn’t so dumb.
I feel too much, but I can't handle even one.
I wish I was special, but that won't happen, son!
I wish I was perfect, but this fake pretense makes me succumb.

My body feels stiff, and I break a cold sweat.
I’m not afraid of people,
but my body says otherwise.

That gut-wrenching nausea whenever I leave my room.
That vexing sensation every time I sit to dine.
That suffocating lump in my throat every time I’m yelled at—it shines.
That teary eye every time I had to defend my lines.

I wish I could lead you to my mind.
I wish I could lead you to my mind.

The constant naggings and whispers.
The feeling of never being enough.
The existential dread.

I hate it all.
I hate it all.

Call it self-pity.
Call it self-victimizing.
And I won’t even call you out.

I’m just happy you don’t have to feel what I feel.
I’m just having a random crashout.
I mean, gotta do something, right?
For stayin’ alive?

I’m sorry, but I feel Nervous.

                                                                            - Asher Graves

you told me of who created the cosmos
heaven, earth, both with no breath lost
his right man born 'tween stone worshippers
his teachings bores wisdom within

touch my head on this earth for You
at least 5 times a day,
help my brothers and sisters of god
to be a good man,

what if I only did the latter
and also to those who don't believe in You
does it really matter?
the address the prayers point to?

but it did to you, mom
ordained since birth in His ways
to be good, first and foremost
and I did, just wasn't in His ways

so it's not a detriment, to you
but a commitment, to me
to be good in spite of it
and a compliment, to us

so know you did well
so much so that,
I catch myself thinking,
if even He,
thinks I'm good too.

You told me you were trying.
I told you about the time
I threw up so hard I started praying.
I saw stars in my hair
and thought they might be angels.
But it was just the acid.
Just the light.
Just me, alone again
in a bathroom that never loved me back.

You didn’t say anything,
and that said everything.
You texted “sorry”
like a magician pulling shame from his sleeve,
then disappeared
like a good lie.
I stopped asking you
to prove yourself after that.
I just started watching
to see if you ever would.

Maybe I made the whole thing up.
Maybe you did say something.
Maybe it was kind.
Maybe it was cruel.

Maybe the light flickered
because of bad wiring,
not heaven.
Maybe I was just sick.
Maybe you were just tired.
Maybe none of it meant anything.

But then why
do I still dream in that fluorescent color?
Why does the silence still have your shape?
I built a chapel from our last conversation.
Tried to make the ache holy.
But I was the only one kneeling.
And no one wants a martyr
who won’t shut up.

You said I was unwell.
I said, Amen.
You said I was always bleeding.
I said, Isn’t that what makes it a miracle?
Because if this isn’t a resurrection,
then I’ve been dying for nothing.

I gave you the ugliest parts-
even the bathroom prayers,
even the version of me
that asked God to make you gentler.
You said, “I didn’t ask for that.”
I said, “Exactly.”

You weren’t the end of the world.
You were just the earthquake
I canonized.
The tremor I learned to waltz with.
The reason my mouth still tastes like salt
and I call it grace.

So if God ever comes back,
I’ll know how to greet him:
on my knees,
already emptied.

I told the stars to shut up.
They weren’t witnesses. They were worse.
They kept spelling your name,
blinking slow, like pity,
glinting gallant-
like that ever saved anyone.

I walked past the summer we called ours
like I wasn’t still stalking it.
Like I didn’t prowl on purpose,
like I didn’t rehearse your alibi,
like I didn’t pray
(for prey.)

I was fine with the trees, the oil stains,
the way the sun pretended nothing happened.
I could go days without hearing an ice cream truck,
or seeing a sun-burnt stranger
and thinking: maybe the universe
rerouted you into someone
I could almost survive.

You once said I was dangerous.
And by once I mean
I wrote it down
and heard it forever.
It’s in my lymph nodes,
in the poems you pretend not to read.
It’s in the version of me
you kept almost loving
but never quite chose.

You called us perilous.
Or maybe I did.
It’s hard to tell, since
I’ve been writing you
with your mouth shut
for months.

I keep checking the margins
for your voice.
All I got were
the noises people make
when they’re trying not to drown,
but pretending to wave.

Why is your name still more siren
than sentence?
Still more blood than bruise?
I made your absence
a body I slept beside,
because I kept waking up
guilty.

I never served,
but I wrote the ending.
Put my hand on a Bible,
bit my tongue so hard
the truth still tastes like you.
Wore borrowed pearls,
and swore to God
I never loved you more
than the day you didn’t show up.

I would’ve done time for you.
I would’ve confessed to a crime
that didn’t exist
just to hold your hand once
on the courthouse steps.

You said I was dangerous.
You were right.
But not in the way you thought.
I told the whole truth-
just not out loud.

You didn’t get convicted.
But I still can’t go back
to that summer
without thinking the tan lines
were warning signs,
without getting subpoenaed
by the sky.

Some nights,
your name still tries to get in
like a burglar.
I play dead,
tell the stars to shut up.
But they unlock the window anyway.
They spell you out in light
like they want me to remember
how it felt
to be the crime scene.