I touch things I’m not supposed to
and call it prayer.
mouth open,
spine bent,
tongue tasting the fence line.

They say longing is holy
if it stays quiet,
but mine doesn’t—
mine breaks the jar and drinks the oil.

They told me I was an open wound,
festering with verse and girlhood.
They weren’t wrong.
But wrong feels a lot like worship
when done slow enough.

They say impure
like it’s a curse,
but all my favorite girls
are made of swampwater and sin.

I’ve never confessed
without turning it into performance.
My mouth was built
for poetry
and plea deals.

I was thirteen
when I learned to ache
without making a sound.
Seventeen
when I turned it into scripture.
Twenty-five
when I realized no one was coming
to carry the body but me.

I keep trying to write
the right-sized truth
but it never fits in a single poem
or apology.

I want back the girl
who ran barefoot into fire
because she believed
it might be heaven.

I want someone to touch me like I’m soft—
even if I’m not.
Even if I bite back.

I want to grab
without apologizing
for how hot my hands are.
I want someone to look at me
like a threat they’d die for.

I want the kind of love
that makes funerals nervous.
I want to be written about
by someone who isn’t me.

And I want to want less.
But I don’t.

You want a softer girl?
Tell that to the altar
I keep burying her under.

Baby -
Calm down.
Calm down.
Calm down.
Let me shatter you to pieces
Let me make you whole just like you were
At dawn.
Don't fight
Stop looking -
For violence that never was.
Lay down your head and -
Look into my shining eyes:
You were once shattered, dead,
Confused and suffocated by the lies.
But now it's only me, my love
Calm down.
The day will come when you shall keep up fighting - soon
But right now sit with me
and look up, into the halo of the moon

Caelith pulsed in the starless seam,
No warmth, just orbit, cold with gleam.
“Equality is just a myth,” it sighed,
“And safety, merely a dreamleaf dried.
A lull to cradle wilt and thrall,
For leaves too tender yet to let fall.”

Then Lily laughed, a sound half-sung,
Like petals bruised but newly sprung.
"If truth decays in myths you spin,
We’ll plant our wound and bloom within.
From mulch of lies and roots opposed,
We will bloom not rose, but Pokenose".

Caelith stirred, its voice a flame
Of dust and law without a name.
“Try your might, bloom what you will
This is reality, cold and still.
Hope is a pollen that drifts, then dies
Order endures when dream defies.”

"Let's all get back to our home Nefarys'
where dreams aren't trimmed" said Iris
Past spindlefern and veiled ravine
They tread through fire tinted green.

In the center where petal circles close
They knelt where breath became the prose
Tulip brushed a thorn aside,
“Beauty’s truest when it won’t abide".
"Let this be seen," said Peonies, grave,
"A bloom unbent is twice as brave."
They placed it firm in woven light.
where scent alone confers the rite.

No voice was raised, but all could tell
Azure had steeped the air with spell.

Pokenose shimmered, slow to bloom,
A want once buried in Nefarys' womb.
Not born of thirst, but love of pain
It fed and fed on beauty's stain.

He looked at Rose not past, but through
And said, “What waits will change you too.”
She plucked out a petal and handed him.
It pulsed between the stem and rim.

Rose turned back with nothing said,
Her footsteps soft, like vows long shed.

Hence the petal breached and then it reached
A world where love lay bruised and breached.

A petalbreach chime unsettled Nefarys with woe
For gossip is in the veins of things that grow.

"She breached the bloom with no regret,
Unraveled law which our roots had set."
cried Tulip with an unflinching vowtorn ache.
Tearing right through her bloomroot's wake.

"If roots still matter and vows still bind,
Then Rose must face what she left in rind.”
Daffodil declared with her petals taut.
As Nefarys wilted in quite distraught.

They said, “If one may breach, then so shall we,
“Not with withering secrets, but unity.”
They all plucked themselves without a cry,
And sang a vow that split the sky.
"You left us rind, and now shall see
What stirs from shattered symmetry.”
And thus, was shown with blinding clarity—
The bloom-born wrath of majority.

They all circled Lotus, voices steeped in fret,
Which no bloom or blade had spoken yet.
“She’s not of the ring,” they said without sway,
“And what grows apart should not be asked to stay.”

Lotus did not smirk, nor cast a scroll,
He let their fears complete the role.
Then offered nothing but a phrase like tar:
"Your unity will take you all far.”

They all returned back to shaded plots
Grief coiled in them like tangled knots.
Their scent no longer stirred the mood,
Something sacred splintered in the wood.
Distance crept between the roots they shared,
And made them foes, their grace impaired.

Azure remained mute nor did he lift what fell,
even though he knew that wound too well.

Rose found Muir near the Scentfold's bend
Where winds keep secrets, they cannot lend.
Muir breeze retreated soft and slow
And tugged her thoughts in undertow.

“You long to leave, do you know the price?”
Asked Muir, his voice like cold-cut ice.
“I just want a glance,” Rose whispered low,
"The kind that names can't bear to know."

“Only one petal may pass the wind,
The rest stays bound to what you’ve been.”
Muir howled a long, unraveling cry,
as if the wind itself mourned the why.

Love?
Hope?
Faith?
All the same..
Do they exist?

The tongue once lived in sweetest lands,
Where honey dripped like golden sands.
It danced through syrup, soft and wide,
With velvet dreams it could not hide.

Beneath the sky, a sugared sea,
Where flavors danced in harmony.
And every taste, and every sip,
Was joy that melted on the lip

Around it spoke of flavor rare,
Of something rich beyond compare.
“They call it truth,” the voices said,
“Then why’s it left so dark, unsaid?”

The tongue fell still, its sweetness thin,
An itch began to burn within.
“If there is more,” it thought, “I must
Let taste decide what I can trust.”

Curious now, the tongue grew bold,
To chase the myth the whispers told.
With trembling hope, it reached and tried
To sip what others left denied.

But what it found was not delight —
A taste that burned, a wound of bite.
The sugar fled, the silk was torn,
Its buds were seared, then split and torn

The sweetness slipped beyond its reach,
No golden drip to calm or breach.
What once was rich now felt so thin,
As bitterness crept deep within.

It searched again for something sweet,
But found no sugar it could meet.
Its buds, once soft with joy and light,
Now knew but ash and endless night.

The others watched but turned aside,
Their mouths still sweet, their comfort wide.
They offered nothing—not a sound—
Just stayed within their sugared ground.

It whispered low—no choice remained,
To taste the bitter that none had claimed.
Its sweetness gone, the wounds run deep,
Still must it sip—no rest, no sleep