I can’t keep up with my muse’s ****
My write hand is dragging, like a catcher’s mitt
In such a hurry, trying to catch everything
You never know, my muse may make me sing

Words abound, no truth in any I’ve found
Still the words, they circle back around
Did they find my roots, am I buried that deep
The cold, dark ground, holds my secrets to keep

Wait just a minute muse, you’re going too fast
You have to slow down to make the pages last
Capture my heart, blurred between the lines
Uncover my soul, it’s inside these rhymes

a ring of embers—
with my heart
gently dancing around it.
my face is flushed,
damp with tears,
as if they’ve started
boiling in the mist.
i miss you—
but you know that
already.

in my mind,
i’m still running
through the churchyard,
over stone paths,
stepping on yellowed leaves
that gave up weeks ago.
inside me:
homesickness, awe,
anger, grief—
a hundred hands,
all pulling.

you’re a morsel of bread,
bird-snatched, half-left—
carried home in my satchel,
like a labourer
at the day’s end.
you are what you say you are.
and more.
a frame around my soul
i can’t keep building.

i cannot call you mine.
i have a homeland.
you gave the exile shelter—
but she, the other,
birthed me, shields me,
and one day
will cover me with earth.
i cannot betray her.

for what you made
and left behind,
i owe you still.
i’ll bury your legacy
like treasure
in the quietest parts.
it’s mine to guard.

and maybe one day,
when time has vanished,
i can return to you—
shed a tear for us
on a rainy evening,
wipe you clean
like an old photograph,
and place you gently
back into
a quiet corner
of the past.

Not just a fluid,
I am ink — the druid,
Shaping your ideas in a blink.
In depth of papers, I sink.

Not just a physical thing,
An end to your thoughts — I bring.
Not made to drink,
I am the almighty ink.

I flow on the paper,
With your thoughts — I caper.
Like the roots of a tree,
Even the history is written with me.

Not just a black fluid,
From the sac of a squid.
Not made to drink,
I am the almighty ink.

The moon, in its monolith state,
watching the earth as it torments itself alive.
The flames, sprinting house to house,
building to building-
cleaning the flesh and bones of the fleeing,
while it feasts on their names.
"Father! Father! Why are they doing this to us?!"
"Son...because we... are aliens..."
"Father?..."
...
...
...
Chains are put on,
running through generation to generation,
feeding on revenge, rage, and trauma-
down to the ancestral, cultural r’üts of the race.
Until then, the oppressed stares into their ancient scars.
Only seeing their own hands
dripping with fresh bludhymn
for the actions that are not
yet-
committed.

Clouds pass overhead.
Time grows ancient.
"Is it because we are devils?"
-centuries of clouds pass-
"... because we are robots."
-centuries of clouds pass-
"They imprisoned - the humans."
-centuries of clouds pass-
"Why am I born as an angel?"
-centuries of clouds pass-
"Why am I... different?"

These voices echo throughout the sky-
into roots that remember
every life they've ever swallowed,
into blood that refuses
to forget a single drop,
into threads that
can never unravel,
into...
upon...
its own...
endternal...
reflection.

Thus, built upon oppression,
                                        after oppression–
                             after oppression–
                    after oppression–
          after oppression–
after…

Flor de Muerto, I wanted to fade into the soil,
where I could touch the roots of Azucena,
before I bury myself six feet deep,
hoping to inhale the fragrance of her grace.

Even if I bury myself to the grave,
Azucena would bloom through my ribs.

I don’t want Flor de Muerto to take root in my heart,
I long to pray, to kneel
but the world has made me a god,
one I never asked to be.

It happens with all the holes and wounds: they grow their own face, mend their gap, heal their rifts - those new skills of yours are but entities that emerge: to give shelter, to stand guard, replace the old, thicken the crust, weather this human storm - through and through.

But will the skin ever return to its soil? It linger on forevermore.
How tight is its grip? How hardened its sappy brooks? When will it nourish those delicate roots anew?

These thoughts arise as doubt breaks free. It pours and flows as I gaze down and lower still. Shadows seep and leak as the wheel spins and drills the soul evermore hollow. Anonymous is our tree of life, but it keeps faces in store.

For it happens with all the holes and wounds: they bleed, they mend, they heal - and what don't they do as I stand here, as I bend, as I kneel - as I carve their seats in shapes of departure. These skills thicken under my feet like growling tremors.

My past was but a dream - ready to slide and crumble like a leaf.
My weariness is universal. My knowledge, heavy. There cannot be a conclusion. I am growing thin.

Let me feed those roots anew.