⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️

Red was the color of the water
when I jumped into a river
that was too shallow for me to dive into.

In those short 5 seconds,
I soared through the winds.
The air pressure nearly enough to rip me to shreds.

Those 5 seconds when my skin peeled off from my back,
I grew wings.

They lit on fire,
and I burned with them,
and it was almost soothing.

The pain was a reminder that
I was alive,
even if it was only for 5 short seconds.

In the brink of death,
I felt the most alive I had in years.

I don't know if it was the wind
or the fact that I was burning.
But in those five seconds,
I was a human.
Something I had been alienated from my whole life.

I was dead before I hit the gravel.
My body twisted in all types of different directions,
and when the police found me,
they had already pronounced me as deceased.

I'm not free to go

into the woods, there's a free --


couple mating there.

You and I, if only we could fly,
On sparrow wings, just you and I.
The sun would carry us through golden air,
And spin us silk from light and prayer.

To lands where no one’s ever gone,
Beyond the echo, past the dawn.
Behind the last voice of the last goodbye,
No one behind us, only sky.

You and I, if only we could fly,
Be stolen quietly, passing by
Like a drifting leaf on a breeze so wide,
Together we float, side by side.

A strand of sky in a world so blue,
The wind would rock us, me and you.
No place to land, no need to steer
Just us as one, and nowhere near.

You and I, if only we could fly,
On sparrow wings, no need to try.
The world dissolves, becomes the air
And we’re not here, and we don’t care.

How am I?
How am I?
I am oppressed.
Here, I am not free
Or heard
Or respected.
Here, I am told what to do with my own body.

And I can’t help but wonder—
How dare they?
How dare they force me into a piece of cloth,
One they know I will disregard?
How dare they back me into a corner
And wrap me in a headscarf?
How dare they oppress me for my freedom
And cover me as if that's the answer?

Why punish the victim,
When that won’t stop the victor?
Why shun the abused
While glorifying the abuser?

How dare they expect me to listen—
How dare they,
When I have a fire that can’t be put out
Not even by my blood and tears.

Feathers fill an earthenware vase
                                         Tall quills  
Suiting ink wells
Scribing words beneath candle
Signing treaty’s  
                           Secured with wax
The Magna Carta
The Declaration of Independence
                         Momentous things

But these are simple feathers
Collected for aesthetics
For smudging
For connection
   For reasons other than to write

Furies surge and heave with passion
Where swells music of love’s lost lore,
As deep a longing in ocean’s roar,
Only to break, and retreat into silence.
No matter the force, an unreachable moor,
A lonely cadence played upon the shore.

Fates, like gales that pull our sails
Through calm or strife, pale or grand,
Leave us longing for the strand.
Bitter pangs of waking woes
Storm loud as immortal command,
All these lines drawn upon the sand.

Furies, lashed out from the sea,
Lie broken down on ocean’s floor,
Softened, smoothed, by ocean’s score.
For if, unscathed, we return from depths,
By what star shall we guide the oar,
That we might sail free, evermore?

Fates give not a brief repose, but
Sails unfurl, and worlds expand,
That we might explore the hinterland.
With no lines upon the sea, our fates are free –
Love removes its scouring brand,
As tide moves high upon the land.

I hate pools, oceans, lakes, rivers.
I hate the feeling of the current against my body.
The fight to stay in one spot when the water wants me to go with it.

I hate how it whispers let go,
Like surrender is serenity
As if I haven’t fought too long to be here,
On my own terms

The chill that wraps around my limbs
Not gentle, not kind
But insistent —
Pulling me into depths I never chose

I hate the weightlessness,
Not the freedom, but the absence of ground,
The loss of edges,
Of lines I can hold onto

And I remember the diving board —
Toes curled over the edge,
The sky too big
The drop too deep

The water below dares me to jump,
Like it knows I don’t belong in the air,
Like it can’t wait
To swallow me whole.

I hate the silence before the splash,
That breathless second of doubt,
When the world holds still
And I almost believe I can be free,
Free to fall.

But I never am.
I step back.
The plunge is not worth the drowning.

In water, I am always unrooted,
Always drifting,
Always one breath away
From vanishing