I call and I text, I hope and I pray,
Because there’s no one left, no one here to stay.
You’re busy with friends and I’m done saying please
I knew it was coming, the sound of the bees

You’ve climbed so high while I’m below
And you start to hear the bees temptation in the echo
I sit here and write, while you sit and laugh,
Stuck thinking of times when my heart wasn’t half.

I still remember when honey wasn’t scarce,
When I wasn’t left alone, caught in despair.
When others stripped ur pollen, and the garden bare
I had other flowers with plenty to share.

Flowers so elegant so white and crisp
It only lasted a while- a while of bliss
No
And though honey is sweet and bees are brave
They sting when scared, leaving them in the grave
But when desperation meets temptation ur left with our expiration
So now you’re up there with bees fitting in seamlessly

And so should I because flowers are overrated
Let my heart feel- no longer sedated

And though you were my only flower,
I’m not gonna cower
I don’t call or text nor hope or pray
there’s no one left, no one here to stay.

You say I pulled away.
You're right.
But before I left,
I withered beneath the weight of your storm.

I didn’t mean to become the silence
you dreaded waking up to.
But every slammed door,
every name spat like venom,
taught me how to become invisible.

You think I planned it —
as if my tattoos were eulogies for us,
my piercings an escape route.
No.
They were armor.
Each needle a promise to myself
that I still existed
underneath the noise.

I loved you.
God, I did.
When we laughed,
it felt like we’d invented language.
When we touched,
I thought the world forgave us.

But I was bleeding
while trying to bandage your rage.
And in the quiet after your anger,
I started to disappear.

I wasn’t waiting to leave —
I was hoping you’d notice I was drowning.
But you were too busy
trying to prove you were already underwater.

And I know my hands weren’t clean.
I bit back,
with sarcasm, with silence,
with withdrawal.
We hurt each other
because we didn’t know
how not to.

You were my home.
But I couldn’t survive the fires
you kept lighting inside the walls.

So I left.
And I still ache —
because I wanted us to grow,
not burn.

When your home is away from home
Your brain feels like the rolling storms overhead. Consuming the night with a crackling roar.
The lightning only briefly ignites the black void that surrounds you.
Every fleeting memory comes with every flash, every strike. There in an instant, gone in the next.
You think you need to find “light in the dark” and your left with this profound feeling
This awe, wonder, a small sense of joy in this void you stand in.
But you remember that lightning is rare at home
You remember how you felt at home
How it felt the same as seeing a bolt of lightning.

You remember when you experienced your first thunderstorm with the one you call home.
You remember that your home would have loved to see this.

You walk dazed and dissociated for miles mulling over the past, your mistakes, your health. You drag on mourning your love.
You ridicule and loath yourself. Thoughts slowly frying in the blistering Midwest heat.

Then days come where there's an overcast.
A cool drizzle.
A comfortable sixty-degree day.
You see fog in the distance, and you can smell moisture in the air.
You stare at a pine tree longer than socially acceptable, knowing it's the closest reminder you have to feeling your roots. Knowing there's a whole rainforest beckoning for you to come back.

You sit at a lake and hear the Puget sound screaming your name. You can almost feel the sand beneath your feet. The waves against your skin. You can see the view vivid and longing in your mind. The sunsets, the mountains, the water, the smell of nature all around.
But then you remember your favorite spots. The countless memories with lovers and friends.
You remember all the conversations, the thrill fueled parties and adventures. You remember her. The hobbies, the quirks, the fun. The passion. The love. You remember she shared the same connection.

You stare at the Rockys and see their beauty. Their grandeur, their vastness.
But the peaks and slopes don't compare
They don't live up to Rainier.
They don't live up to the subtle shades of grey and blue, the snow caps, or the rolling green hills. You want to appreciate it…
But you know the last time you looked at those mountains, who you had brought home.

You miss the lights, the energy, the spirit of your city. The variety of your people. You miss the bars, and venues, and restaurants, the extravagant outings. You miss knowing all the spots, you miss riding the train. You miss the city life. You miss the partying, the dancing, the drugs. You miss her.

But you also miss the city life…
The one that took you down. Took you home.
And you know at this home you have family, but that family can't help you. That family can't love you the same.
You watch the toll you take; the tears swell in their eyes over the person they think you've become,
and you feel ashamed cause you know it's the person you always were.
You're reminded of all your childhood trauma and are thrown into the same environment you spent years escaping.
You feel lost.
Because you are.
Because your home away from home
is no longer a home.

I stand at the edge of memory's clearing,
watching my childhood home consumed
by flame, by the cruel erosion of time,
each beam of laughter crackling,
each wall of safety collapsing inward
like a prayer spoken backwards.

The wildfire sweeps through everything:
Saturday mornings thick with pancake steam,
the way sunlight used to pool
in the corner where I built my kingdoms
from cardboard boxes and infinite dreams.

I am paralyzed, a child again,
hands pressed against invisible glass,
screaming at the inferno
that devours the sanctuary I called home.

Smoke fills my lungs with the bitter taste
of all I cannot save:
the creaking floorboard that announced my midnight wanderings,
the kitchen table scarred with homework tears
and birthday cake celebrations.

But listen
in the crackling of loss,
in the hiss of vanishing,
something else stirs.

From the white-hot core of grief,
wings unfurl like broken prayers
learning to fly again.
I am the ember that refused to die,
the stubborn spark,
to the hungry flames of forgetting.

What rises from these ashes
is not the home I lost
it is me, transformed,
carrying the warmth of every moment
that mattered enough to burn eternal,
my heart a furnace where love
learned to make itself immortal.

The phoenix knows this truth:
some things must be consumed
before they can become holy,
before they can learn to soar
on wings made of everything
we thought we'd lost forever.

I am both the fire and the rising,
both the child who watched it burn
and the child who learned to fly.

Many don't know the moral of Vincent Van Gogh.
We as artists don't mind the pain,
Of cutting off an ear.
We only notice how it hurts,
When our gift is rejected.

There's all to win,
When giving your all,
Yet when giving your all,
There's a great chance you fall.
Pride wasn't made a sin, of itself.
It was deemed evil,
When we witnessed the destruction,
From a broken sense of pride.

We give as much as we can,
I do as much as I can,
A perfect person.
After preaching against it I know she was right,
I am only a hypocrite,
Still searching for that perfection,
Has left me to become only a suggestion.

You staggered through the double doors,
a trail of red on bleached-out floors.
The night was humming, wet and mean,
your busted life in Trauma Green.

I clamped your vein, soft as thread,
and dared the gods to count their dead.
You lay there broken, no ID,
just blood and ache and urgency.

Your heart fell still inside my hand,
as if it paused to understand.
Then breath returned in stuttered moans.
your chest arched up to meet my own.

The wound was sealed. Your sigh came slow.
You could have left. You didn’t, though.
The sweat still clung. Your gaze went slack.
You pulled the gown and turned your back.

I saw you later, checkout nine:
frozen dinners, boxed red wine.
You seemed like someone death forgot,
barely awake, missing the plot.

You looked right through. You didn’t know
the hands that pulled you from below.
You don’t remember. I can’t forget
how thin the stitch, how deep the debt.

I don't worship you because you are no God
but an angel whose wings reach out
your feathers just settled on my skin long
enough for me to understand there is a
rough edge to a feather,
when it scrapes past your skin
leaving you to have just a moment's taste
savoring
mourning the peaceful moment of contact
one day you sit down to pray for
heaven to come down again, closing your
eyes and never opening them
again.