I lit my candles all alone,
on a night that should have been my own.
The tiny flame flickered and died,
I whispered my wishes, but none replied.

He, as always, lay asleep,
while I stood silent, tired, bleak.
I washed the dishes, cleaned the floor,
he “saved his energy” once more.

I asked, I pleaded, time and again,
but silence met me now as then.
I carried weight that no one should,
believing strength meant all I could.

And him? He sighs, he hides away,
a child in mind, a man in sway.
And me? I cook, I clean, I run,
but who sees me when the day is done?

Loneliness lingers, heavy, cold,
a story quiet, left untold.
But maybe soon, when night appears,
I’ll light a flame for me, not tears.

To scream into the void or let silence devour me whole?
To claw at the seams of this waking dream,
or accept that I was never awake?

To be the mad one or the blind one?
To whisper the truth no one wants to hear,
or let the lie cradle me to sleep?

They fear death like a stranger,
but I swear, I’ve known it before.
Soft. Familiar. Calling me home.

So is it better to speak or to die?
Or was I dead long before I asked?

Have you ever known silence?
Where even the mind stops to listen,
No pollution by intrusions
Nay saying finger-wagging doubts,
Not one person waiting in line at the bullet train
That connects from passive to aggressive
Just the still staggering quiet.

Have you ever known peace?
Where should decompress,
No longer cosplaying atlas
Holding the weight of all that burdens
While taking the cleanest breaths
Deep and revitalizing oxygen satiating the blood,
While the face feels pain from finally-
Letting go of squinted vision, furled brows
And forced smiles.
Where it’s just the calm settling in nerves,
It’s almost too fantastical - surely a myth
But obtainable.

Have you ever known love?
Not the placated give and take,
Not the candy-covered lust under the covers
Not even the giddy resplendence when seeing that movie
Or hearing that tune, I’m talking love.
That heart-crushing,
Would go on a crusade to defend,
Sword-wielding and Fourth of July firework love-making
That daring to dare to dare to be better
That salve to cure wounds once thought fatal
Mortally immortalized in the space of a single kiss
Have you ever known that love?

All of life’s greatest gifts,
We overlook the material,
And it kills us all, it’s rather serial
We can’t spell it out in the cereal
But it’s there if you search beyond,
And break the mold.

in the end of it
you are alone with it
and when the men stare at you
and ridicule you
their fingers pointing at your body

    you sit there and laugh
    your heart out
    i could
    take it out

        i chose to break the silence
        when no one had my back
        but the cold stone wall

           /stuck in headlights/

              your back to the wall
              to fight alone
              tonight is the night
              i end you

                 and no one understands
                 the depth of it
                 until they take my shoes
                 but they come to realize
                 they dont fit them

                    it ends tonight
                    with the morning light
                    a woman's grief
                    a fiery pit

This moment is just a dream,
An illusion of a greater being
And once the cold death
Gave us it's warm embrace
We will fall into silence
As we wake up to see the reality.

If so, then why plague your mind with worry?
If this is just a dream, then why are you experiencing it in tragedy
When you can easily make it into comedy.

When the earth is no longer a womb,
just a shriek and whistle of once uttered prayer—
a long,
puncturing howl of everything
that was once you
turned into casualties of silence,
then you know
that death has arrived,
noiselessly,
silent as a missile.

All the clamor outside-
it’s the hibakujumoku,
(the survivor trees)
insisting on life
within the blast radius
of your heart.