I'm either

Grounded
Or burried
Or floating

And the world is either

Unmoving
Or too fast
Or too slow

It either
Ignores
Suffocates
Or points its finger

And I feel either

Nothing
Or too much
Or numb

I cried in silence again.
The tears streamed down
And made puddles on my carpet floor
I'm lying on again.

I watched the minutes change again.
Somehow the clocks go from five thirty
To nine thirty in an hour;
I've been on the same assignment.

I took a nap this afternoon again.
But I didn't even turn out the lights,
I don't know if i fell asleep
Or if I was just falling like I was the rest of the day.

My sweatshirt sleeves are wet again.
It's too hot out to wear long sleeves
But I sweat through it anyway;
I'm just cold.

My room is scattered with mess again.
Bugs crawling, biting at my legs
As I'm lying in my bed, awake,
Because I'm living a nightmare.

I'm not happy anymore.
But don't think I ever was,
I'm not sad, not quite,
Don't know who this world was made for...

But I don't think for me.

i always tried to do the most with my time,
not anything productive- just something fun,
entertaining,
to cover up the fact that i’m mourning someone who still walks this earth.

my concept of “happiness” isn’t the usual one,
it might be rather depressing for some.
i think i wanted to say so many things, but said none.

living in eternal doom has become normal,
elders telling me to dress more formal,
acting like i’m just a doormat.

On this desk, years have been certain.
I cling to some people, let go of the rest.
The book’s pages are yet to be completed,
But I don’t want to.

There might be better places, better people, better everything.
The air around me, the living smiles everything is there.
The feeling, the racing heart, the excitement yet to be fulfilled.
But I don’t care.

Now, I don’t feel anything.
My body, my heart, my brain urge me to stop.
To stay in this state,
Where I’m numb.

The question is:
Where am I?
Why am I?
Or do I just need someone to ask,
How are you?

Honey its been a while but i know you exist between heartbeats — not quite joy not quite grief, just the long inhale before either arrives.
you lived in a house where silence carved the hallways out of not being chosen so i know that you wear sound like an armour,
for when the room goes quiet the ghosts start speaking in full sentances and you are left with no language to bury them.
you answer messages in your head, smile at texts you never send and mourn connections like you've buried them with your own hands — even tho they are still alive
just not with you.
you wage a war between
reach out
and
stay safe.
between
i miss you
and
don't look at me.
you stand still.
mid-sentance
mid-dream
mid-you.




your house is a mess- your head is worse
wondering if this is healing or you are just getting really good at pretending so you bolt the doors
and you don't dare let anyone come in.
your mother used to say that the cruelest is the hour when you must beg the stars to remember your name — you'd then say
that the pain is a fruit, bitten too soon
and yet so sweet, so knowing.
because you know you must remember everything
and overcome it.
for if you don’t overcome it, you will always be the child whose soul never grew, the woman who kept apologizing for needing too little, and loving too much.

Long are overdue the deeds you owe to yourself.

-V

fear is a feast,
my teeth stained purple
from eating bruises—
and i am always
carcass picked clean
by second thoughts.

love?
love is a butcher at the market,
smiling sweet
while weighing out a heart
i can't afford.
it's an executioner—
it asks me to place my own head
on the block—
to kneel before joy
as if it will not
tear me limb for limb
when it tires
of my trembling.

i am fearless among ruins,
skinning my knees
on broken chapels,
yet i fear hands
that thread stitches into my ruin
with the patience
of a surgeon,
and breath that curls in my mouth,
making me taste futures
i am too cowardly
to swallow.



i survive loneliness
like a vulture survives drought—
tight-bellied,
sharp-eyed,
full of memory.

but hope—
hope pours syrup
into my lungs
and calls it resurrection.

hope convinces me
that i want love—
but
only if it promises
not to break
what it finds.